Success Advice
6 Warning Signs Your Life and Career Are On Autopilot
In our lives and careers, we tend to settle for good enough. We complain about how much we hate our jobs, but then we follow it up with “oh well, it could be worse, at least I have a job.
I was just like this, drifting along and letting life and my career transpire “according to plan.” But there was one problem; I didn’t know who’s plan I was following. From the outside, everyone thought I had it all. A secure job with a six-figure income, a beautiful wife and family, a new house and more.
But inside, it was a different story. I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted and expected out of life. Over time, I found myself burned out and stuck in a job I hated. But without any real plan and direction, I just stayed put. The misery bled over into my personal life, impacting my health and relationships. You may be in danger of this, too.
Check out these warning signs to see if you’re stuck in autopilot, and how to retake control:
1. You’re unsure how to answer the question – what’s most important to you?
You’re constantly busy and don’t stop to think about what things in your life matter the most. Your life is filled with one unconscious choice after another. To retake control, you have to become self-aware and determine what’s most important to you. Decide what you want your life to be like, start prioritizing the steps you need to take to get there.
“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” – Nelson Mandela
2. You never have enough time to do the things you know you should do
Maybe you already know what’s important, but life gets in the way, and you never can find the time to focus on those things. To change your life, you have to change your actions. Retake control by spending less time on Facebook. Limit the hours you spend watching TV. Replace these activities by making time for what’s most important to you and by adding those activities to your calendar.
3. You can’t remember the last book you read
Read or listen to a book? Maybe you’d rather veg out watching you favorite show or playing a game on your smartphone. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. According to a recent study, only 14 percent of adults read one or more books per month. Even then, the most read books are mystery, thriller, crime and other fiction books. Reading of any type is good, but to retake control, make sure you’re also reading books that can help you improve yourself and your job performance. And after you’ve read these books, apply what you’ve learned.
4. You lack the motivation and ambition to make changes
You don’t love your job, but it pays well, and your life is comfortable, so you lack the motivation to change. Or maybe you want something different, but you’ve suppressed your goals and desires because of what you think others expect from you. Living your life this way, settling for less that you want and deserve, will only lead to unfulfilled dreams and a life of regret. Retake control by figuring out what motivates you. Rediscover the dreams and desires that you’ve been suppressing and make them a priority in your daily activities.
5. You don’t have a plan for how your life will be different in 3-5 years
If you don’t know where you want to be in a few years, don’t be surprised when you wake up one day and realize you’re living a life you never wanted. While you’re drifting along and letting life happen to you, you’re missing out on all that life has to offer. Without a plan, you can expect a lot of shoulda, woulda, coulda moments when you look back on your life. The first step to retaking control is to create a detailed vision of the life you want. Then, set goals and create a plan of action that will help you achieve the vision.
6. You start your day by checking emails and your social media accounts
What you do each morning to start your day is all about habits – the good and bad ones. If one of the first things you do is grab your phone and start checking emails and your favorite social media account, you’re immediately handing over control of the rest of your day. Instead, start your day with a morning routine that develops and exercises your mind and body. That’s what will put you in control of your day instead of the day controlling you.
“Either you run the day or the day runs you.” – Jim Rohn
Each of these signs was once a direct reflection of my life and career. If you can relate and find yourself settling and wandering aimlessly through life, know that it doesn’t have to be that way.
Just as I did one year ago, make today be the day that you disengage autopilot and retake control of your life. Start by writing down your dreams and goals, and put together a plan that empowers you to start living the life you’ve imagined. You deserve it.
How will you retake control? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below?
Over the years, many of the talking heads and pundits in the personal development and success science industry have talked about the immediate replacement of negative thoughts with positive thoughts. The logic behind that particular behavioral strategy seems to make sense on the surface. Think about it, when a negative thought rears its ugly head, we should immediately dive into the repository of positive thoughts that we have available to us so that we could immediately begin to dwell on it.
Even further, some gurus of the genre suggest removing any chance of having a negative thought by the constant repetition of affirmations. Again, tried-and-true motivational technology that is very workable and still useful. I would suggest, however, that you view the above behaviors as tactics more than strategies.
I will further suggest to you that you do not abhor your negative thoughts but rather embrace them, examine them, and place them under a spotlight. My reasoning behind this goes back over 100 years into psychology with stimulus/response, that is, the cause and effect of certain behaviors. Many individuals look at a negative thought as a causative driver. The negative thought exists as a cause, and our behavior toward that cause will determine the effect.
