Tag: Motivation

Create Your Life Handbook

One of the tools that has been crucial in my personal growth journey is my life handbook. What is a life handbook?

A life handbook is your guidebook to live your best life.  It consists of everything from your life purpose, your life goals, your action plans right down to your daily tasks. Your life handbook reflects the essence of what it means to be you and what it takes to live your best life. Think of it as your GPS for life. Read further to learn how to create your own life handbook.

How I Came to Create My Life Handbook

Back in 2006, I was about to graduate from university. I had already found my passion to help others to grow, but decided to work in the corporate world first rather than pursue it right away. I promised myself to keep my passion in mind and pursue it when the time was right.

Fast forward to 2007, and what had I done about my passion? Absolutely nothing! It wasn’t that I lost interest, but that I had been so busy working that I had no mental space to think about anything else after work. During weekends, I would either be working or recharging after a hectic work week. I also found the same non-progress in my Quadrant 2 goals like finding love, losing weight, and spending time with my family. Despite wanting to realize these goals, it was difficult to do so with day-to-day priorities screaming at me every day.

I realized that I needed some kind of tool to remind me of my long-term goals while helping me live every day to the fullest. Not a to-do list, because this is only a micro-tool that will help with managing daily to-dos but not long-term goals. Not an action plan, as it tends to be goal-based (e.g. lose weight or improve work performance) and doesn’t give me the holistic view on life that I needed.

What I needed was a guidebook for life. A guidebook that would consist of my life purpose, personal values, daily mottoes, long-term goals, short-term goals, and my personal life lessons. A guidebook that I could refer to every day to live my best life. This guidebook would assist me in my everyday thinking, decisions, and actions; it would also remind me of my long-term priorities so that I would always be moving toward them and not forget about them.

From there, my life handbook was born.

Benefits Of Having Your Life Handbook

 

Example of a Life handbook by PE reader Karin

A life handbook is incredibly powerful in many ways.

First, having your handbook is a key step to becoming a true leader of your life. Many people live aimlessly, with no clarity of what they want to accomplish. Creating your handbook forces you to reflect on your life, think about what you want, and create plans to realize them. Subsequently, your handbook becomes a crucial tool to live a life of highest purpose — purpose as defined by you.

Secondly, it gives you clarity. There are so many distractions in our lives that it’s easy to get sidetracked by them. Many things that are urgent but aren’t important can often take center stage and pull us away from the things that matter. Your life handbook reminds you of the important things that matter and to focus on them.

Thirdly, it is your guidebook for living a great life. Not sure what to do in a dilemma? Have a conflict that you don’t know how to resolve? Feeling a little lost in life? Well, refer to your life handbook! As you review your purpose, your values, and your goals, it helps you to reconnect with your inner self and to make the decisions that align with your highest being.

How to Create Your Life Handbook

Step #1: Decide on the Format. Soft Copy or Hard Copy?

First decide on the format of your book. Do you want to go soft copy (e.g. Excel spreadsheet, MS Word, or PowerPoint) or hard copy (e.g. a notebook or a physical folder)?

There is no hard and fast rule on which format to use; it’s up to your personal preference. Some of my clients and readers prefer a digital format for their handbook. Some prefer hard copy; they purchase blank notebooks and decorate them as their handbooks.

Personally, I prefer a soft copy handbook as 1) you can easily edit the information, 2) most software has functions to help you organize information readily, and 3) you can transfer it across different mediums like mobile, your work laptop, and your home laptop. I use an Excel spreadsheet for my handbook. Some PE readers have great success using EverNote and MS OneNote for their handbooks, so you can consider them as well.

If you want to use a hard copy handbook, that’s great too! Shop for a nice notebook to get started.

Step #2: Fill in Your Handbook

Your handbook is meant to be your manual for living. It should consist of anything and everything important to living our best life. Below is a good starting point of what to put:

  1. Your life purpose/vision/mission
  2. Your values
  3. Your strengths
  4. Your improvement areas
  5. Your life adages (i.e. your personal mottos on living a great life. These can be inspirational quotes or personal mottoes.)
  6. Your vision board (Vision boards are visual representation of your goals and dreams.)
  7. Your long-term life goals, comprising of 5-, 3-, and 1-year goals
  8. Your short-term life goals, usually a breakdown of your 1-year goals
  9. Your action plans to achieve your goals

 

While the above outline may seem a little hefty, there is no need to work on everything in one sitting; neither is it reasonable to expect that. Simply filling out one section (say, your life purpose) requires deep thought and self-reflection.

