Discipline is Choosing Between These Two Things

Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you want most. – Abraham Lincoln

I heard this quote and immediately knew it was going to stick in my head.

Choosing what we want MOST over what we want NOW is one of the biggest keys to success.

Doing the thing we said we’d do, not the thing we feel like doing in the moment is how we get what we want – it’s how we hit all of our goals.

What I want most, is to give more value to my audience on Facebook and Instagram. But what I want now, is to avoid writing, thinking and putting my work out into the world.

So I’ve given myself a challenge this week: I’m going to create/write/work at 6am every morning, before I start my coaching calls around 8 or 9am.

The goal is to wake up, write, publish, and then start my day from there.

Getting the essential work done first.

Wish me discipline!

Honing My Craft

I’ve been spending a lot of time over the last few days diving into my coaching materials and tools, thinking about my clients, what they need, and how I can serve them best.

Each year, I re-certify as a High Performance Coach with the High Performance Institute to make sure I’m up to date and coaching at the highest level.

And every time, I find another amazing tool or perspective that I didn’t see the first round. I want more of this in my life so I’ve decided to craft time out weekly to review all my coach training.

What do you do to hone your craft? Let me know in the comments!

Tracking My Life Arenas

One of the things I do with my High Performance Coaching Clients is to figure out where they’re at across all areas of their lives – and then give them tools to increase their satisfaction in each area.

Many of my clients choose to focus on just one area (most commonly career or health), but some of them don’t have one specific goal, they have a general desire to become a high performer across all areas of life.

Recently, I’ve been tracking my own life satisfaction across eight different areas. I’m starting to notice patterns (like how my career satisfaction and financial satisfaction – unsurprisingly – go hand in hand).

I’m not tracking it on any particular day, just when I feel like checking in. I also keep notes of why I feel like each area is a certain score, and how to improve it.

The best part about it is that I get a chance to ask myself what I’d like to see in each area, everytime I track it. Then – and this is the most important part – I actually schedule time for improvement into my calendar (this week, I’m booking into a Pilates class because I can see my physical health stagnating across time).

Have you ever tracked your overall life satisfaction before? Let me know in the comments what you discovered!

Last Week on the Schedule

I’ve been talking a lot recently about calendaring my time, so I wanted to share what that looks like on my calendar. The answer: messy and that’s okay.

My calendar doesn’t always look tidy. Not every moment in my day is planned out, but if you’ve read my previous posts, you’ll know that I don’t have a to-do list anymore – everything I need to do gets put on the calendar. Most days, something gets moved around, but it’s SUCH a relief to know that there’s a time planned for everything.

For example, I knew I was going to buy a cake for my friend Georgia’s birthday at 9am on Wednesday, so I could afford to relax on Monday at 10am because I knew everything was going to get done.

Aim Higher Than You Want To Hit

If you aim for every day, you’ll do it most days.

If you aim for most days, you’ll only do it sometimes.

Do it daily, and the discipline is on – but the pressure is off.

You’ve already decided. It’s getting done.

Now you just have to go through the motions.

(Which is so much easier than going through the emotions.)

Instead of questioning – “Is today one of the days? Does today count? Do weekends count? Ah, I’ll just do extra tomorrow.”

You just do it.

It always gets done.

You always move forward.

I never think “Should I write on my blog today?” 

Because that decision has already been made, and the answer is yes. Always.

And now I’ve got 668 posts in a row under my belt.

Even if all you can manage is one minute a day – it adds up.

Imagine if you talked to one new potential client each day.

That’s 365 potential clients a year.

Whatever you want to do – decide to do it daily.

It will change everything.

Take Messy Action

Lesson from today: Take messy action.

It’s SO much better than taking no action at all.

Facebook Can Be Twitter

I’ve been spending way too much time trying to find photos of me to add to my social media posts.

This week I realised that my audience doesn’t care about the photo, they just want the value of the copy.

So I figured out I can use Facebook as if it’s Twitter, and just WRITE.

Might have seemed obvious 10 years ago when people just did status updates (and photos took 4 hours to load), but today, it seems revolutionary to me.

It’s already been a productivity game-changer.

What are your tiny productivity hacks? Let me know in the comments!

Gratitude in Advance

Recently I’ve been practicing gratitude in advance – being grateful for the things I want to create in my life.

I’m grateful for the healing my shoulder will receive.

I’m grateful for the new creative ideas that are coming my way.

I’m grateful for the friends I haven’t met yet.

What are you grateful for in advance?

Reminder

Just a reminder in case you need it (because I do).

How are you making this harder than it needs to be? How can you simplify it all?

21 Days to Build a Habit is Rubbish

I can confirm, it doesn’t take 21 days to build a habit. Or 42 days. Or 90 days.

I know, because I’ve been blogging for 600 days in a row, and it’s still not a habit.

It takes conscious effort every day to make myself do it.

But it turns out, the habit I was forming all wasn’t blogging each day.

The habit I was forming was discipline.

I was building the habit of making myself write the blog post, even when it sucks.

But nobody wants to hear that because it’s not microwavable advice.

But that’s the truth.

Even 600 days isn’t enough to build a blogging habit.

Often, I get to the end of the day and think “Ahhh! I forgot to write my blog!”

Zero blogging habit ingrained.

But then, even though I reeeeally don’t feel like it, I make myself do it anyway.

That’s the real habit.