So, following this logic, if an individual has a negative thought which makes them feel sad, and that sadness causes them to binge drink, by removing the negative thought you’ll have removed the motivation for binge drinking. Doesn’t that sound kind of silly? The suggestion here is to turn off the negative thought so that it will turn off the consumption of alcohol.
Of course, this makes sense if we view the negative thought as a primal force in behavior. So, what if we started to think of the negative thought more as the result of something else? It means that the “something else” must change first. What if we took a different approach? What if we looked at a negative thought as an effect of some larger causal factor?
“You’re going to go through tough times – that’s life. But I say, ‘Nothing happens to you, it happens for you.’ See the positive in negative events.” – Joel Osteen
By reversing the cause-and-effect motion of negative thinking (saying that the negative thought is an effect), we now can ask a deeper, more penetrative question: Why are we thinking that negative thought? What is the underlying cause of that specific train of thinking? By reversing the cause-and-effect relationship of negative thinking, it allows the negative thinker to assume the role of diagnostician!
Below is a three-step process you can use to examine your negative thoughts, the role of it in your life, and how you can get rid of them:
1. Simply acknowledge the negative thought
Recognize the fact that there’s a negative thought in your mind instead of trying to go through a process of emotionally overlaying positive thoughts on top of it. Can you see how this exacerbates the issue? You have a negative thought, you immediately recognize that it must be changed, and you frantically scurry through the museum of your mind to find a positive thought to replace it.
In the meantime, while you are trying to find that positive thought, you’re feeling anxious, nervous, and guilty! When you finally find a positive thought to replace that negative thought, the normal process is to squash it. But you can’t! It’s like trying to get rid of weeds by covering them with rocks.
They will always find another way around the rock. It is the same with negative thoughts. Consequently, try acknowledging the negative thought.
2. Affirm the negative thought
It is a part of you. Instead of denying its existence, accept that it is there in front of you and that you are now willing to deal with it. If any of you reading this are dog lovers, you will know that the best way to get a dog next to you is by attempting to push it away from you. Every time you push the dog away it gets closer. This is the same with negative thinking because the harder you push the closer it gets.
“Always turn a negative situation into a positive situation.” – Michael Jordan
3. Acquit the thought
Give it permission to leave you. Thank it for its past importance in your life and allow it to be on its way! At this point feel free to replace the negative thought with a positive thought. What will begin to happen when you place the negative thought under the spotlight is that you will see how insignificantly small it actually is.
This is a process I’ve been using for quite some time, and it works! Oh sure, I still use affirmations on a daily basis; as a matter fact I have them right here in front of me. I find that affirmations are a tremendous way to stay positive because it doesn’t allow any room for bad things to grow. But since the average person thinks 60,000 to 65,000 thoughts per day, let’s face it, a few negative thoughts have to squeak in there!
The best advice that I can give is to not freak out over a negative thought. Acknowledge it, affirm it, and acquit it! This is magic. Watch what happens!
How do you handle negative thoughts? Let us know your tips below!
Image courtesy of Twenty20.com
I used to be a very anxious person.
I was embarrassed by what I couldn’t do and every day was a struggle. From the moment I would wake up to the moment I’d go to bed, everything felt impossibly overwhelming. It’s a battle I’ve dealt with most of my life.
This daily struggle with mental illness taught me that the satisfaction didn’t lie in beating it; the satisfaction was in helping other people beat mental illness through my success in fighting it.
Recently, I was at work. It was a pretty standard day — nothing too exciting. I then had a catch up with one of the leaders I worked with.
She said something that got my attention: “One of our colleagues is battling a mental illness.”
I really wanted to help. My eyes lit up. There was no need to uncover my plan with anyone else. I knew that staying discrete was fundamental.
I approached the person in question and asked for a few minutes of their time.
I didn’t ask them to admit their mental illness struggle; I just shared my story.
I talked about the anxiety stopping me from having a normal life, eating the right foods, going on dates with girls, having the career I wanted and traveling the world.
I wasn’t sure if any of it was sinking in or even helping. I felt compelled to go on. One thing I knew was that he was paying attention. I could see it in his eyes.
I then went on to talk about how I beat mental illness. Strategies such as:
- Creating fear lists
- Seeking professional help
- Working on myself
- Books I read
- Events I attended
Out of nowhere, he started opening up about his own struggle. I was shocked.
It wasn’t pretty. He had an extreme case of mental illness that I certainly couldn’t diagnose or give professional advice on.
“All I could do was show him through my own story that there was hope”
I offered him access to all the resources I had. I told him that he had my full support and I’d be happy to help in any way I could. He then said:
“What was your psychologist’s name?”
I told him I’d look it up and send it to him. I didn’t have the answer in front of me, but I was determined when I got home to find it.
At the end of the catch-up, he smiled. I don’t think he’d smiled like that in a very long time.
That smile gave me so much satisfaction. It made my own struggle with mental illness worth it. All those sleepless nights, times spent vomiting into the toilet and dark days where I didn’t want to go on made sense.
“It took more than seven years for me to understand that my own battle with mental illness actually had a benefit”
That benefit was the satisfaction in seeing someone beat their mental illness because I was able to defeat mine.
It’s probably the greatest satisfaction of my entire life.
That’s one thing I can teach you about life that will help you forever.
Everyone wants more time, that is something almost all of us share. Time is the most valuable resource and when you learn how to make your time work for you and how to get the most out of it – you experience life differently.
Improving how you manage your time is one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself – it’s a real game changer in your business and personal life. There are many ways that you can get more productive and get the right things done sooner; but not all of them are obvious or bring the same results.
Here are 5 productivity shifts you want to make if you are trying to make the most out of 2019:
1. Ditch your to do list
Productive people don’t keep to-do lists, they schedule everything they need to do in their calendar and work directly from their calendar! To-Do lists are just ineffective and they are impeding your productivity. A never ending list of items only leaves you overwhelmed and with a false sense of ‘productivity’.
If you schedule your To Do’s directly into your calendar at a time to get them done, you commit to it and you are more likely to get it done. Less is more – you don’t need a separate list to remind you what you need to do.
“Productivity is less about what you do with your time and more about how you run your mind.” – Robin Sharma
2. Give up on motivation
Productive people don’t always have to be motivated before starting something. They balance discipline with motivation and do what they need to do, regardless of motivation. When we come up with resistance to take action on what we have planned, we might tell ourselves that we are not motivated and we believe that we need to be motivated to complete any task.
If you want to increase your productivity, you need to challenge yourself more in the moment to take action and give up on motivation sometimes. Do what you need to in order to get the results you want in the future. Don’t make decisions based on how you feel now, make them based on what result you are really after.
3. Master your mornings
Wake up early and get yourself into the productive mindset with your routine and diet! Productive people start the day with some sort of routine, whether it’s meditation, exercise or visualization, etc. AND they have a healthy breakfast to fuel them for the day. Your health is everything when it comes to productivity, what you eat directly affects your productivity.
We can just no longer ignore the direct connection any more. Get in the right mindset to start your day and fuel your mind and body to get the most out of it. Starting your day off in any other way undermines your success – there is no doubt.
4. Schedule according to energy
Productive people know their energy cycles and they plan tasks around their energy levels. Why plan something at a time when you know it will be hard to rise to the challenge? Schedule tasks that require focus and concentration for those times of day that you feel the best and you will find it’s easier to follow through and you will be at your best to perform. Identify your filler tasks and complete those when your energy drops. Be more realistic when scheduling your tasks and set yourself up for wins.
“Productivity is never an accident it’s the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning & focused effort.” – Paul Meyer
5. Working backwards
Productive people always focus on those activities that will take them to the next level. They plan backwards, they look at their goals, then identify the tasks they need to do to support those goals. Those tasks get broken down into weekly actions. That’s how they plan.
Don’t only plan on tasks that come in or those which you ‘feel’ or ‘think’ you should be doing. Your day needs to consist of at least one activity that directly supports your longer term objectives, your big project. What sounds like common sense is definitely not common practice.
Create the right habits to achieve your goals, work on adopting easy tips and techniques so you can manage your time and yourself better to get things done.
We all have access to the most powerful computer ever created in the universe…our brain. Unfortunately, few of us have ever been taught how to use our minds efficiently, and even fewer have learned how to develop a fabulous memory. Thankfully, like any skill, memorising can be learned and using the correct strategies, your memory can be improved in only days.
One of the best coaches on memory is Dominic O’Brien the eight-time world memory champion. Self-taught after watching Creighton Carvello memorise a pack of cards on the BBC’s Record Breakers programme. Dominic, through his work on memory, has given us many tools and techniques for improving memory.
