Life is filled with ebbs and flows, highs and lows, moments where we’re insanely productive, followed by moments where we’re relatively useless.
Last week I took a trip back to Vancouver to visit family and friends and enjoy a wonderful Easter dinner with the folks.
While the trip was great, my productivity and my routine went down the drain – completely of my own fault.
My mornings started later, and then even later after I tied one on with a pal and had a few too many – that took several days to completely recover.
But they also started without a clear focus or purpose. I let “chance” creep into my days and now I need to get things back on track, but how?
You may have experienced this. Heck, it may be occurring over weeks or months, not just a few days.
If that’s the case, this is an important article.
We get knocked off course in work, in our diet, training, even in our relationships or our spiritual life. What it essentially comes down to is replacing our good habits with bad ones.
And bad ones seem to take hold with much more speed and intensity than the good ones which seem to take weeks to form.
These good habits, though, can be formed, all you need to do is to worry about tomorrow. Get one day marked off the calendar. That’s all you need to focus on.
If you’ve lost your way, started missing workouts or your performance at work isn’t what it once was or what you’d like it to be, follow the next steps back to your road of success and effectiveness.
The scary part…
This is your life. It’s amazing how quickly one day can turn into two can turn into a year! What started out as a week of being useless turned into a lifetime almost in the blink of an eye.
So, if you’re feeling down, if you’re feeling sad or lacking energy or lacking that “get up and go” that you once had, snap the fuck out of it! You’re not a loser, so stop living life as one. You’re a winner, but you need to regain or create the right habits to claim the life you should be living as yours instead of relegating it to “wish status”.
Don’t just read this article, do the steps.
Don’t you dare spend another day on your ass in front of the TV or in front of the computer screen getting nothing done. It’s time for action, my friend.
Step 1: Take a day.
With all the talk of getting back into the swing of things as fast as possible, oddly enough the best thing you can do first is to take a complete day off.
Call in sick if you’re reading this during the week. If it’s the weekend, clear your schedule. You need to spend an entire day planning both your present and your future if you’re going to get back on track.
The mistake most of us make is in deciding we’re going to change tomorrow without knowing specifically what that change should look like nor how our time should best be spent.
In this case, The Perfect Day Formula is the best resource I’ve come across to help me get my focus and my effectiveness back.
You need to think of the big picture, what you really want in life, and then break it down into smaller goals and daily habits that will help you create it.
Pick up this book. It’s almost necessary to regain focus, but also to ensure your focus is pointed in the right direction.
A day of planning with the worksheets you get with the book will help you set yourself back on track.
If, however, you don’t take a full day to plan, you’re going to get knocked off course. The planning day is as important as that first day back hustling.
Step 2: Figure out the 1 habit.
Start small. Figure out the one habit you need to regain to get back on track.
For me that habit is glaringly obvious: I need to get up early.
If I get up early and don’t turn on my internet until 830 am in the morning, I win.
For most of us, being early to rise helps us focus and get in the right gear right away. Your one habit may be eating the right meal in the morning (use this as a guide) or scheduling a workout with a friend so you’re accountable instead of leaving it completely on your shoulders.
Whatever the one habit is, figure out what gets you in the best position to win, and get it done tomorrow.
Step 3: Figure out the one task.
There’s the one habit, and then there’s the one task. This is work-related. Or, if you need to get back into the swing of things with your training or diet, it can be training or diet related.
The point being is that it’s what’s most important.
For me, it’s 2-3 hours of internet-free writing first thing in the morning.
For you it may be that first meal or your workout.
As a point, if you’re expecting results with your diet and you’re not using meal plans or with your training and you’re not using an effective program you’re lost.
I use the Perfect Day Formula because, just like meal plans or the right program, it’s formulaic. It gives you a plan of attack.
No matter our goals, if we have no plan we’re going to lose.
Plan first. Act second.
Both parts of the equation are equally important.
Step 4: Win your mornings.
Winning your mornings sets you up to win your day which sets you up to win your week, and a collection of days and weeks won is a life one. But it all starts with the morning.
Winning your morning starts with planning your day and your morning the night before, and getting to bed early enough to get your 7-8 hours of sleep in before your early morning begins.
In The Perfect Day Formula, the author, Craig Ballantyne, brings you through effective planning strategies that will get you back on the right course.
He’s mastered winning the morning. His advice got me to turn off my phone, shut off the internet, and create the best atmosphere for victory that I could create. You should do the same.
If you’re trying to eat better, clear your house of the foods you don’t want to eat. Throw them out!
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One morning won sets you on a course to get back on track. If you think you can just ease into a day and win it, you’re going to live a mediocre life…
… If that doesn’t scare the crap out of you – mediocrity, that is – then maybe that’s what you’re suited for.
Step 5: Force the habit.
Habits happen one day at a time. So that’s all you really need to focus on. But extend that goal to a week.
For a habit to truly take hold you need an average of 66 straight days of the action for it to become habitual. When something becomes habitual it becomes automatic.
When something’s automatic it doesn’t take the effort nor the energy to carry it out. We wake up early on autopilot. We work without distraction very easily. We eat the right thing without thinking. We train hard without a thought of doing otherwise.
But this habit needs to be forced. It needs to occur at all costs.
Your path back to optimal performance – or to optimal performance – takes time. You need to remove all obstacles for the time being until you create the habit.
No late nights.
No booze.
Nothing that will break the creation of the habit and force you to start back at square one with the day off spent planning. We don’t want that. We want to win. So do all you can do to make this easy on yourself, and get the 1 habit, the one task, and your mornings won over the next 66 days and you’ll be unbeatable.
About The Author
Chad Howse: Chad’s mission is to get you in the arena, ‘marred by the dust and sweat and blood’, to help you set and achieve audacious goals in the face of fear, and not only build your ideal body, but the life you were meant to live. He’s a former 9-5er turned entrepreneur, a former scrawny amateur boxer turned muscular published fitness author. He’ll give you the kick in the ass needed to help you live a big, ambitious life.
You can contact him at –
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