What matters most is what you do during your 24 Hours
What matters most each day are the habits that we set in place to maximize our 24 hours. Each day we wake up is a blessing. But, tomorrow is never promised.
Plenty of people out there want to become the best version of themselves. They know they have something special within them, however they may or may not know how to pull that out of themselves.
A great place to start, is to adjust the habits that you have in place to maximize your 24 hours. What we do each and every day, moves us one step closer to our destination. This can include moving forward or backwards.
It is said that the average life span is roughly 79 years old. Of those 79 years, we spend 23 years sleeping! Looking at it this way, helps to put it into perspective how we spend our 24 hours matters so much.
When you identify something within yourself that you want to develop and master, the secret to achieve that lies within your 24.
Tomorrow does not matter, and yesterday serves only as a learning experience. Which is why maximizing your 24 hours a day is where you make or break yourself.
Here are a few mental habits to set in place that can help you maximize your time being awake:
Have a Plan
Maximizing your full potential will become more of a challenge than it already is, if you don’t have a plan.
When we don’t have a plan, we are just doing anything and everything. Something pops up in our heads, and we just get distracted. Before we know it, we are laying on the couch watching our favorite re-runs.
Having a plan in place minimizes this from taking place. The urge and temptation to veer and take a load off is always going to be there. We can fight this off if we have a plan in place to work on day in and day out.
Have Routines In Place For Yourself
Part of having a plan in place is setting up daily routines full of healthy habits that are going to propel you forward. A solid evening and morning routine are a must if you want to maximize your 24 hours.
A morning routine gets you moving. With a morning routine in place, you know where to start and you know why it is important.
An evening routine helps you to wind down, check-in with yourself and draw up your plans for tomorrow. By incorporating these 2 habits into your day, you will see that with patience and consistency you just start moving closer and closer to your dreams. The best part is, it becomes second nature over time.
A routine helps you to create momentum in the right direction. Make sure you create these routines that are filled with habits that push you forward.
Embrace Suffering
As humans, we are programmed for the stress response — Fight or Flight. When things get difficult or uncomfortable, the brain says “Let’s get out of here.”
However, if you want to pull the best version out of yourself, you are going to need to embrace suffering. Nothing in life that is worth going after is going to be easy. You will have to fight and claw to some of the things that you really want.
If you cannot embrace suffering, then you are going to have a hard time sustaining yourself through your most difficult and uncomfortable times. The sooner you come to terms with embracing suffering the better off you will be on your journey to maximizing your 24 hours.
There is an excellent quote that says “if you do what easy, your life will be hard. If you do what is hard, your life will be easy”.
We Need The Bad In Order To Identify The Good
Sometimes, I think to myself — “why do things need to go dark?”
Why do we have to go through such difficulties in our lives?
I went out for a run that day and when I came back, it dawned upon me that we need the bad in order to identify the good. Therefore, we should never fold through difficult times.
Instead, we need to take time to understand that the bad and good is intertwined. In difficult times, we grow. We need the bad in order to find our best.
We barely grow during good times. But, we do stretch immensely during the bad times.
Put Something On Your Walls
Maximizing your 24 hours, is all about getting things done. You need immediate action if you want to maximize your day. I like to put some reminders up on my walls at home throughout places where I spend a lot of my time. This way, I can see it repeatedly throughout the day. I then read them and repeat them in my head.
Remind yourself what the plan is and why you are doing it.
Identify your WHY
I read a book a while back and it emphasized the importance of knowing WHY we want to do something.
This requires self reflection and self awareness. The reason that this mental habit is so important, is because on any given journey that you decide to set for yourself, things are going to get extremely hard.
Zeroing in on a strong purpose will give you fuel during these moments.
I can promise you, there are days where you will wake up and you will question why you are even doing this to yourself. If you can’t answer that immediately within, you will quit.
Motivation Is Crap
When I first started reading and learning about improvement, I thought motivation was everything. I thought you needed to find motivation to get big things accomplished.
This was false.
Later, I struggled on days where I just couldn’t find the motivation to do things that I knew I needed or wanted to do.
It wasn’t until I slowly started to figure out that motivation comes and goes that I was able to keep going. If you rely solely on the days of being motivated then the chances of you being productive are slim.
Motivation is not the answer.
Understanding that there will be days where you don’t want to do anything is everything. Coming to terms with that is extremely important if you want to maximize your 24 hours.
Don’t rely on motivation or inspiration.
Create a clear and concise reason as to what you want to achieve and why you want to do it. This becomes your motivation.
If you can’t get things done when motivation is not present, then you should probably go back to the drawing board and revise your “WHY.”
A strong WHY pushes you during those days where your motivation is no where to be found.
Journal To Create Focus
The power of journaling is something that I talk a lot about on this blog. The reason behind that is because I have found immense value and strength harnessing this one daily habit.
A short journaling session first thing in the morning will put you right on track to maximize your 24 hours. Here is where you get naked with your true self (not literally). You can if that helps you. 😂
Journaling is where you speak the harshest truth to yourself. You celebrate your wins and learn from your losses.
Accountability System
I like to run through all of these real life tips and apply each one to keep me accountable. However, what works for me may not be the same for you.
Some people need to have someone else hold them accountable. If you live with someone else in your household, go talk to them about your plans.
Speak it into existence and see if they wouldn’t mind helping you stay on track.
Creating an accountability system for yourself that works is going to help you stay on track.
Visualize
The power of visualization is real. The military uses this practice as a way to help the soldiers run through scenarios and missions they are about to embark on. This provides value by helping the mind get there before you physically do.
By visualizing what you want out of your day and what you want to accomplish, you build muscle memory.
This can make things a bit more clear to your mind, and can also help you find drive when motivation is in the toilet 🚽.
Visualize with extreme detail what you want. Run your mind through it and visualize it way before it happens.
Acknowledge Every Win
In order to maximize your 24, you need to come to terms beforehand that it’s going to demand a lot of energy out of you. Each day is going to be a mission.
Throughout your day, you need to acknowledge your successes. No matter how small they are. Acknowledging your small wins helps the mind recognize that this is the path for you.
We all need to give ourselves credit. Don’t go throw yourself a party and say you are done for the day, but give yourself credit where credit is due.
Get Up & Dust Yourself Off
You are going to hit bumps throughout your day. If you fall off track in the morning, don’t allow yourself to give in and throw the rest of the day away just because one piece of the day went sour.
Get up, and dust yourself off. Acknowledge that things didn’t go as you intended. When this happens, you just get yourself back on track.
Go back to your WHY. Remind yourself why you are doing this, and why it is important to keep going.
Failure Is Attached To Success
In order to succeed, you have to face failure along the way.
Unless you are just a blessed genius who never makes mistakes, and can get it right the very first time every time — embrace failure.
I don’t even like to use the word failure.
Failure to me, is quitting and never going back to finish the job.
Making mistakes is part of the learning process. We need to use these moments to improve and reach our destinations.
Failing at something and then going back to drawing board and giving it another go, is what creates success.
One Day At A Time
This is a life long journey. If you want to make strides in the right direction, then you need to maximize your 24 hours that God has blessed you with.
If you look at your dream, and sum up all of the hard work and energy that you need to achieve it, you are going to overwhelm yourself. This just creates anxiety and fear.
Instead, use the mantra of one day at a time. Understanding and meditating on this will bring yourself back to the moment.
Taking things one day at a time, brings you down to what matters. And what matters is today.
All we can control within our lives is how we choose to use our 24 hours a day.
Nothing else matters.
