Blog

Throughout the day, we experience various situations that affect us. There are things that occur out of our control, yet, we allow it to navigate our daily lives.

If you want to have a productive day, you must put forth the effort to create it. Many times, we get up in the morning and we go wherever the day takes us. There are 3 strategies that can contribute to you having a more focused and productive day.

Start Having A Productive Day

1. Know what needs to be done and do it. Creating a schedule, or a list of things to do, will work for your benefit. If you let the day lead you, there’s no guarantee that it will be productive. Direct your day and complete the tasks that need to be done. Don’t be wasteful with your time. Things may happen out of the blue and some of it may not get done, but making a physical effort will get you farther than having no plan at all.
2. Change your language. When we wake up in the morning, most of us are thinking, “It’s going to be a long day – I really don’t feel like going to that meeting – another day, another dollar…” That’s the language of defeat – no wonder your days haven’t been productive. Words have power, but when you give that power away with your negative language, it will work against you all day. Be grateful when you awake. Speak positive by saying things like, “Today is the day – everything will work in my favor – I will make today great!” Don’t just say it, feel it and make it happen. Be happy that you get another opportunity to enhance your life the way you want to.
3. Adjust your emotions. Many times, we go off of our emotions when different things happen. We allow our environment to determine how we feel. If someone is mad about something, that doesn’t mean you have to be mad, too. Let it go and focus on having a good day. If you get a speeding ticket, don’t let it take over your day, or your week, by continuously being angry. You do have a choice to let the little things go by not allowing it to consume your life at the moment. Don’t let 15 minutes of bitterness hold you hostage for the rest of the day. Feel it, let it go and move on.

Playing Mental Defense

All of these strategies will take time to work into your life. When you allow outside factors to control and dictate how you move, your productivity becomes nonexistent. It’s your choice to make, whether you want to take advantage of the day ahead of you, or if you will let it flow with the wind.

Be prepared for when things happen out of your control. Play mental defense when it comes to Negative Nancy’s, social media and gossip. You know the distractions are out there and it’s going to happen, so be ready to respond constructively.

As long as you know what you need to do, change your self-talk and play productive defense, you will become successful at creating a more productive and positive day. Remember: control the day – don’t let the day control you.

#BeGoalden

It’s not always someone else’s fault – sometimes, it’s you. Some people are content with pointing the finger, being miserable and playing the victim in every situation.

Holding yourself accountable is a skill – the more you practice, the better you become. Please know that no one else is to blame for the way your life has turned out so far. No matter how much you point your finger, the responsibility is with you.

At what point do you own up to your actions? When does it stop being someone else’s fault?

Playing The Victim

Just like being responsible is a skill, playing the victim is a skill, too. It’s the more obvious skill to command, but it does come easier to some, than others.

Yes, Sally received a promotion at work and makes more money. You can think whatever you want, but it happened. Don’t let this one thing hold you back in life. Whether she deserved it or not, you can only control what you do.

That’s not to say you should just accept everything that happens in life. There are times where you need to fight back and stand up for what’s right, but it doesn’t need to happen with every disagreement, every argument or every feeling of jealousy.

Your emotions can push you to feel entitled to what everyone else has, but that shouldn’t matter. We all feel we deserve the best, but everyone’s life isn’t the same. Worrying over someone else’s lifestyle won’t give you a better one. You haven’t been cheated, but you can cheat yourself.

The life you live is uniquely yours. You think that someone else has it better than you, or you can see it as motivation to climb to the next level. The quality of someone else’s life does not dictate the quality of yours. You can only change through making responsible decisions and holding yourself accountable.

It’s Your Fault

What are you doing to achieve the life you want? Are you constantly complaining about how someone else had it better, or are you continuously prepping yourself to get to where you want to be?

Your mindset is where it starts. Instead of being that person who blames and complains about others, find a way to create the life you want.

Be logical, not emotional.

We tend to create excuses when we see someone else is doing good. How we react to other people’s success reflects our thoughts about our own lives. Someone else’s good fortune shouldn’t spark negative thoughts. The reality is, you never know what they had to go through to get where they are.

If you see someone who makes lots of money with their business, don’t suck your teeth and conclude that they “came from money,” – look past your emotions and see if you can be just as successful. You shouldn’t be condescending, you should be inspired.

Before you become envious, be motivated. Know that you can create your own advantages just like anyone else. The possibility is always there, but you will have to take your journey to make it happen. Jealousy just takes energy away from being productive. Why hate others for what they have, when you can have it, too?

Remove Your Emotions

Most people want the reward without putting in the effort. That’s where the thoughts of jealousy and envy stem from. True, some people are given things without having to start from the absolute bottom, but that’s their life – what are you doing to enhance your life?

Control what you do. It makes no sense to spend time debating about how someone else has it better. Stressing over what others have does not contribute to your plan. Making up excuses as to why you aren’t on their level is childish.

The grass may be greener on the other side, but that’s irrelevant. All you can do is make sure you keep watering your own.

Fear keeps us in procrastination mode. We only procrastinate, not because we don’t feel like doing something, but because our fear is keeping us from taking action.

Fear has a way of making us feel comfortable. If we attempt something new, there’s a chance it won’t work and we don’t like that feeling. Therefore, we avoid moving forward, so we won’t have to feel that embarrassment or negative judgment.

How do we overcome fear? Why does it have such a hold on us? Is there a way we can destroy the thought?

How does fear work?

As far as achieving your goals is concerned, fear is not real. Fear is something that you’ve created in your head, so you won’t have to go through the hard work and dedication that it takes to reach a goal.

Think about people who go after what they want. It seems that they have not an ounce of fear in them. They have laser-like focus and nothing stops them. Even if they fail, they automatically turn around and change course, but they continue towards the same goal.

Somewhere down the line, we’ve been brainwashed to avoid pain by being fearful. Therefore, we ignore the failing path to our results, because we don’t want to get hurt by failure.

Failure is nothing more than learning.

When you fail, you know what NOT to do. Now, you can proceed with the knowledge that the first way won’t work. Since you’ve failed at it, you know how to proceed more wisely.

By increasing your action, you destroy your fear. When you fail at something, take another action until you get through it. Don’t waste time by being hurt and giving in to doubtful feelings. You discovered a solution that didn’t work, now you can move forward with finding one that does.

You are your own biggest enemy. If you remove those limiting thoughts and beliefs from your mind, you can accomplish anything. After you have a small win from overcoming that obstacle, you’ll gain confidence and confidence will drive out the fear, more and more.

Your mind will want to give up. It will begin to create excuses. Excuses are another form of procrastination, which is another form of fear. If you take a deep breath and just do it, you’ll see that it’s not as hard as you think it is. If it won’t kill you, do it!

People will also put fear in you through insults and by giving you examples of who tried, but didn’t make it. Know this: that is their insecurity. They will put their fears on you. Don’t listen to them. Instead, give them a little inspiration and show them how it’s done.

It’s not a good idea to tell negative people your goals, because they will only say things to bring you down. Share your ideas with people who can help or who are supportive. Or, you could just keep it to yourself and let your actions speak on your behalf.

Overcoming Fear

The key is to keep taking action. The more action you take, the more your fear will disappear. Don’t hold yourself back by avoiding obstacles. That resistance is the path that will take you to your end result – that’s the path that will carry you to success.

Keep taking action. If you come across a challenge and you don’t know what to do, ask someone who might know or Google it. You are more than capable of figuring out other possibilities to accomplish your goal. Whatever you do, don’t allow fear to drive your dreams away. Instead, drive your fears away by taking continuous action.

#BeGoalden

Your life has taken an unexpected turn. Everything seems like it’s going downhill. You feel like everything is spiraling out of control.

Get a hold of yourself. It looks bad, but you have the ability to handle it and push through. Change happens in everyone’s life, but we all have to be determined to figure it out.

Don’t Have A Pity Party

The first thing we tend to do is feel sorry for ourselves. We ask questions like, “Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? Why me?”

Those are the wrong questions to ask yourself, especially if it’s not in your control. Things happen and we take pity on ourselves and expect others to take pity on us, as well. Having a pity party does nothing for you or your situation.

It’s hard, but flip your perspective. Ask yourself, “How can I make this work for me? What can I do now that I’ve always wanted to do? How can this work in my favor?”

Don’t Beat Yourself Up

Another thing we tend to do is put ourselves down. Our self-esteem goes from 100 to zero.

We attempt to justify what happened by beating ourselves up and being critical. Putting yourself down only makes things worse, because now, you’re fighting against yourself, along with the situation.

It’s not you – change is inevitable. It’s going to happen when you least expect it. That doesn’t mean you have to fold and take it without fighting back. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can get up and move forward.

Be Resilient

Once you reach this point, it’s all or nothing. You can either decide to stay down, or you can take the necessary steps to begin making progress.

Don’t wait on anyone to encourage you – encourage yourself. Be your own hero and lift yourself up. Others may not be around during your tough time, so you have to depend on yourself to bounce back.

Be laser-focused. Ignore distractions. Work on building yourself up again. Bet on yourself because no one can do this part, but you.

You will run into more obstacles and challenges. It’s not going to be easy, but don’t let yourself fall into a vortex of negative thinking. The only way through it is to take action and do something about it.

You Will Find Your Way

Even when you’re going through all of this, you must control your emotions. You will want to quit. You will feel defeated, but know that you’re building your future.

Life can get overwhelming. When you feel this way, by all means, rest or take a break – just don’t make the mistake of staying there. It’s easy to get comfortable, so be careful – this is where most people get stuck.

Success may happen today – it may happen next week, or next year. You’ll never know if you quit. Keep going and continue to make adjustments along the way. You will find your way, but only if you stay the course.

If you have breath in your body and you wake up in the morning, there’s still a chance – the possibility is always there. Anything can happen, as long as you believe in yourself and keep moving forward.

#BeGoalden

Find yourself and become who you were meant to be. How many times have we gone along with what others wanted to do? We know all about our friends and the people around us, but do you know yourself?

Sure, you know what your favorite color is and what makes you angry, but it goes a little deeper than that. If you didn’t have your social environment, who would you be? Would you still be the same person or has your surroundings influenced you more than you know?

Who Are You?

You are not what other people think of you. Everyone has an opinion. It’s easy to allow what someone else thinks to become your label.

This develops as an unconscious habit that began when you were little. Adults would say things about you (whether encouraging or hurtful) and you accepted it, just because they said it. You were a kid – what else were you supposed to think?

As you become older, you came into peer pressure or cancel culture. You based your actions and thoughts around what would get others to like you. No one wants to be the odd one out, so it creates a behavior where you always go along with whatever is happening.

Everyone may like you, but do you like yourself? Can you stand to be alone with your own original thoughts for more than twenty minutes at a time, or does it scare you?

The older you get, you’ll notice how time flies and you’ll reflect on your life. If you listen to older people, one of their biggest regrets is not doing what they wanted to do, because they going along with what everyone else was doing.

If you don’t correct this habit, your entire life will pass you by.

How To Find Yourself

So how do you get to know yourself before it’s too late?

As mentioned above, spend some time alone. Allow your thoughts to wonder past what someone else would think. To some, this can be difficult – when you’ve never been alone, it can be hard to think for yourself because you’ve always accepted other people’s thoughts and not your own.

Break through that moment. Think on your own. Write a bucket list of things you want to do and achieve. You may think of things that seem extraordinary or out of place with what everyone else is doing, but that’s you. Diving into different experiences is what makes life adventurous.

This should be done completely on your own, without any distractions from anyone or anything else. Just you and your thoughts. Don’t be afraid of yourself or what you come up with. You’ve been hiding all this time – now it’s time to find yourself.

Everyone is not meant to be your friend. It’s fine if your interaction with someone becomes less. Some people are in your life for a season, not for a lifetime. They do what they were supposed to do and move on. Don’t cling – accept it and move on, too.

Once you actually take the time and find yourself, you’ll start to come across others who share the same interests. Be honest with yourself and act upon your thoughts. Stop ignoring what’s been inside of you – even if you must do it alone, just give it a shot.

You don’t always need an approving audience, but you do need to approve yourself. Be mindful , get to know what you like and who you are and love it! You don’t want to be 65 years old, wishing you would have lived life your way. The only person who can change it, is you.

Find yourself and love your life – you won’t regret it!

Giving your power to your past is one of the biggest personal distractions you can allow. Situations that you keep re-thinking over and over again, can keep you complacent.

Whatever situations that have happened in the past can push you, or hold you back. Instead of recalling the success and productive moments of our lives, we unconsciously prefer to remember the negative moments.

No one wants to go back and relive the distressing and awkward moments and with good reason – but what if you could use those moments to create a more productive outlook?

The Good Times

Reminiscing about the good times with family and friends always brings about good feelings. You look back and remember how things were simple and the little silly things you did that made life adventurous.

Those feelings are very strong. It puts everyone in a good mood and lightens up the atmosphere. Everyone wishes that they could go back in time and relive those moments.

When The Past Holds You Hostage

On the other hand, when we think about setting goals and the vision of the future, our minds go south. We remember how everything went wrong the first time we did public speaking, or how we lost the Spelling Bee by misspelling a simple word.

Those feelings are stronger than the good feelings, because they hold you back. Something is reminding you that you don’t want to be embarrassed or make more mistakes. In this instance, you lose your power.

In essence, you’re ending your journey before it even starts. The distractions of the past have frozen your ability to move.

Pick Up Your Feet And Get Moving

As you know, the most important step of success is taking action. The only thing that matters is how to get to the next point.

Before that, you must be in a good mental space. Nothing starts without a thought or an idea, so let’s think positive. Things will go wrong, but be strong enough to know that you will figure it out and above all, you’ll be fine.

All of the mistakes you ever made in your life? That’s feedback. Those things that you call problems? Those are not problems, they’re challenges. The way you look at things can make a world of difference with how you perform.

Shift Your Perspective, Find Your Power

Yes, it’s difficult to forget the bad times in your life. You don’t want to repeat the same negative process over again.

The things that make you feel uncomfortable is where the lessons are. If you must think about it, look at it from a different angle and find a productive solution – don’t just remember it and exhaust yourself all over again.

Use your past to your advantage. You’re robbing yourself if you allow it to keep you from building your future. You are capable of more than you think. Instead of thinking, “I won’t make it,” think, “If I do it this way, it could work.”

When you shift your perspective, things will start to happen. You have the power to open your mind and believe beyond what you think you can achieve. If you can control how you think about your past (especially when it comes to your goals), you will definitely have more control over your future.

#BeGoalden

When you learn something that is interesting to you, you tend to keep up with it and want to know more. When you were in school, learning turned most of us off because we didn’t have a say in what we wanted to learn – a curriculum was given and had to be followed.

Now, you have a chance to guide your curiosity. Interested in cryptocurrency? Look it up on your phone. Want to grow your own food? Start in your backyard or in your window sill. How about starting your own business? YouTube University can help. You can even build your social media feed around learning more about your interests.

Just do it and go for it. Somewhere in our lives, we’ve been taught to doubt ourselves and limit our vision. No one hardly ever teaches you how to dig in and do the work towards your dreams.

It Starts In Your Mind

The first thing you have to do is reclaim your brain.

We tell ourselves it’s too hard or we’re too old. It’s too late or I’ll do it later. Our mind is built to protect us and keep us in our comfort zones – even if it hurts a little, your mind will think of a way to avoid it.

Your job is to overcome that way of thinking. Yes, it’s hard because you’ve been thinking that way all of your life and that can be difficult (but not impossible) to unlearn. Like anything else, it’ll take focus and effort.

Think of what you can do in your lifetime. Some people accomplish great things, while others float by without giving any kind of effort at all. There is no perfect time and no set plan – it’s all up to you to be productive and constructive. Make a commitment to whatever ‘impossible’ vision you have in your head and take baby steps to get there.

Some days it will work and some days it won’t. That’s what activates the genius in you (everybody has some sort of genius in them). If we knew the exact blueprint and the outcome, we would be weak minded with a sense of entitlement. We wouldn’t be able to build our resilience, test our beliefs or make any kind of contribution to ourselves or the world.

Learn To Grow

Don’t let a setback lower your confidence. You have the smarts to overcome any obstacle. Be proactive and forward-thinking. Have the type of attitude that allows you to move and improve.

Understand that your circumstances don’t define your potential. Again, this is one of those tricks that your brain plays on you. Force yourself to think on a different level – “let’s do it,” is a better beginning than, “it’ll never work.” Give yourself a chance and see how far you can go.

Some of your family and friends will validate the negative thoughts in your mind. They will laugh at your mistakes and make you feel small for dreaming big. The only way to fight against this, is to take action and find a better circle of support. Don’t be afraid to meet new people who are ambitious and outgoing – those are the ones who will fuel your actions!

Every time you listen to people who speak in the negative, you stunt your growth. You want to be in environments and settings that give you energy, people who believe and encourage you. Being in such a supportive space brings out your initial desire to learn and moves you toward your goal.

In The End

Don’t stay stuck in the same rut – you can control that. There are many things to be interested in, especially with today’s technology. Your learning doesn’t have to stop when you leave school.

Your mind is like a muscle. What happens to your body when you don’t exercise or eat a healthy diet? Exactly. Your mind is the same way. If you don’t use it, you lose it.

Imagine the results you want in the end – would you rather be sad with regret or happy with satisfaction? Everything won’t turn out the way you want it to, but at the very least, you made the attempt to learn and grow.

Preparation is key to becoming great, but sometimes, we can over do it.

Getting ready to get ready is really an excuse to procrastinate. We say things like:

• I’ll start on Monday (everybody’s favorite)
• When I get $500, then I’ll start saving
• When I finish all of the ice cream in the freezer, then I’ll start my diet
• When I buy some exercise equipment, then I’ll start exercising

Do you see a pattern? When I do ‘x’, then I’ll do ‘y’.

It may be hard to admit, but this is just a fancy form of procrastination. Anything you can do, can be done immediately. It won’t make any difference when you start, but because you are constantly ‘getting ready to get ready’, you never begin.

This is why it’s better to start your ideas soon after you have them. Giving yourself time to ‘get ready’ only prolongs what you are trying to do.

In the above examples, you can start any of those things right away. Most people like to start their plans on Monday. Why not start the following day? Why can’t you start saving money now, even if you don’t have $500? What does eating all of the ice cream first have to do with you beginning a new diet? Instead of wasting time trying to buy the right exercise equipment, why not start with a YouTube workout or go outside and play with the kids?

Stay Ready

Anything you want to do can be done without using the ‘getting ready to get ready’ excuse formula. We have to stop giving ourselves an easy way out. Procrastination only brings about more procrastination – it’s a neverending cycle.

Make up your mind that you will start, no matter what the circumstances are in your head. Don’t hinder your own growth – don’t become your own enemy. Be disciplined and take action. Have the confidence to move forward and create progress. You are more than capable and prepared to start than you think you are.

Hold yourself accountable and take control of your future. Hesitating won’t get you anywhere. You don’t want to be in the same place, a year from now. Be extraordinary and do what needs to be done, even when you don’t feel like it. Embrace those challenges so that you can become the exceptional person you’re meant to be!

#BeGoalden

Get it wrong and keep doing it until you get it right.

Nothing will work unless you make a move or an honest attempt.

It may not turn out the way you want it to the first time – it happens to us all.

The “secret” is not giving in – not giving up.

It may take more time or money, but you must remain as consistent as you can.

If you think about it, nothing happens.

If you gaze out the window for an answer, nothing happens.

If you talk about it with a million people, nothing happens.

The only thing that will show signs of progress is movement.

This may cause feelings of embarrassment, doubt and/or limiting beliefs.

It’s all a part of the process of getting to the bigger picture – your goal.

Everyday is a chance to get it right.

Give yourself a chance to meet success.

Raise your expectations and level up your actions.

Participate in your life.

Stop pondering and do something to move the needle.

Don’t worry about if you get it wrong.

Improve as you go.

Trust yourself.

Bet on yourself.

Forward movement is the answer.

#BeGoalden