Below are 5 rules that will help you develop a better memory:
1. The Rule of Five
Probably seen as one of the most significant contributions to the body of knowledge on memory is O’Brien’s Rule of Five. This rule details how to remember things using a strategy of regular staged repetition.
These stages are as follows:
- First Review:Immediately
- Second Review:Twenty-four hours later
- Third Review:One week later
- Fourth Review:One month later
- Fifth Review:Three months later
Utilising stage repetition at these intervals ingrains the memory for the long term.
2. The Dominic System
The Dominic System is a system for remembering numbers. The system is a Person Action system where the association between two sets of paired numbers is the person with the action of the next person.
1139 would become Andre Agassi doing a roundhouse kick which is the action of Chuck Norris. This system combined with the journey method allows for long random numbers to be easily recalled without error. The fantastic thing about this system is that you get to customise for yourself with memorable people and unique actions which when combined really make it easy for you to recall numbers. The table below associates each number to a letter.
Number 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Letter O A B C D E S G H N
Creating a simple document with pairs of numbers in one column, the letter pairs in the next and an action column will help you learn this system quickly.
“Nothing can substitute for just plain hard work. I had to put in the time to get back. And it was a grind. It meant training and sweating every day. But I was completely committed to working out to prove to myself that I still could do it.” – Andre Agassi
3. The Link Method
This method relies on two essential elements of memory, association and exaggeration. Utilising these two elements, it is possible to link together unrelated objects to allow you to remember them.
Trying to remember a list of five separate words such as: balloon, papaya, gold, football and hat, might go something like this. You imagine seeing a giant balloon and inside the balloon you can see a small papaya, in bursting the balloon the papaya falls out and as it hits the floor a gold football bounces into a large sombrero.
4. The Journey Method
Using location has been a fundamental part of mnemonics almost since time began. Before humans, writing elders would pass knowledge to others using stories of journeys, with each piece of knowledge being associated with a location on the journey.
O’Brien’s system utilises journeys that you would undertake on a daily basis, like your commute to work or train stations on well-known line. Items are then associated and exaggerated along the journey, so for instance if you were trying to remember a list of ten random things you would associate each piece along with a unique ten stop journey and utilise exaggeration to make the items more memorable.
“You are well equipped with an incredible potential for absorbing knowledge…Anything’s possible.” – Dominic O’Brien
5. The Story Method
To remember groups of information, create a story that links them together. Remembering the planets of the solar system and their position relative to the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Imagine that Mercury was hitting the nineties as Venus tossed the tennis ball into the air, striking the ball it soared over the net striking the earth and bouncing high into the air, knocking the mars bar out of Jupiter’s hand, and so on.
Developing a good memory will assist markedly in all of your personal development goals as well as assisting greatly in your daily life. The methods above are tried and tested by one of the leading memory champions. Whether you want to become the next World Memory Champion or just improve your recall, the techniques outlined above will assist greatly.
Combining the various elements will create an exponential improvement in your memory that you will find hard to believe, and you will be kicking yourself for not applying them sooner. The best part about using these methods is that they are fun, so enjoy using them.
Which one of these memorizing methods sounds most interesting to you? Share with us below!
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Such a wonderful article. After reading this, I came to know that I am also on Autopilot. I should change this mode as soon as possible else I will regret about it later in my life. Each words from this article makes me to think of what I am doing now and how I am going to change it.
Thank you Tyler
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Hi Shunmuga, you’re quite welcome. Thank you for commenting!
I found that writing down the things I need to change in my life helps me follow through and take action. If you haven’t already starting writing down the changes you need to make, start now! You can even share it here in the comments so we can help hold you accountable! 🙂
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It is realistic. I am facing the same problems what you stated in this article. But i am trying to over come those problems. The great man APJ Abdul kalam once said all youths wants to stay unique, do unique but the society
tries to keep him like others. We have to come over these problems if we want to be stay unique in this society, by reaching our dreams.-
Hi Prakash, I really appreciate your comment. What steps have you taken, or are you take to overcome the problems you’re facing?
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Amazingly true article. Routines are a very dangerous cause they make life easy, but you stay in the same space your whole life. We need to break out and become uncomfortable to move ahead.
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Thanks for commenting Nick, much appreciated! You’re right, we have to continually get out of our comfort zones to really move ahead and change our lives.
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Over the years, many of the talking heads and pundits in the personal development and success science industry have talked about the immediate replacement of negative thoughts with positive thoughts. The logic behind that particular behavioral strategy seems to make sense on the surface. Think about it, when a negative thought rears its ugly head, we should immediately dive into the repository of positive thoughts that we have available to us so that we could immediately begin to dwell on it.
