Category Archives: Helpful Habits

8 Amazing Practices to Start Your Day in a Fabulous Way

Have you ever had one of those days when you woke up and everything seemed to go wrong? You check email on your phone and find that something at work has just blown up, you trip over a toy that your daughter left in the middle of the floor the night before, you realize that the suit that you really wanted to wear for an important meeting is still at the cleaners, you can’t find your wallet or your keys, and you just want to crawl back under the covers and make the entire day go away!

In my years of working with people to transform their lives, it has become really clear to me that the way we begin each day really does set the tone for the entire day. What I also know unequivocally is that we can set ourselves up to have a better day — each and every day.

Here are 8 practices that really work.

Wake Up To Greet the Day! – Your natural biorhythms cause your metabolism to kick in as soon as it starts to get light. Why not live in a way that is more aligned with what your body naturally wants, and wake up as the sky starts to turn from black to gray to greet the day?
Practice Gratitude Before You Even Get Out of Bed – Before your foot hits the floor, think about all the things in your life that you are grateful for. These things can be as simple as the fact that your pillow is soft or your comforter warm and cozy or as profound as the fact that you actually woke up to see and live another day. What are the things about you and your life that make you feel fortunate or even blessed?
Write Morning Pages – Many people find it helpful to write “morning pages” which is really just a practice of journaling first thing in the morning. Write down on paper whatever is rumbling around in your head. Just let it flow, and write at least two handwritten pages before you go on with your day.
Meditate Yourself into the Right Frame of Mind – Note that I said meditate, not medicate! There are lots of different meditation practices that people find helpful. Vipassana meditation is the practice of observing the breath and coming back to it every time your thoughts carry you off somewhere else. Transcendental Meditation is the practice of repeating a mantra over and over again in your head. My favorite meditation practice is the practice of Metta. Metta is Pali and means loving-kindness. It is the practice of cultivating compassion by wishing everyone well, beginning with yourself and extending to all beings everywhere. If you want to learn more about the practice of Metta, you can find Metta meditation instructions here.
Spend Some Quiet Time Alone – Pour yourself a cup of tea and just sit. Enjoy the feeling of the warm cup in your hands. Look out the window and watch the birds flying around. Just breathe.
Get Your Body Moving – First thing in the morning is a great time to practice yoga or even go for a run. If you work out first thing in the morning before eating you will burn more fat. When you finish your workout, be sure to eat some protein, as it will help your body build muscle mass.
Go To a Place That Nourishes You – This can be a room in your home, or even the corner of a room, that you have set up to be clutter free and relaxing or inspiring. You may try putting candles in the space, or making a vision board to hang there. For me, the place that most nourishes me is the beach, and I am blessed to live close enough to it that I can get there pretty easily. My favorite way to start the day is to run or walk along the beach at dawn. When I am there, I just focus on taking it all in. I watch the waves break, see the seagulls soar, and when I get there early enough I often spot pods of dolphins or even sea lions. When I see them, I like to think of it as the universe giving me a gift for having taken responsibility for making the most of my day!
Make the First 90 Minutes of Your Day Sacred – Make the decision that you aren’t going to let anything that happens in the first 90 minutes of the day get under your skin, upset or even bother you. It may not feel like it, but it is absolutely a choice. Why not give yourself the gift of starting your day in a fabulously wonderful way? You’re worth it!

You don’t need to adopt every practice. Try the ones that resonate most with you, and watch to see what happens.

Waking Up

I love waking up early.

Sometimes when I wake up early, I go to the gym. By 7am I’ve done my workout for the day, and feel awake and alive and energized and ready to take action. I get so much done those mornings. My internal fire has been stoked and I move forward with purpose and passion. By mid-day, I’ve accomplished lots, and that sense of achievement, of having completed projects or made substantial progress on them feels amazing.

Sometimes when I wake up early, I lie in bed and “meditate”. There are days on which irrespective of what time I go to sleep, I awake just after 4am. Those are definitely days when I lie in bed and meditate. Instead of getting up or trying to fall back asleep (we all know how effective that can be), I simply turn my alert awareness to myself, paying attention to what shows up, and allowing it to move through me. I feel the coolness of the air, notice the pervasive quietness that surrounds me before even the birds have started to sing their daily songs. Thoughts come and go, and I watch them without giving them energy or getting caught up in and by them. There are thoughts that have the power to pull me to get quickly out of bed to take care of something, but instead of heeding those thoughts, I just allow them to float through and past me like a big white puffy cloud passing through the clear blue sky. I come back to myself. It feels like coming home.

