Why “Nightly Letting Go”

I’m still looking for a better and more grammatically correct name for it, but it gets the idea across well enough.  Sometimes at night I’m tired, I honestly don’t want to spend the time going through a “nightly routine” or even worry about “getting ready for bed”.  However, letting go, that’s something I’m really interested in every night.  By labeling these habits for what they are, I create a sense of purpose and relief when enacting the habits, instead of a sense of monotony, annoyance, or dread.

What Are Your Nightly Letting Go Habits?

My Nightly Letting Go habits (and subsequent tuit rewards) are as follows:

• Brush Teeth (2 Tuits)
• Apply Acne Med (2 Tuits)
• Take Sleeping Meds (2 Tuits)
• Tidy Room (3 Tuits)
• Nightly Review and Planning (4 Tuits)
• Set Alarm Clocks (4 Tuits)
• Read Good Book (4 Tuits)

Why These Habits?

These habits are all habits which allow me to be rid, mentally, physically, and emotionally, all the baggage of the day, and prepare for what’s to come tomorrow.  I make sure that all the habits are relaxing and nothing wakes me up or causes me to be more alert.

Why Write Them Down?

Just as with Daily Renewal habits, it seems silly to record and reward myself for habits which I’m going to be performingg anyway.  However, while many people may not have trouble keeping a nightly routine, I do.  I find it incredibly hard to stick to a set routine before I go to bed, and instead feel like changing it based on how my day went, how tired I am, what I remember to do, and other factors.  While this is to some extent a good thing, I also think it is vital to have a core routine of habits I perform EVERY night, to keep a sense of consistency and stay healthy and on track.  Only once I have that core group that I always perform can I start to custom tailor my routine based on my day.

In addition, by codifying the habits that allow me to let go of my stress, and focus on what’s to come,  I can use them at other times than just at night.  I have found reading a good book and review/planning to be especially helpful in this regard.

What Now?

Have I convinced you that adding your nightly letting go habits to your todo-list is a worthwhile thing to do?  If so, then don’t leave this blog without doing something about it!  Think about the actions you take every night to help yourself let go , and write them out on a nightly letting go checklist.

Have your own nightly letting go habits? Let me know in the comments.

]]> http://lifeofmatt.net/blog/2009/09/your-nightly-letting-go/feed/ 21 http://lifeofmatt.net/blog/2009/09/your-daily-renewal/ http://lifeofmatt.net/blog/2009/09/your-daily-renewal/#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:58:03 +0000 Matt http://lifeofmatt.net/blog/?p=654 Every morning I enact a set of habits I like to call “Daily Renewal”.  They’re a set of habits which get me refreshed, motivated, and ready to face my day.

Why “Daily Renewal”?

I don’t call it my “morning routine” or “daily habits” because frankly I don’t get inspired by either of these things. Labels fundamentally change the way we think about and interact with the things we label; having morning habits I label as “daily renewal” makes me excited every morning to enact them.  They’re all habits which in different ways allow me to feel as if I’m starting anew, leaving the past behind me

What Are Your Daily Renewal Habits?

My daily renewal habits (and subsequent tuit rewards) are as follows:

• Shower (2 Tuits)
• Brush Teeth (2 Tuits)
• Floss (2 Tuits)
• Deodorant (2 Tuits)
• Shave (3 Tuits)
• Apply Acne Medicine (2 Tuits)
• Read Over Goals and Envision Success (4 Tuits)

Why These Habits?

All of these habits in some way renew my body and spirit.  Showering and shaving I’ve found to be particularly important to feel renewed in the morning, literally and figuratively washing and cutting away the remnants of yesterday.  After getting rid of yesterday, I then look over my goals and begin to look forward, to today.  Some daily renewal habits I would like to add would be eating breakfast, stretching, biking, and listening to some sort of upbeat music.

Why Codify Them? Why Write Them Down?