Rather, take as much time as you need. Do whatever you can today, then continue tomorrow. Two weeks is a good time frame to get the core sections in place.

Remember that your handbook is meant to be a work-in-progress. There will never be a point when your handbook is truly completed, because life is a journey to be discovered every day. Make it a habit to update your handbook daily, even if for just five minutes each time.

Step #3: Decorate it!

Your handbook is all about you, so personalize it! A great way to spice up your book is to decorate it with photographs and images that inspire you.

For example, for my healthy living goal, I have visuals of fruits, nuts, fruit/vegetable smoothies, salads and water (to remind myself to drink enough water every day). Different sections of my Excel handbook is color-coded to facilitate my reading.

Here’s an example of PE reader Kulit’s digital life handbook:

Life handbook by Kulit

 

No matter how many clients I work with, it’s always exciting to see how each of them puts together his/her handbook, as everyone’s handbook always turns out different. Your handbook is a representation of your individuality, so don’t worry about conforming to a certain “standard.” Rather, let your creativity flow!

Step #4: Have a backup (if you’re using a soft copy!)

Because your handbook is extremely important, have at least one backup. I back up my handbook via email every month and also save a copy on my external hard drive.

My Experience Creating My Handbook

After realizing that I needed a tool to guide me in everyday living, I created my life handbook in the form of an Excel spreadsheet. At that time, I didn’t think of this as my “life handbook” — I simply saw it as a tool to document my life lessons.

Each day, I would add to this document, edit the content, and structure the information. If I was busy, I would spend five to ten minutes on it; if I wasn’t, I could spend hours fiddling away! From my life purpose to my values, to my daily mottoes, to my long-term life goals, to my short-term life goals, I would add all kinds of information important to living my best life.

Before I knew it, this innocuous document had transformed into my life manual. It was about a couple of months before I finally felt that the core foundations of my handbook was in place.

Today, my handbook is a massive Excel workbook with nearly 20 sheets! It’s chocked full of knowledge that I have gained in my past decades of conscious living. Below is a partial outline of my handbook:

  1. My overall life purpose/vision
  2. My life-long goals
    • 5-, 3-, and 1-year goals
    • My 1-year goals, broken down into months
  3. My vision board
  4. My values
  5. My overall life adages based on what I have learned in life
  6. My strengths, improvement areas, and my blind spots
  7. Things that motivate me in life
  8. My strategies, plans and tracking for my goals
  9. Daily to-do list (Updated on an ongoing basis)
  10. Inspirational quotes
  11. Highlights of each year
  12. Annual reflections
  13. Miscellaneous information that I access frequently: My finances, my credit card information, grocery lists, etc.

After Creating Your Life Handbook…

  1. Look at your handbook every morning before starting your day. Start off by reviewing your purpose, then your values, followed by your mottoes, and then your long-term goals and short-term goals. You will find that just spending a few minutes looking through your book every day will give you immense focus and clarity, which will ripple out to create dramatic changes in the long run.
  2. Refer to it throughout the day to remind yourself of your goals. My handbook is open in my computer all the time so that I can easily refer to it throughout the day. If yours is a hard copy book, carry it with you wherever you go. My clients carry their handbooks with them everywhere they go and they refer to it whenever they get the free time.
  3. Update it constantly. From now on, use this book to record any information that’s important to you. Whenever you come across something meaningful and noteworthy, record that into your book. Whenever you have a new goal, include it inside. Whenever you get an aha, record it so that it doesn’t get lost. Soon, you’ll find that it becomes second nature to update your book whenever you think of something.
  4. Back it up regularly. If you have a soft copy handbook, please back it up frequently (every month is a good interval).

Congratulations on creating your life handbook! From today onwards, use it to guide you to live your best life. 🙂

Article by Celes.  Create Your Life Handbook – Personal Excellence

The Best is Yet to Come: Embrace Future Joys

Origin

There is no clear indication of when this popular idiom was used for the first time. However, it has gained traction since the song “The best is yet to come” was recorder by Tony Bennet in 1958. The word yet means up to and including now. Thus, the phrase means that the best has not come but it will.

Meaning

“The best is yet to come” is an optimistic idiom meaning that while current circumstances are good, superior experiences, achievements, or joys are still to arrive in the future. It implies that the peak of success or happiness has not yet been reached, promising better days ahead

  • whatever is happening now will be surpassed by something better in the future
  • the best things have not come, but they will

Example Sentences

  1. I am glad that you are enjoying your holiday, the best is yet to come.
  2. Leaving high school has been tough but I know that the best is yet to come.
  3. Their team has won every game this season, but the coach promises that the best is yet to come.
  4. The days are becoming warmer, but the best is yet to come.

