Most of our behaviors weren’t consciously chosen. We just seem to find ourselves doing the same things each day, day after day. Change Your Behavior

However, changing your behavior is the key to changing your life! Change Your Behavior

1. A clear objective. For example, it’s insufficient to tell yourself that you want to eat less. What does that mean? How many calories is that? What is the breakdown of macronutrients? How often are you going to eat? It’s important to be specific. A few examples include: Change Your Behavior

> Eat fewer than 2,000 calories per day.

> Drink at least 8 glasses of water each day.

> Eat whole fruits, such as apples, bananas, oranges, or berries for snacks.

2. Consistency. You can’t create a new behavior with a single effort. You haven’t quit smoking because you refused your urge one time. You don’t go to the gym regularly just because you’ve gone one time. Repeating a behavior over and over is necessary if you’re going to make a lasting change.

> The less time you’ve put in, the more likely you are to have a relapse and return to your old behavioral patterns. Change Your Behavior

3. Immediate rewards. New behaviors only last if there’s a reward for doing it, or a significant, immediate punishment for not doing it. Change Your Behavior

> Take your favorite unhealthy food as an example. You might love ice cream. There’s an immediate reward for eating ice cream. There is a punishment, but it’s more of the long-term variety. You’re not going to destroy your figure in a day by eating a bowl of ice cream.

> Consider most positive behaviors, such as going to the gym. The majority of the benefits only happen in the future. Avoiding the gym is actually rewarding in the short term, but harmful in the long-term. That’s why so many bad habits are hard to break, and good habits are hard to create.

> Work out a more immediate reward you can give yourself for changing your behavior. Avoid this step at your own peril. Willpower is in short supply.

4. Starting small. Avoid starting with the objective of going to the gym for an hour each day or meditating for 90 minutes straight. These are fine objectives but start slowly. Begin by meditating for 10 minutes, or just showing up at the gym and doing whatever is enjoyable to you.

5. Tracking progress. See how many days you can perform your new behavior in a row. Keep track of your results – all the pounds you lose, dollars you save, pages you read, or minutes you meditate, for example. Change Your Behavior

> Be sure to also track the benefits you notice as a result of changing your behavior.

6. Persistence. There will be plenty of bumps in the road. It’s imperative to stay the course for as long as it takes. Regardless of how many setbacks you endure along the way, you simply must keep trying. How could you possibly fail in the long-term if you never gave up? Change Your Behavior

Define your desired behavior, give yourself rewards, and do your best each day. Success will be yours! Change Your Behavior

Change Your Behavior

Own The Day And You Own Your Life. Each passing day can seem inconsequential, but the totality of your days is your life. So, each day matters a lot. If you can get the most out of each day, you’re going to have an amazing life!

Learn how to master the day and in turn, your life: Own The Day And You Own Your Life

1. Realize the power of each day. A day doesn’t seem like much. You’ve experienced plenty of long days where it seemed you accomplished nothing. It’s true that a single day might mean a lot, but a small amount of progress each day can result in a dramatically different future. Own The Day And You Own Your Life

Realize the power and potential of each day and be determined to make the most of it.

2. Have a plan for the day. Have a detailed plan for the day and for the week before you even think about going to bed at night. When you wake up, grab your list of to-do items and get busy as soon as possible.

There’s an added bonus to planning out your day the night before. Your brain has a chance to think about your list of items as you sleep. Your brain will predict the challenges you’re likely to face and have a few solutions in mind.

Try it and you’ll find that your day goes much more smoothly. Own The Day And You Own Your Life

3. Wake up earlier. If you want to own the day, get started early. Successful people tend to get up pretty early. How successful do you want to be? A successful person doesn’t scramble around in the morning trying to find a pair of clean socks. Start your day as early as possible and grab it by the throat.

4. Focus. What are you going to do for the next hour? Ask yourself this important question each hour. Whether your objective is to write a report, return phone calls, or enjoy your favorite movie as much as possible, identify what you’re trying to accomplish and focus on doing it. Keep your mind on the identified task. Own The Day And You Own Your Life

5. Take breaks. You can get more accomplished each day if you take planned breaks. Working nonstop leads to slowing down later in the day. You’ll ultimately accomplish more if you take a break every couple of hours.

6. Remove distractions. Distractions will prevent you from owning the day and from owning your life. There’s no reason to rely on your will power to avoid the distractions in your environment if you have the ability to remove them instead.

Avoid trying to be tough and stoic. Just remove the distractions to the best of your ability. Own The Day And You Own Your Life

7. Review. You had a good day, but it could have been even better. Figure out what you could have done differently. Make a new plan for tomorrow and include this knowledge.

Reviewing your day is a pivotal part of developing your approach to life. So many people simply repeat the same mediocre days over and over. Mediocre days lead to a mediocre life.

Own The Day And You Own Your Life

Why You Never Have Enough Time. Are you always wishing you had more time available to you? The truth is, you probably have plenty of time. You’re just not focused, and you’re not using your time wisely.

These reasons could be why you never have enough time:

1. You fail to prioritize. What’s the most important activity you must do in order for you to accomplish your objective? If you’re not asking yourself this question regularly, you’re not getting the most bang for your time and effort. It’s easy to stay very busy but fail to accomplish much.

> Ask yourself, “What is the most important thing I need to accomplish?”

> Then ask yourself, “What is the best way for me to accomplish that?”

2. You waste time. This could be due to procrastination. It could be due to inefficient work habits

> Make the choice to avoid wasting time, period.

3. You’re disorganized. When you’re not organized, everything takes longer than it should. You spend time looking for a pair of clean socks, your car keys, searching for files on your computer, and trying to pull off things at the last minute.

> Disorganized people never seem to have enough time, and they’re frequently late with their work.

> Make an effort to organize your life and yourself. There are many resources dedicated to organization. Use them.

4. You have too many distractions in your life. It could be low-quality social interactions, TV, needlepoint, your baseball card collection, noisy kids, clutter, or your prize-winning rose bushes. Having too many things in your life takes too much time.

> Remove the things from your life that are unnecessary. Minimize the distractions you can’t remove, like your noisy children!

5. You don’t start your day early enough. Most of us do little in the evening. That time is largely wasted just lying around the house or staring at your phone. That’s why so many highly successful people skip the evening hours by going to bed and waking up extra early.

> Your brain tends to shut down by the late afternoon, whether you started your day at 9:00AM or 5:00AM. Give yourself a few extra productive hours by getting up early and going to bed early.

6. You fail to track your time. Track how you spend your time each day. Switch tasks when appropriate so everything receives the time it requires.

> Keep a simple journal and make a record each hour of how you spent the last 60 minutes.

7. You don’t have a plan for your day. Your day shouldn’t be random or determined on the fly. To get the most out of your time, it’s necessary to have a plan for the day.

> Make a detailed plan for your day before you go to bed. Spend your day executing that plan as well as you can. Why You Never Have Enough Time

8. You’re not focused. You’ve been told to “focus” or “concentrate” since you started kindergarten. Too bad the education system never taught you how. If you sit down to work on something for an hour, how many minutes is your attention truly focused on that task?

> You probably have plenty of time to accomplish everything you need to do each day, but you just need to focus at a higher level. Practice meditation. Practice focusing on whatever it is you’re doing. Focus is built through practice.

You have 24 hours each day. Ensure that you’re using them wisely!