It seems almost superfluous to write down that I should brush my teeth every morning, isn’t it something I already do anyway?  There are four reasons that I codify my daily renewal habits, and reward myself for them (through the use of tuits).  The first reason is to give myself credit where credit is do.  Oftentimes, I can get down on myself for not completing a task or not working as hard as I could.  However, the truth is, as long as I’m still here, still acting, I have something to be proud of.  By checking off these items from my todo-list, and giving myself tuits for their completion, I’m acknowledging that fact.

The second reason I keep track of these habits is to use them as an early warning system.  Oftentimes, when starting to get off track, these simple little daily renewal habits are the first to go.  If not keeping track and checking them off every single day, it’s easy to stop flossing or looking at my goals every day and not even realize it.  By keeping track, it’s easy to see when I’m slipping, and take the appropriate steps to get back on track.

The third reason I keep track of and codify these habits is for the purposes of momentum.  When starting my day, I’ve often found myself in the past getting all ready for the day then looking ahead and having it be daunting to see all the big tasks ahead I have to do.  By acknowledging all the smaller actions I take as a crucial part of my day, as my “daily renewal”, I no longer have to think of “starting the day”, only of maintaining momentum.

The fourth reason I codify these habits is that they can be useful other times that I feel I need a renewal.  For instance I often feel that I need a renewal before performing a magic show, in order to go on radiant and give the customer an excellent performance.  If I’m feeling less than peak condition, I know that all I have to do is perform a few of the actions on the list and I’ll be renewed.

So What Now?

Have I convinced you that adding your daily renewal habits to your todo-list is a worthwhile thing to do?  If so, then don’t leave this blog without doing something about it!  Think about the actions you take every morning to help renew yourself, and write them out on a daily renewal checklist.  Start giving yourself credit for all that you do in the morning, and check them off every morning as you do them.

Have your own daily renewal habits? Let me know in the comments.

 ”Nobody’s Perfect”.

-Ubiquitous Cliche

Sometimes, I feel like my posts give the impression that I think I’m perfect, that I have all the answers.  But the truth is, I know I suck .

The blog’s subtitle, “From Average to Extraordinary”, applies to my life as much as it does to anybody elses (More about that in a future article), I screw up just as much as everybody else.

This article isn’t about screwing up though, it’s about unscrewing up.  This article is about getting back on track, after you’ve fallen off.  It’s about refocusing.  If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been posting lately.  Part of that is because I’ve had a lot of other things to do, but part of it’s because I’ve lost sight of my goals.  My series “Becoming the Juggernaut” is all about how to not lose track… but sometimes you do, and when you do, if you’re at all serious about having an extraordinary life, you need to know how to refocus.

I’m no stranger to losing sight of my goals… in fact, it’s what I’ve done my whole life.  But recently, I’ve started to become better at refocusing.  Here, I’ll detail the things that I’m doing to get back on track, and the things that you can do as well:

1. Ask for Help

Self policing is great when you’re feeling motivated and have momentum, but when you’re unmotivated, it’s about effective as communist russia.  By enlisting the help of a third party(or second as the case may be), you can greatly reduce the self motivation problems/.

2. Harness Peer Pressure

This is great content for the blog,  and using personal anecdotes is a great writing technique, but there’s a third reason I’m posting this up on my blog for all the world to see: It Generates Peer Pressure.  Closely related to asking for help, this is more about having other people know what your goals are, and knowing that they expect you to succeed.

3. Take One Small Step

People think that goals are all or nothing.  However, small actions taken consistently can have as just as much effect as a huge single effort.  By commiting to just taking one small step, you can “get the ball rolling” so to speak, and pick up speed as you continue on.  In my case, the small step will be the publishing of this article.

4. Imagine Success

Often, losing focus is a result of losing sight of why you were focusing in the first place.   Take 2 minutes, sit down, and imagine all the wonderful consequences of realizing your goal.

 I’m sitting here, imaging the great opportunities I’ll get from having a popular blog.  Opportunities to meet some of my heroes, possible speaking opportunities, book opportunities, and most of all, KNOWING that for once I’ve followed through on a large goal to completion, and knowing that it’s only the beginning.

And how can I now not take action?

5.  Focus on Values

What do you believe as a person?  What kind of person do you consider yourself to be?