 

Source: theidioms.com

Becoming a Champion

 

THE 10 CHARACTERISTICS OF A CHAMPION

1. VISION

All champions have a bigger picture vision for what they want to create. It might be winning an Olympic gold, claiming the world cup trophy or setting a new world record.

No matter what the vision is, all champions have something bigger that they are working towards. Because the bottom line is:

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’re never going to get there.”

Now I know some of you are freaking out about needing to have the rest of your life planned, but the vision will change over time, so don’t panic. What’s important is that you have something you are working towards.

So start asking yourself what it is that YOU want to create. And then start taking small steps to make it happen.

Then the question becomes “How?”. That leads us to number 2.

2. GOALS

Once they have a vision, champions turn that vision into achievable goals. There seems to be a common misperception about goals, whereby people think that if they miss them, they’ve failed.

But I want you to think of goals as milestones/landmarks to assess your progress towards your vision.

The other important thing about goals is that it’s not so much about the goal itself, but WHO that goal forces you to become in order to achieve it. Small but important distinction.

3. FOCUS ON THE PROCESS/PRESENCE

Once they’ve set goals, champions focus on the process. All of us have to go home tonight from wherever it is we are, but the headlights on out car don’t need to be able to shine all the way to our front door. We simply need to see far enough in front of us in order to make the next move.

So what’s the next TINY step you can take towards your goals? If you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed or intimidated, your next step is too big and you need to go smaller.

Another reason focusing on the process is so important is that if you’re always just thinking about your long-term vision and goals, you’re going to miss out on the amazing opportunities you could never have imagined that already right in front of you.

This is how the vision changes; we work towards one thing, but are open to new possibilities as they emerge.

4. HABITS & RITUALS

I’m sure you’ve seen Rafael Nadal about to serve or Dan Biggar about to kick for goal. They have these somewhat comical routines before every shot.

But they’re not doing these things to make people laugh. In fact, they wouldn’t even be able to hear people laughing at all. This is because champions adopt habits and rituals to get themselves in flow/the zone.

Because when we create habits, the most important actions for achieving our goals become automatic.

Rituals

The two most important rituals for anyone to adopt are a morning ritual and an evening ritual.

During the day, things are going to get chaotic, people are going to demand our attention, and things won’t go as planned. Try to bookend your days with the first and last two hours of the day.  Use that time with things that set you up for success, you’ll be far ahead of everyone else. (P.S. checking email and social media don’t count).

5. HEALTH

Learn how to take care of your health.

The three most important areas are eating, moving and sleeping.

Eating: stick to things that came out the ground or had an animal, not things that came out a box or bag.

Moving: shift from thinking about exercise as 1 or 2 hours in the gym per day followed by sitting, to thinking of exercise as continual movement throughout the day (and no, you don’t need to workout every day of the week).

Sleeping: sleep is the most underestimated, neglected and important area of health. Sleep is a crucial time where your body heals itself and makes new connections in your brain.

6. PASSION/PURPOSE

All these things are great, but if you can connect your vision to a bigger purpose, you will go further.

The most common question I get nowadays is “How do I find my passion?”

But as Tom Asacker shared in our interview together, you don’t find your passion. Because your passion isn’t out there, it’s in here (pointing to my heart/chest).

What he means is that you can sit and try “figure out” your passion all you want, but you only discover it by DOING things; by experimenting with things you’re interested in.

And when you can find the intersection of what you’re interested in, what you’re good at and what others need, THAT’S when you’ve found your sweet spot.

So, my advice is to get really good at something and then use that skill to create the lifestyle you desire (and it doesn’t take as long as you think).

Speaking of getting good at something…

7. FOCUS ON YOUR STRENGTHS

All champions focus on their strengths. Usain Bolt (one of my favorite athletes) isn’t trying to be the best at every sport. He identified (probably at a young age) that he was really good at sprinting and then went all in on that one thing.

It reminds me of the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 principle, which says that 20% of your efforts produce 80% of the results.

So, what’s your 20%? What 20% of the things you do make everything else easier or unnecessary? Find those things, and then go all in.

8. TAKE RISKS

When I quit my job back in 2014, I had no plan B. And I’d love to be able to say it was all smooth sailing, but the truth is there were a lot of challenges.

There were weeks I didn’t know how I would buy groceries and months I couldn’t pay rent. But it reminds me of one my favorite sayings: “ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for”

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for”

All champions take risks and face setbacks, but what matters most is how long you can you stick with it. How far are you willing to go to make your goals and dreams a reality?

