Miracle morning

This morning I got up with the first alarm I set. I brushed my teeth, drank a big glass of water, stretched and went for a bike ride.

This. Never. Happens.

So what changed?

I read something that changed my life last night:

The first thought you have when you wake up is the same as the last thought you had when you fell asleep.

So if you fall asleep thinking “oh no, I have to get up in just a few hours”, you’ll wake up thinking “ugh, is it time to get up already?”

But if you fall asleep thinking “I can’t wait to get up and work on my project”, you’ll wake up thinking “yay! Time to get up and work on my project”.

This concept is from the book The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod.

And let me tell you, me getting up without hitting the snooze button is nothing short of a miracle.

3 Brilliant Reads for Lockdown Learning

Lockdown is here. As much as it sucks, it also has benefits: extra time to focus on yourself, your goals and your dreams.

This month, I’ve set a goal to read three books (this will be a dramatic improvement upon how much I usually read).

I believe we’d all be better off reading the same personal development book over and over and actually applying the principles, instead of reading new books all the time and never implementing the content.

So these are the three books I’m focusing on this month, with intent to implement them as best as I can:

1. Grit by Angela Duckworth

2. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

3. The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod

What books are you reading during the lockdown?

Be Willing To Do What Others Won't

Best lesson I've been learning recently: be willing to do what others won't do.

• Show up every single day for my goals, no matter what.

• Take no days off.

• Be obsessed with how I can add more value.

• Get up at 4am to coach people in other time zones.

• Constantly evaluate my performance to improve.

I made "When I decide something, it just happens” my motto.

These are skills I have only really started to develop over the past 18 months – for most of my life I’ve been flaky af, unable to follow through on even the smallest commitments.

But I realised that acting mediocre was only going to get me mediocre results. And I want impossible results.

You’ve got to be willing to show up when others would slack off. And push yourself when others can’t be bothered. And sneak in some extra work while everyone else is distracted.

What are you willing to do today that others won’t? 

How to Determine Your Next Action Step

Three questions. That’s all it takes to choose your next action.

Most of us try to take action before we’ve changed our identity, which is why the action doesn’t work. If you change your identity first, the action will be automatic.

Step 1. What is the result I want?

Step 2. If I already had that result, what would I believe about who I am?

Step 3. Now that I am ____________, what do I do?

Ask these three questions over and over throughout the day and see what happens.

Why I started blogging every day

Sean Wes is brilliant. Check him out here.

Every so often, the lightning bolt effect takes place. You know, where you see or hear a concept and BANG, just like lightning, you decide to make a change.

For some people, it might be to give up smoking or pay off debt.

For me, my latest lightning bolt was to blog every single day.

I’d been trying to blog for years. I’d put out no more than 20 blog posts over the years, agonizing about perfecting them.

Then I saw this brilliant piece by Sean Wes, and my mind was made up. I would blog, every single day, for two years straight. I had never committed to anything daily for two years straight. This was going to be a massive challenge.

At the time (226 days ago) I thought it would make me the blogger I’d always wanted to be – taking gorgeous sunset photos of me in a new outfit every day, sharing how my day went. Yet, that isn’t what this has become, because I realised I’d been wanting the wrong thing all along. I don’t want to take photos every day. I don’t want to spend my days creating “instagrammable” content. I’ve got more value to give than that.

Instead, this commitment has taught me how much valuable content I can actually create. Sure, some days I don’t create brilliant content. But on occasion, I create something worth sharing. And then, I share it.

I think at this stage, even 228 days in, I still only have a couple of readers. (I’ve also learned the phrase “build it and they will come” isn’t true when it comes to blogging on the internet!). But I don’t need that anymore. I’m creating this blog for me, now. It’s like a personal diary or manifesto of my beliefs and thoughts. It’s a journey of self-discovery. Yes, writing every day has helped me develop my voice as a writer, but more importantly, it has helped me develop my philosophy as a coach.

Where would your life be enhanced if you showed up every day for two years?

90 Days to Best Health Ever

I finally went for a run outside today, so beautiful to have blue skies and sun (hoping for more days like this!)

The last day of winter! And it’s actually sunny enough to wear something other than a thermal jacket and raincoat, I’m so stoked. I decided that the next 90 days (March, April, May) will be dedicated to getting into the best health of my life.

Here’s what I’m doing:

1. Daily cardio

2. Push ups training (of course)

3. Eating guided by the Daily Dozen

4. Sleep by 12am

5. Meditating for deeper, more intentional periods of time

None of this is so crazily far from what I have been doing in my life, but I haven’t been doing all of them consistently and at once. So here we go!

Live Your Message

I consider myself forever a student, and one of my favourite ways to learn everyday is through Podcasts. Through a culmination of Podcasts I’ve been listening to recently, this theme keeps coming up:

The message you are sharing with the world is the one you are role modeling – whether that is positive or negative.

So if you aren’t living the habits, mindset and beliefs that you would be happy for someone to put on your gravestone as your message to the world, then you need to make some changes, right now.

This totally hit me. Are my actions congruent and consistent with the message I want to share with the world?

I like to think so, but are they really?

Am I living into my absolute ideal self? Am I living my values 100%?

If I were going to role model my true message to the world just 30% more, what would I do?

Well, I’m striving to be a person of excellence. So I would:

1. Get in the best health of my life. Energy, vibrancy, sleep, nutrition, exercise, meditation.

2. Connect with more people face to face in the world (not just online).

3. Spend more dedicated, meaningful time with my loved ones.

4. Put 100% into even the most mundane tasks like washing the dishes. Doing the dishes with passion!

5. Serving as much as I can. Finding more ways I can truly serve the people in my life and in the world, and even people I haven’t met.

