My absolute favourite time of the year is here… sunshine, long days, early mornings and bright skies.
The rising sun burning my eyes when I wake up. Heaven. I mean I’m a Leo, so summer is my favourite time of the year. It’s also now 6 months into the year, and looking back at my intention for 2022 has encouraged me to make a few adjustments. Did you make any new years resolutions? If not, did you set yourself any goals or intentions for the year?
Mine were all about health and fitness, and I revisit them often. I’ve got into habit stacking and habit tracking. Habit stacking, as suggested by James Clear in his fantastic book Atomic Habits, available in print and on audiobook, is a method of introducing small attainable goals and then incrementally adding to them. The idea is that most people ‘fail’ at creating new habits because they set themselves goals that are too big.
I started by swapping my high-intensity morning workouts for a 15-minute meditation because I over trained and felt depleted. After a few weeks, I added a short run to my morning habit list. I’m tracking daily to check my progress and have a list of questions to ask myself if I don’t achieve the small tasks I’ve set myself – a 15-minute morning run for example. Is this the right time of day? What is stopping me from achieving this? What could I change to make this more achievable? Actually, because I have set myself tiny goals, so far I am sticking to them. By getting up earlier (which for me is a joy in the summer months) I am starting my day in a much better way. I’m also swapping phone time for me time, so instead of pointless scrolling, I’m introducing journalling and gratitude journalling in the evenings – as I don’t want to make my mornings so full that they are unobtainable and set myself up for failure. And also, isn’t gratitude a great thought before putting your head on the pillow? Because the mind can only do one thing, gratitude journalling is an effective feel-good method for real contentment. (You can’t worry and be grateful at the same time)
By creating certainty in my own life, I’m in a much better position to be helpful and inspiring to others, helping me to live within my values of health & fitness and contribution.
Someone recently asked Gary Vee “How important is health and fitness if you are an entrepreneur?” He replied, without a pause “You can’t run your business if you’re dead.”