I “meditate” from a place of sleepy softness on days when I don’t go to the gym. At least for a few minutes, a few breaths. I simply lie in bed and feel the energy coursing through my body. I can feel the smallest movement, the smallest shift within me. I soften to myself and my experience. In those moments, I feel such gratitude for the way my body does all that it does without me directing it to do anything, without me needing to control or push it. As I breathe, I feel the expansiveness that is always available, but that I sometimes lose sight of and don’t feel. I feel open and receptive and warm.

And then, there are the days when I write. I begin from the open, receptive place of having taken a few moments to breathe and open and feel the aliveness that is already within me. I pick up a pen or my laptop, and I write. No agenda, no goal — I write for the sake of writing. I write for the sake of expressing whatever arises, I allow whatever comes. It’s a practice of creating space for my own voice, my inner voice. It’s a voice that I don’t always heed or even hear, and my practice of writing helps me touch into it and listen.

I used to put so much pressure on myself when I sat down to write. I used to so judge what I wrote, or worry about how others would judge it. I wrote poems and would compare them to poems by authors I love, like Mary Oliver or Rumi. It was as though I thought that in order to be an amazing poet, I needed to write like them. But I can’t really effectively write like them. And if I tried, I’m sure it would sound forced or measured. That’s what always happens whenever we try to be anyone other than ourselves, isn’t it? I love the Oscar Wilde quote, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

Here’s a poem I wrote back in 2001 after a dear friend and colleague encouraged me to write often, during a conversation we had on my last day at the company where we worked together.

Write Soon

Write soon, and often
He said to me
As I packed up
The last of my things

I had read,
Even memorized
The words of those deemed poetic
Ones the world found wise

Felt my heart ache
Tears well in my eyes
Had my soul touched
By those who know not my face

The power of words
I understand well
But what, I wondered,
Had I to say?

There I sat, silently
Pen in hand
The pressure to produce
Weighed mightily

Anxious, again
Paralyzed by my fears
If I reach out, bare my soul
What will people think?

And who I am, after all,
To believe
My words are worthy
Of someone else’s time?

Is it their approval
That I seek?
Am I hoping for them
To validate me?

Let go, and observe
The pen now begins
Words just come
Flowing freely

My heart poured onto the page
Memories captured for all to see
They are welcome
To take what they need

But when I write
I write for my sake

May you find ways to create the space to nurture yourself, to wake up and tap into the wisdom that is already there within you, if only you stop for a moment to listen.

What to Do When Something’s Wrong or Something’s Missing

Take a deep breath right now. Before reading on, just take a breath.

I’m going to invite you to take an honest look at something really important. I invite you to look at all the places where you are telling yourself that something’s wrong or something’s missing:

- What is wrong with you?
- What is wrong with your spouse?
- What is missing from your relationship?
- What is wrong with your job or your financial situation or your ability to provide for yourself and your family?
- What is wrong with your health?
- What’s wrong with the way your employees are doing their jobs?
- What are all those things that if you had them in your life, you’d finally be happy?
- Do you feel like you don’t have enough time or resources or love — is that’s what’s missing from your life?
- What’s wrong with our government, or the way people treat you or others, or the way we are living our lives and utilizing resources?

Let yourself feel what it feels like when you believe all of those thoughts. Really marinate in it all for a moment. Let it all sink in. What emotions do you experience? What images do you see of the past and the future? How does your body feel when you bring those thoughts front and center? How do you treat your spouse or your coworkers or your children or your parents when you believe that something’s wrong with them or what they are doing or what they want or believe? How do you treat yourself when you believe that you’re broken or not good enough or don’t have what it takes?

Now take another deep breath.

What if all of those beliefs, all of those thoughts, are just stories? What if you are just making it all up, like some grand fairytale? What if those thoughts are like clouds that float through the sky of your consciousness? What if they come and go — just like the waves that roll into the shore and recede, just like the flowers that bloom and fade, just like the emotions that you feel? What if it’s only your choice (conscious or subconscious) to hold onto them that gives them any energy or power at all? What if there’s another way?

I invite you to remember that you are constantly making meaning out of things you see or experience or even feel. Even more importantly, I invite you to remember that you actually have a choice.

You can choose to continue to do things and be with yourself and others in the way that you have, but we all know that chances are good you’ll keep getting the same results you’ve been getting. So if you’re happy with the results you’re already getting, that’s great! If it’s not broken, don’t fix it!

If you aren’t happy with your results, though, ask yourself this: what are you really committed to? Are you serving safety and comfort, or are you serving something even more deep and meaningful to you? What mission moves you and motivates you and inspires you? Here’s mine…

I inspire, support, and honor wholehearted living, courageous loving, and true connection.

Sometimes I get caught (more often than I’d like to admit during the past few months) in serving safety and comfort rather than what really matters to me. It’s like the clouds come in and I somehow forget that the sun is still there in the sky, shining as brightly as ever. I forget just because somehow I can’t see it in this moment. That’s why self-reflection and self-awareness is so important. It’s what supports us to live consciously and intentionally, rather than being driven by our habits.

As soon as I see that that is what I am doing, I wake up again to who I really am. I remember that we are all connected. I remember that I have a choice. I begin by forgiving myself for having fallen asleep, and then I look at the stories I’m making up about my boyfriend or my brother or myself, and I ask myself: are these stories serving wholehearted living, courageous loving and true connection? If not, I choose to let them go. They aren’t me, they are just a tape playing in my head. It’s a radio station that plays the same songs again and again, and they are songs I’m not interested in listening to anymore.

I choose wholehearted living, courageous loving, and true connection.

What are you choosing?

Laws of Success

Book on the beach

Napoleon Hill’s work and his book, Think and Grow Rich, have influenced many people within the personal development field. The basic premise is that our focus needs to be on being the type of person to whom whatever it is we are seeking naturally flows. To be successful, we must be willing to dream and pursue our dreams, with a burning desire and unwavering commitment, even in the face of adversity and failure.
What is even more compelling than Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich, though, is his book, The Laws of Success, in which he outlines Fifteen Laws of Success. These are:

A Definite Chief Aim — a clearly defined thing you want with burning desire to accomplish or achieve or bring to the world. Hill writes, “There is some one thing that you can do better than anyone else in the world could do it. Search until you find out what this particular line of endeavor is, make it the object of your definite chief aim and them organize all your forces and attack it with the belief that you are going to win.”
Self-Confidence — In its most simple form, this is seeing the best in yourself and believing in yourself.
The Habit of Saving — Develop the habit of saving 20% of everything you earn
Initiative and Leadership — Do that which out to be done without being told to do it, develop the habit of initiative by taking some definite action each day that will carry you nearer your definite chief aim. Leadership is based on knowing your employees, knowing your business, and knowing yourself.
Imagination — Imagination is necessary to create a vision of something not yet created or present.
Enthusiasm — An enthusiastic state of mind will bring energy and momentum to what you are doing. “It is the vital force that impels action.” For more, see video 8 below.
Self-Control — Self-control is what “directs your action so that it will build up and not tear down.” Self-control is the result of thought-control, of deliberately and persistently directing your thoughts and energy in productive, supportive directions. See video 6 below for more on this.
Habit of Doing More Than Paid For — This is the habit of performing more service and better service that that for which you are paid. Think Zappos! here. As Tony Hsieh and the gang at Zappos! found, by doing more than what you are paid for, you are planting seeds that will eventually bear fruit. See video 3 below.
Pleasing Personality — This is described in detail in video 5 below.
Accurate Thought — This is the principle of seeing things as they are, and investigating rather than categorically believing all your thoughts. It requires the ability to distinguish facts from interpretation. See video 12 below.
Concentration — “The act of focusing the mind upon a given desire until ways and means for its realization have been worked out and successfully put into operation.”
Co-operation — Cooperation is what drives organized effort.
Failure — Hill says that what we term “failure” is often more accurately described as “temporary defeat”. He goes on to say that “sound character is usually the handiwork of reverses, and setbacks, and temporary defeat.” So embrace it rather than fearing it!
Tolerance — Tolerance is the path to developing positive and effective relationships with others, building bridges and furthering our world toward a state of peace.
The Golden Rule — This is the “guiding star” of the Laws of Success. Because you reap what you sow, treat others as you wish they would treat you, were the situation reversed.