If your goal is a proper goal, that comes directly from your values, then refocusing on your values is a great way to make your goals seem like a no-brainer.

In my case, I believe in making a difference.  I believe that one person can make changes by broadening their influence, and reaching out to others, and I believe that’s what I should do.

So I have two choices.  The first choice is that I can be myself, do what I believe, and accomplish my goal.  The second choice is that I can go against everything I believe in and continue to put tings off, never knowing if I could have succeeded.

Oh wait, that’s only one choice.

6. Make a Plan

Often, losing focus is a result of not knowing what to focus on, because your efforts have been too scattered.  By making a plan, and putting it down on paper (or screen), you can refocus on what’s important, and give new life to your efforts.

I’m going to start posting again on Matt’s Journey, I’ll be posting up my plans again, and making them consistently.  

It’s time to refocus.

Part of revamping the blog has been thinking about what I really want it to be. Figuring out what changes I want to make, or viewpoints I want to get across.  In doing all that clarifying, I came upon a distinction that I think may be helpful.  The difference between the Three P’s that lead to Repeatable Success, and the Two T’s that are great for quick fixes.

The Three P’s

Principles

A principle is like an overarching theme.   It’s a general rule, which if followed, will lead to success.  There are general principles for life success (focus on what’s important, work hard, have integrity), then there’s principles which are more domain specific (if you want to have a succesful blog, have good blog content). These principles seem obvious, but putting them into practice is not.  You must find patterns that are in alignment with the principles.

Patterns

Patterns and principles are very similar.  However, the differences are that patterns give you tools to carry out the principles.  For instance, if having good blog content is a principle, write succintly would be a pattern… it’s something you can do which tends to lead to good content.  A principle is the answer to why someone is succesful, a pattern is the answer to how.

Proccesses

Finally, we have proccesses.  Processes take a bunch of different patterns and organize them together, in a way that makes sense in regards to the principles.  It then takes each pattern and breaks it down into actionable steps (techniques).  Principles are things which are pretty much universally true, patterns are things which will work for most people, processes will work for many people.  However, the great thing about processes is that (if they’re constructed correctly) they leave nothing to chance.  You start at A, you do these steps, and you get to B.

The Two T’s

Tips and Tricks

Tips and Tricks are a popular subject on many self improvement blogs.  They’re usually derived from taking bits and pieces of a process and giving them as individual tools.  A tips and trick post is great, because it gives you some simple things which you can go out and try right away, and if it works, you’ve immediately improved.  The downside with these posts is that the tips and tricks are often quick fixes, that only work in certain situations or under certain conditions.  When you encounter a new situation or condition that isn’t covered by the tip, you’re left searching for the next 

 I find it hard to apply a tip or trick aimlessly, with no thought as to why or when the tip should be applied.  Even if I do apply it, my brain immediately begins asking why it works, how else I can use it, and how I can teach it to others.

 For that reason,  you’re not going to see many tips and tricks posts here on Life of Matt.  Instead, I’m focused on timeless content, that allows repeatable success, even as circumstances change.  It might take you a bit longer to get through the posts, and it might take some work to apply what you read on here.  But in the long run, you’ll never have to keep searching for the next tip… you can use what you learn here for the rest of your life.  I think it’s worth it, don’t you?

-Matt

Credit JoeLogan

The Introduction

This is a post about making goals.  It’s also a post about making connections.  But mostly, this post is about one thing: How I’m going to gain 500 subscribers by September 7th, 2009, at 10 AM.

IvanPerez is someone who I’ve traveled along parallel paths with for a long time.  Whether it was learning organization, teaching martial arts, becoming more productive, enhancing our identity, or getting better with girls… we just seem to be into the same things.

We had known of eachother for a while, and recently, I decided to reach out to him to see if we could start helping eachother out… it seemed almost silly not to.

The Challenge

Credit ehoyer

On March 7th, 2009, at 10 AM, I received the following message from Ivan:

“OK, we’ve cooperated with the training and organizing thing. Now it’s time for hour blogs to be on fire, to build a solid base of readers, thousands of them. What do you say, are you up to it?”

 And this was my response:

“I’ve been meaning to make growing my blog a goal for sometime now… might as well start now .

I’m not quite sure what a realistic goal is… 500 subscribers each in 6 months time?”

Finally, his simple reply:

“I think that 500 suscribers from now to September is pretty realistic if we make a plan and we stick to it.”

And with that, the decision was made.

The Plan

After me and Ivan had solidified the goal, the next step was to create a plan.

Credit njhdiver

 First, using The Law of Average Joes, I set out to find the first principles that every blogger who had a large volume of users followed. I narrowed it down to five principles:

1. Make The Blog More Accessible

2.Improve My Writing Skills

3. Get the Word Out

4. Make Better (More Commercial and More Valuable) Content

5. Create More Content

Because the Blog is a form of Creative Expression, I know that not every technique or tip that others have used will work for me, however, if I find blogs that resonate with me, I’m more likely to find a role model for what will work for me… this is an application of the Law of Similar Differences.

So, I took a look at the blogs I like to find out what techniques they’re using in the five different areas. From there, I created a few different projects that I myself could do in each area. (I’ll give just a sample here)

• Make the Blog More Accessible

  • Move to Wordpress

  • Add “Best of” Navigation (Easy Access to My Best and Most Popular Posts)

  • Move to a domain name

• Improve my Writing

  • Read and Apply “The Elements of Style”

  • Start having Ivan Proofread posts before they go out.

• Get the Word Out

  • Social Networking (Be accessible on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Etc.)

  • Blogosphere  (Being Linked from Other Blogs)

  • Forums (Getting recognition through posting on internet chat groups)

• Make Better Content

  • Start Using “Best Practices” for Blogging when writing posts. (Rules to make post optimized for both search engines and readers)

• Create More Content

  • Start a Daily Writing Habit

  • Make Lists for Ideas and Inspiration

Finally, from these projects, I draw out a list of “next actions”… the very next physical thing I can do to move each one closer to completion.

• Brainstorm a list of domain names on the computer and send them to Ivan for comments

• Go to word press, create theme, and begin porting over content.

• Buy “The Elements of Style” on Amazon

• Send this post to Ivan before I send it out.

• Create a preliminary “Best Practices Checklist” based on Write to Done posts. 

• Write for a half hour tomorrow

• Add at least three ideas tomorrow to my “possible blog posts” list.

• Find a list of social networking sites, sign up under a metasite.

• Create a list of blog carnivals based around personal development (Blog Carnivals are contests hosted by blogs, for blogs in which the best articles in a particular category get linked)

• Create a list of forums based around personal development

And Now… all I have to do is take action.

The Lesson

I lied… this isn’t a post about getting 500 subscribers. It’s a post about making dreams into reality. It’s about using the resources you have to turn ideas into action. The process I’ve used here is the same process people all around the world use to realize their own dreams. And you can do it now, right now… just make the choice.

Credit michelleBlack

It’s a simple process to go from having a dream to making a plan… Just follow these steps:

1.  Find people who have done what you want to do.

2.Find the similarities between them, and write these down as  ”First Principles”

3. Zoom in on the people that are most similar to you.  Under each first principle, write down a number of specific projects they have done aligned with this principle.

4. For each project you choose, write down the very next physical action you can take to move it closer to completion.

5. Take Action.

The Epilogue

And now the moment of truth comes… do I push the publish button. By pushing the publish button, I’ll finally have to put my money where my mouth is. By pushing that button, I’m making a promise to you the readers. I promise, that I am going to get 500 new subscribers by Monday, September 7^th, 2009… at 10AM.

“You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake;
you are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.
We are all part of the same compost heap;
we are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”

- Tyler Durden (Fight Club)

I call it The Law of Average Joes:
On average, you are average.

You may have a very discintive nose, or a distinctive thought process, or a distinctive emotional pattern… but on average, you’re just like everybody else.

On first glance, this can seem rather offputting… almost insulting. In a culture where individuality is prized above all else, the notion that there are more similarities than differences between us can seem like an attack.

“But my differences are what make me, ME!”

-Anonymous

Anonymous has a great point, and I don’t think his/her words are necessarily false or untrue… but I don’t think what I’m saying and what anonymous are saying are any different. However, what I am saying, is that I think that in our quest to be individual, we’ve lost sight of our similarities. And, far from it liberating us, I think that we’ve ended up making things harder than they should be.

What am I talking about?

Well, let’s say that someone wanted to figure out how to change a habit. They might start out with brute force, just trying to stop cold turkey. If that didn’t work, they’d try a variety of different techniques, whatever made sense to them, until they finally found an effective way to change the habit. But what if they decided that before they tried to change the habit, they would first start with The Law of Average Joes. Rather than starting from scratch, they would start out trying to find other people who succesfully changed habits, and find, on average, the techniques that seemed to be most effective. Even better, they might try to find someone who has done Research on how the average joe changes a habit. Again, not every technique would work perfectly for them, but, on average, most of the techniques would.

Seems pretty common sense, almost not worth making a post about… except I think we often discount The Law of Average Joes in the name of uniqueness and individuality.

“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.”

-Douglas Adams

As Mr. Adams eloquently points out, we often fail to use many of the great resources at our disposal to take advantage of The Law of Average Joes, such as “recorded history,” “scientific research,” and (probably the most frequently discounted of all), “advice.”

To illustrate this point, lets take an example that isn’t quite as neutral as changing a habit… happiness. Surely, happiness is a personal and individual thing… surely no two people have ever become happy in quite the same way. While this is true, The Law of Average Joes still holds. Turns out, that while the specifics are different from person to person, on average, people who are happy are happy for similar reasons. If being happy is one of your goals (and isn’t it on most people’s top tens?) you may want to check out some of the cool and relatively recent research being done in positive psychology.

The fact that “on average, you are average”, leads to some other very liberating conclusions. Of course, this law does not discriminate… it applies to everybody. When you then apply it to the comparison of two people, you arrive at what you might call The Second Formulation of The Law of Average Joes:

You have as much in common with any given person as you have differences with them.

So why is this liberating?

“So, let us not be blind to our differences – but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved.”

- John F. Kennedy

Because it means you can find common ground with ANYONE. When you realize that you have more in common with someone than there are differences, you realize that there’s no such thing as “Us and Them”… there’s just Us. And that my friends is a very liberating thing to realize. By focusing on and finding our similarities first, we can then have common ground through which to work through our differences.

So now that we know that The Law Average Joes applies to both groups and individuals, the next logical step is to ask how we can raise the odds. We know that things that work for most people on average should work for us too… but how can we get those odds to be ABOVE average? The answer lies in what we’ll call The Law of Similar Differences:

For every time that an individual or group deviates from average in the same way you do, this will increase your chance of success.

So in practical terms, how would one use this law?

Well, in the 1960’s, researchers needed to use this law to fix the problem of malnourished children in third world countries. They started out using The Law of Average Joes… asking themselves what the average joe did to keep their children nourished. Unfortunately, they ran into a stumbling block. The techniques the average joe used to keep their children nourished required money… money that their target joes just didn’t have.

This is when they turned to The Law of Similar Differences… they started to look for households in the same countries, at the same poverty levels, which against all odds had properly nourished children. They then found the common behaviors among all these households, not present in the malnourished households, and found the right behaviors to teach the malnourished households. In Vietnam, Save the Children used this method to reduce malnutrition by nearly 80%.

On a personal level, I used The Law of Similar Differences to find a time management and planning system that worked for me. First, I took a look at what the consensus was online… what worked for the average joe. I found Getting Things Done, which seemed to come highly recommended. I used it, and many things definitely worked for me, but there were a few areas that I felt were a little off. So I went to someone I knew online who was planning and managing many of the same things I was, but was doing it way better than me. He recommended Zen to Done and I haven’t looked back since.

So there you have it, The Law of Average Joes and it’s derivatives. Tools for figuring out what works. Do you agree with The Law of Average Joes? Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know.

-Matt