Got a minute?
If you do, I’ll tell you how to seem superhuman in the eyes of your competitors. Life is probably starting to take its toll. You’re coming to your wits end, and you’re suffering from it.
There’s like this brick wall – we all come to it. Some successful entrepreneurs and self-made millionaires catapulted over this wall like they were hopping over a stick.
Other people? See it for what it is: an overbearing wall.
And it’s beating you down to the ground. I know it was for me quite recently. I’ve done some digging around and used a few ideas that changed my life, and forced me to look at walls differently. Once you look at walls differently, you’ll see there’s a small rope you can use to climb over it.
Make A Routine For Yourself
This one. I had trouble with this one, at first. I’ve never been a routine kind of person. I’m a writer – I like to write. Right now my table is littered with a coffee mug, oven mitts, a PS3 paddle, my girlfriend’s flower bag and her assorted make-up. Hand sanitiser. A covered boiling pan.
The table’s a mess. And I love it. Prestigious people think messiness is a sign of high creativity.
So you can understand when I say – that picking a routine, and sticking to it? Eh, I didn’t think it was in the cards at the time.
The wealthiest 5% of people have routines.
I wondered if there was a reason for that.
Turns out, there is! When we do something repeatedly, our brains wire that activity into it. You know the quote, “It takes 10,000 hours to master something”? Once your brain imprints that activity and “makes way” for it… your brain will actually be looking forward to doing it!
Routines create happiness. Who knew?
Waking up before the rest of the world makes sense, doesn’t it? The early dawn is when the world is still, just getting out of REM. That wasn’t the biggest reason I made the change to go to bed at 9 P.M. and wake up at 4 in the morning.
No, I made that change because it was new. Going to bed at 2 AM and waking up at 10 or 11? It wasn’t for me – and that schedule was helping me be flat-out miserable.
That wasn’t the only switch I made. No. Is a sleeping schedule a routine, really? It is what it is.
…The other routine I picked up? The one that made the biggest change, and can for you, too?
Remember Why You’re In Business
Whether it’s to make money for yourself, for your family and loved ones, or you genuinely enjoy helping people… We’re told every day to remember what we’re in the game for.
Sometimes it has to be more than that. Crystallising the image you had of your future, successful self… Until it as real as the air you breathe? There’s no shadow of a doubt that that is remarkably crucial to keeping your head.
As it gets swept under the rug of making a living. Forgetting your dreams and life passions… Just trying to make financial ends meet. That’s just sad, and it’s a sadness a lot of great minds and thinkers share.
So the task should be fairly clear:
- Grab a pen and paper.
- Write “Things I Love Doing” at the top.
- Make it big, make it bold.
Now, in the following lines… Write down activities you enjoy. Things that take you to the edge of your seat. Whatever it is in the world that gets your blood boiling and makes the world fade away, write it down!
Get it out there so you can see it in front of you. I mean, really. At the top of my list is writing. Grocery lists, poems, articles, and stories. Screenplays. Whatever it is, if it involves the mind and a blank page… The process of filling that page makes me feel alive.
What makes you feel alive?
Never Stop Learning
How much time a day do you spend working on you? How many books do you read in 3 months? When you’re not working, or you’ve punched out the clock or turned off all your media devices. What do you actually do with your time?
Personally, I used to crack open a cold one and turn on Netflix. It’s either time to binge-watch four episodes of American Horror Story… Or hit the recipe books to pick a meal or the night.
And this was a recipe for disaster. It’s why I was miserable half the time. Something had to change. So I picked up a book I hadn’t read in ages: “Scientific Advertising” by Claude Hopkins.
This book is rightly called the “Bible of Advertising.” In this book, Claude Hopkins (the man who made toothpaste famous) wrote…
“In advertising a dentifrice, show pretty teeth, not bad teeth. Talk of coming good conditions, not conditions which exist. In advertising clothes, picture well-dressed people, not the shabby. Picture successful men, not failures, when you advertise a business course. Picture what others wish to be, not what they may be now.”
I can understand that. Painting pictures in the audience’s mind of success. What happens if and when they’ll use your product. It’s about projection.
When I was using my time watching Netflix… What image was I projecting? A couch-surfer. I was wearing the guise of someone whose time is about as valuable about people who complain about spilled milk… Instead of grabbing a washcloth or paper towel to soak up the mess.
I wasn’t training my mind for success.
That’s why I wasn’t successful in the least bit. Sure, I made money… But it wasn’t the kind of money that bought a new car, a new house, or the kind of money that paid for a baby’s room.
Everybody in life gets 24 hours in a day. Not one hour less or more. How do the wealthiest 5% of business owners use their 24? They create avenues for passive income. They automate processes or delegate work. They expand their markets and their distribution in that market.
They continually learn how to be the best. And then they apply what they’ve learned to transform their life. This transformation is why they get to be part of the 5%. This transformation is what separates them from the millions of impoverished people who have to beg relatives for money.
The way I was.
Until I trained my mind for success.
And now?
After utilising my time as a successful 5%’er would? I’ve been able to pay for a month’s worth of food – not a day goes by where the fridge is empty. I’ve been able to pay for 30-31 days of food, using 2 weeks of work.
This isn’t the ceiling for my dreams. You can be your bottom dollar the only reason everyone doesn’t make more money in life isn’t because they aim too high, and miss the target. It’s because we aim too low and hit the mark.