These are my new challenges. Since discovering them, I have implemented:

1. A “90 days of the best health of my life” challenge, which I’ll definitely be sharing in a future post! It includes a bedtime, longer and deeper meditations, 30 minutes of cardio every day, and eating from the daily dozen).

2. Going to every event I get invited to/see an opportunity for. This is my new rule for myself – even if doesn’t seem like something I’d like. The other day I went to a women’s circle event I thought was going to be far too “woo-woo” for me, and it turned out to be one of the event I’ve been to in the UK. (Have you ever seen that movie, Yes Man, where he just says yes to every opportunity? That’s pretty much me right now!)

3. I have arranged a weekly skype call with my sister every Saturday. We didn’t talk often enough before, and now we’ve done it three weeks in a row I’m feeling so much more connected. Who knew you could schedule connection?

4. On my run today (daily cardio!) I felt like stopping and I just heard the voice in my head say “100% effort!” and I managed to run all the way up a hill I would usually stop half way on. Small changes make a massive difference.

5. I put my hand up to speak at an event next week (eeek!), and I’m currently creating a guide of the biggest most epic material ever that was originally just for my impossible incubator mastermind members, but I’m going to give away for free to everyone because the world needs this stuff (will be able to share more of what it is soon!)

What message do you want to be remembered for – and how could you start living it today?

Weekly Life Assessments

One of my favourite activities to do every week is to assess the main areas of my life by rating them 1-10 (1 = non-existent, 10 = reaching my full potential). Each Sunday, I assess how I’m feeling in each of the categories, and then over time, I can see my progress.

The categories I rate are:

• Health (mental & physical).

• Love (relationship/self love)

• Family and Friends

• Hobbies

• Spirit

• Mission/Career

I use a trick I learned (I think it was originally from Tim Ferris, thanks Tim!) – rate from 1-10, but don’t use 7.

7 feels good enough. 6 isn’t quite good enough, we know that, and 8 is great, we’re happy with an 8, right?

So 7 is a cop out. When we label something a 7, it flies under the radar, and it doesn’t receive attention. It’s not exceptional, we most certainly aren’t living our most fulfilled lives at a 7, but it’s not bad enough to require immediate attention. By forcing ourselves to choose whether it’s great (8) or not quite good enough (6), we can make sure every area of our life gets the attention it deserves.

Once I’ve rated each category from 1 to 10, I look at the categories I rated the lowest, and think of one way I can boost it in the coming week.

For example:

This week, I rated:

• Health = 8 (I hit 50 push ups! I’ve also been eating healthily, and I’ve been following a new rule: salad at every dinner!)

• Love = 9 (Been spending great quality time with my partner – it’s been a blissful time)

• Family & Friends = 8 (I’ve skyped my Mum, my Grandma, my sister, and one of my cousins this week, which is a lot more connection than usual, and it felt great!)

• Hobbies = 4 (I haven’t been focused at all on my hobbies recently. I love to dance and I’ve been neglecting it a lot)

• Spirit = 8 (I’m feeling vitally alive and passionate at the moment. I’ve been especially true to myself recently)

• Mission/Career = 8 (I’ve been posting weekly videos, coaching in my mastermind, getting coached myself and been working towards a podcast!)

Although hobbies are low, the area I most want to work on at the moment is health (it would have been a 7 but I had to choose, and it’s not a 6).

This is even more rewarding with a friend, so i usually do it with my boyfriend, and we hold each other accountable for taking action to increase our fulfilment in the area we chose that week. After doing the assessment together today, my boyfriend and I decided today that we are going to do a challenge: 90 days to get in the best health of our lives.

• Sleep by 12am (to get 8 hours every night)

• 30 minutes of cardio every day

• Stretching/push ups/squats/abs daily

• Meditation daily (I already do this, so extending the length to 20 minutes always)

• Nutrition (following the Daily Dozen recommendations)

Let me know if you try weekly assessments!

Growth Friends

One of the best habits I’ve cultivated is having ‘growth friends’ – people in your life that are committed to pushing their limits and growing in the same way as you.

We all need mentors to guide us, but the power of growth friends is something else.

I’ve blessed to have:

• A business growth friend

• A coaching growth friend

• An entire mastermind group of high performance growth friends

• And I facilitate my own membership site, Impossible Incubator, which includes weekly mastermind calls between the members who, through the process of working on their goals together, have become growth friends.

Each of these friends in my life support my dreams and I support theirs. Our conversations are more than about fun and games, they’re about motivating each other to go after our dreams, coming up with strategies and plans, overcoming obstacles, executing, and holding each other accountable.

Who could you enlist to be a growth friend in your life?

Self Care is the Work

If you're taking time to get things organized, meditate, take a bath, do the inner work, the mindset work, the self-care – know that it is just as important as daily action (it IS daily action!).

Even if it doesn't feel like it. Inner work shows up as outer results. The thoughts we believe control our actions, and our actions control our results. And even beyond that, our thoughts control the way we view the world, and the opportunities we see, and our perception of our happiness, success and fulfillment. So if you are ever feeling guilty for taking time to look after yourself, let that idea go.

None of us want to achieve our impossible goals if when we get there, we're unhappy and unfulfilled.

I’ll leave you with one of my favourite meditations to get you in the self-care-is-moving-me-towards-my-goals mood: