What did you do yesterday?  The day before?  Chances are, you are doing the same activities day in and day out.  You have the same thoughts every day, eat the same meals every week, and have the same arguments with people over and over.  A very powerful concept that I would like to share with you is that today is your everyday.  I don’t mean this in any sort of metaphysical way.  Rather, it is a concept that you can probably easily grasp, as MOST of what human beings do is habitual.

What do you do every day?

Seriously think about it for a few moments before continuing.  Is your Monday through Friday really any different week after week?  Whether you are in school or working (or both), I bet you do the same activities day after day.  5 days of classes turns into 5 days of work at your job at some point.  Evenings?  I bet you just try to escape the thoughts of your day.  Or, worse, you are working into the evening as well.

Do days blend together like one, awful blob of work?  Are your weekends any better or do you use them like most people and try to hide from thoughts of work for the coming week?  Do you wake up at the same time or go to bed at the same time?  I bet the answer is yes.

Try time travel

How?  Visualize a life where you keep doing everything the same as you do today.  Really play out all of your habits, both good and bad, and see what kind of life you create.  I’ll wait until you come back.

The things that you saw from visualizing, did they get you to where you wanted to go?  What were the effects of all that junk food?  Television?  Procrastination?  Spend all of your time working?  What does that do to your relationships?  Would you like to live a different life than that?

You can!

It’s not complicated.  It is a simple process that you can follow now.  Take a look:

• First, what do you want in life? Write it down.
• What are some activities that one could do every day in order to achieve that? Write those down too.
• Start doing those tasks right now…literally. I would prefer that you don’t even finish this article.  Just start at least one of those activities and you can come back and finish later.
• I bet you didn’t start and that you are still reading this. I know, it is tough to change at a drop of the hat.  Pick one activity out of the list and schedule it.  Put it on your calendar, set up a reminder on your phone, and ask a friend to hound the s#!t out of you if you must in order to force yourself to do it.
• Keep a log EVERY DAY. Track your progress over time.  Once it has become ingrained into your life, pick a second activity.  Depending on the activity, it could take months to build the habit.  Try small activities at first for the best results.

Conclusion

Be cognizant of how you spend your day and consciously choose what you do.  Track it over time and make sure you are sticking to the plan.  Bad habits today, if left unchecked, create a lifetime of procrastination, missed opportunities, and misery.  Don’t let that become you.  Change one habit, one activity, at a time.  Try to do more and you are unlikely to do any.

If you are having trouble figuring out what activities you should do, ask me in the comments below.  I can give you some ideas.

Be exceptional,

JIM