9. SUPPORT TEAM

Champions all have a strong team around them. This doesn’t mean they play a team sport, but they surround themselves with people who are going to move them forward.

There are three parts to this.

Find a mentor or coach

The first is a mentor or coach. This doesn’t need to be someone who’s done what you want to do, but simply someone who is able to guide you and bring out your greatness.

Because the thing is, no great champion ever got there on his own. Asking for help doesn’t mean you are weak or not good enough as you are. In fact, it’s much the opposite. It shows that you are serious about achieving your goals.

The next component of a team is your peers or environment. Jim Rohn said

“You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.”

If you spend your time with people who just want to smoke, drink, party and go out every weekend, you’re going to be dragged down into that. But if you want to really achieve success, you need to spend time with people who inspire you to be better. Never be the smartest person in the room.

The final component of a winning team is also the 10th characteristic of a champion.

10. YOURSELF (BELIEF)

The final component of a team is a characteristic of its own, and that is YOU.

If you want to be a champion, need to have a deep inner KNOWING that it’s all going to work out. This won’t always be how we might have imagined, but you need to trust that there’s something even better waiting for you.

If you do all these things, together with a strong BELIEF, will become unstoppable. I truly believe that.

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER

But here’s the thing. These characteristics aren’t reserved for the likes of Usain Bolt, Lewis Hamilton or Roger Federer.

The truth is, you are all champions in your own right. We can all be champions of our own lives. You just need to decide if you are going to settle for good or if you’ll choose to be great; if you’re you happy being a competitor, or if will you rise and become a champion.

Source:  ©bryanteare.com

Find your Passion

 

You’ve made lists. You’ve asked your friends for advice. You’ve tried journaling and you’ve analyzed every thought you’ve ever had. Yet, you’re still asking yourself, “what is my passion?”

That’s because passion comes from the heart, not the head. Chances are, you already know what your passion is. You just need to connect with it.

1. SHIFT YOUR PERSPECTIVE

For many, living a life of passion feels unrealistic. Because they feel this way, some people aren’t optimistic about changing. If you enter the journey to discover your passion with this mindset, you’re setting yourself up for failure. The only way to succeed in finding your passion for life is to shift your mindset to one of positivity and possibility. 

2. DISCOVER YOUR TOP HUMAN NEED

As human beings, we all have Six Human Needs: certainty, significance, variety, love/connection, growth and contribution. Life is a delicate balance between these, but we all have one top need that is most essential to our happiness. Discovering your driving force can give you a window into how to find your passion for life by showing you what you need most to feel fulfilled.

3. LOOK AT WHAT YOU LOVE

Look at your bookshelf, favorite movies or the last play you saw – is there a common theme? Think about your favorite summer job or the last time you got so caught up in a project, you completely lost track of time. Think about what you loved to do as a child – drawing, writing, dancing. So often, we give up our passions when we become adults because we think we have to grow into something we aren’t. This isn’t true. Tap into the activities and topics that used to fill you up when you were younger. 

4. NOTICE WHERE YOU SPEND YOUR FREE TIME

Your hobbies aren’t necessarily the same as your true passion, but they can provide a hint. If you spend a lot of your free time reading, your passion could involve writing, teaching or research – anything that feeds your mind the way reading does. If you enjoy fixing things around the house, your passion likely involves creating and building. If you enjoy dancing or exercising, you are probably drawn to movement and expression. Think deeper about your extracurriculars and you could uncover your passion.

Source: tonyrobbins.com©

 

But what if I don’t have one single passion?”

This is a really good question!

Some people feel the call of creativity to become artists or writers. Others are simply born to become astronauts or librarians. But there isn’t always one solitary beacon of passion guiding our lives. 

In fact, if you’re like most people, you may have held a lot of jobs in your lifetime, and your professional CV might look very different than how you spend your down time. Perhaps you’re a CEO of an energy company who likes to oil paint in her spare time (financial/admin/technical/creative), or a lobbyist who enjoys running marathons (enterprising/people service/mechanical). 

Many Roads can Lead to a Passion

You don’t have to be driven by one singular, solitary purpose to be successful and happy in your work. You simply need to find a career path that feels right, and that you are good at. 

In recruitment, we call this job fit. One way we measure job fit is by looking at a person’s interests and how well they align with the requirements of a particular job. Strong interest matches show how motivated individuals will be to perform different tasks, and how much enjoyment they may find in a particular role.

Assess Yourself

 Assess six possible interests. Obviously, the list is not exhaustive, and because interests can be satisfied outside of work similar to the examples above, the interests list makes for a lower percentage of the overall job fit score and might lead to a passion of sorts. The list includes:

  • Mechanical: the enjoyment of building or repairing things and working with machinery or tools. Individuals with this interest enjoy being outdoors, using their hands, and/or breaking a sweat.
  • People Service: the enjoyment of collaboration, compromise, and helping others. A strong sense of empathy and support and a knack for bringing people together.
  • Technical: enjoyment of learning technical material, interpreting complex information, and solving abstract problems. Individuals with this interest may enjoy working with numbers, data, and computer programs.
  • Enterprising: the enjoyment of leadership, presenting ideas, and persuading others. Individuals with this interest may desire responsibility, and exercise initiative, ambition, and resourcefulness.
  • Creative: enjoyment of imaginative and artistic activities. It involves artistic expression, emphasis on aesthetics, and novel ways of solving problems, producing ideas, and designing new things.
  • Financial/Admin: enjoyment of working with numbers, organizing information, and office routines such as record keeping and completing paperwork. It can indicate an eye for detail and a desire for accuracy.

 Finding a job that leads to genuine passion or fulfillment starts first with understanding yourself. What do you think your personal top three interests are from the list above? Once this is understood you can begin thinking strategically about finding a role where work doesn’t feel like work. It feels more like a calling.

How To Achieve More with Less

Use The 80/20 Principle

The 80/20 is also known as “The Pareto Principle” or “The Law of the Vital Few” — referring to the vital few factors that contribute to the majority of the outcome. It’s the basis of achieving more with less.

So, what is the 80/20 Principle?

Imagine you are the CEO of a company and you have a salesforce. In a world where everything is equal, you will assume that everyone contributes to your sales proportionately — i.e., 20% of the employees contribute to 20% of the sales, 50% contribute to 50% of the sales, and 80% of the employees contribute to 80% of the sales. But what if instead of a 1-1 relationship, you find out that 80% of your sales are actually contributed by 20% of your staff?

What the 80-20 Principle is About

This is what the 80/20 rule is about — 80% of the effects in a situation come from 20% of the causes. This phenomenon was first discovered by Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian Economist who found that 20% of the people in Italy control 80% of the wealth and land. He first observed the principle when gardening and noticing that 20% of his peapods in his garden yielded 80% of the total harvested peas.

Examples of 80/20 in Action

Here are just some of many situations where the 80/20 rule can be observed:

  • Population: 80% of the population in England (25.8 million out of 32.3 million) comes from 20% of its cities (53 out of 263 cities).
  • Resource Consumption: 70% of the world’s energy, 75% of its metals, and 85% of its timber are consumed by 20% of the world’s countries (which have far fewer than 20 percent of the world’s population).

…. and so on.

Applying 80/20 Principle in Our Life

The 80/20 rule tells us that a large proportion of effects is due to a small portion of causes. More with less.

  • 20% of causes lead to 80% of results. These are what I call the 20% high-impact-tasks. High-value because they lead to high-impact results.
  • On the other hand, 80% of causes lead to 20% of results. These are what I call the 80% low-impact-tasks.

It doesn’t have to be a literal 80-20 ratio — for example, 70% of the effects can be contributed by 15% of the causes, or 60% of effects can be contributed by 30% of the causes. The percentages of effects and causes don’t have to add up to 100% either — 80% refers to the effect while 20% refers to the cause, meaning they are not of the same denominator. It just happened that Pareto’s observation was 80-20 (rather than 70-20 or 60-10).

The point of the 80/20 rule is to know that (a) the relationship between cause and effect is often not 1:1, and (b) some causes have more weight than others.

 

Article by celes

 

New Year New You

 

Make any resolutions?

Are you one to make a New Year’s Resolution for yourself? Whether you are or not, it can be a personal goal that you can set. Setting a personal goal for yourself can be what drives you to be a better you. You can set a goal for yourself any day, not just on the first of the new year.

It does not have to just be about getting your body in shape. You can also focus on getting your mind in shape. Getting your mood in shape (especially with those Winter Blues).  Getting your education/grades in shape. So it really can be a New Year, New You.

Are You Ready for some new knowledge?

 

Are you ready to succeed? Don’t stop learning because life never stops teaching.

Have a look at my webpage.  There are probably articles there that could help you figure out some things.  Life is hard enough without someone to count on to help.

New year, new you? Got it.  But no need until the new year.  Do it now!

Your Tutor: Dennis Hickey