Even further, some gurus of the genre suggest removing any chance of having a negative thought by the constant repetition of affirmations. Again, tried-and-true motivational technology that is very workable and still useful. I would suggest, however, that you view the above behaviors as tactics more than strategies.
I will further suggest to you that you do not abhor your negative thoughts but rather embrace them, examine them, and place them under a spotlight. My reasoning behind this goes back over 100 years into psychology with stimulus/response, that is, the cause and effect of certain behaviors. Many individuals look at a negative thought as a causative driver. The negative thought exists as a cause, and our behavior toward that cause will determine the effect.
So, following this logic, if an individual has a negative thought which makes them feel sad, and that sadness causes them to binge drink, by removing the negative thought you’ll have removed the motivation for binge drinking. Doesn’t that sound kind of silly? The suggestion here is to turn off the negative thought so that it will turn off the consumption of alcohol.
Of course, this makes sense if we view the negative thought as a primal force in behavior. So, what if we started to think of the negative thought more as the result of something else? It means that the “something else” must change first. What if we took a different approach? What if we looked at a negative thought as an effect of some larger causal factor?
“You’re going to go through tough times – that’s life. But I say, ‘Nothing happens to you, it happens for you.’ See the positive in negative events.” – Joel Osteen
By reversing the cause-and-effect motion of negative thinking (saying that the negative thought is an effect), we now can ask a deeper, more penetrative question: Why are we thinking that negative thought? What is the underlying cause of that specific train of thinking? By reversing the cause-and-effect relationship of negative thinking, it allows the negative thinker to assume the role of diagnostician!
Below is a three-step process you can use to examine your negative thoughts, the role of it in your life, and how you can get rid of them:
1. Simply acknowledge the negative thought
Recognize the fact that there’s a negative thought in your mind instead of trying to go through a process of emotionally overlaying positive thoughts on top of it. Can you see how this exacerbates the issue? You have a negative thought, you immediately recognize that it must be changed, and you frantically scurry through the museum of your mind to find a positive thought to replace it.
In the meantime, while you are trying to find that positive thought, you’re feeling anxious, nervous, and guilty! When you finally find a positive thought to replace that negative thought, the normal process is to squash it. But you can’t! It’s like trying to get rid of weeds by covering them with rocks.
They will always find another way around the rock. It is the same with negative thoughts. Consequently, try acknowledging the negative thought.
2. Affirm the negative thought
It is a part of you. Instead of denying its existence, accept that it is there in front of you and that you are now willing to deal with it. If any of you reading this are dog lovers, you will know that the best way to get a dog next to you is by attempting to push it away from you. Every time you push the dog away it gets closer. This is the same with negative thinking because the harder you push the closer it gets.
“Always turn a negative situation into a positive situation.” – Michael Jordan
3. Acquit the thought
Give it permission to leave you. Thank it for its past importance in your life and allow it to be on its way! At this point feel free to replace the negative thought with a positive thought. What will begin to happen when you place the negative thought under the spotlight is that you will see how insignificantly small it actually is.
This is a process I’ve been using for quite some time, and it works! Oh sure, I still use affirmations on a daily basis; as a matter fact I have them right here in front of me. I find that affirmations are a tremendous way to stay positive because it doesn’t allow any room for bad things to grow. But since the average person thinks 60,000 to 65,000 thoughts per day, let’s face it, a few negative thoughts have to squeak in there!
The best advice that I can give is to not freak out over a negative thought. Acknowledge it, affirm it, and acquit it! This is magic. Watch what happens!
How do you handle negative thoughts? Let us know your tips below!
Image courtesy of Twenty20.com
I used to be a very anxious person.
I was embarrassed by what I couldn’t do and every day was a struggle. From the moment I would wake up to the moment I’d go to bed, everything felt impossibly overwhelming. It’s a battle I’ve dealt with most of my life.
This daily struggle with mental illness taught me that the satisfaction didn’t lie in beating it; the satisfaction was in helping other people beat mental illness through my success in fighting it.
Recently, I was at work. It was a pretty standard day — nothing too exciting. I then had a catch up with one of the leaders I worked with.
She said something that got my attention: “One of our colleagues is battling a mental illness.”
I really wanted to help. My eyes lit up. There was no need to uncover my plan with anyone else. I knew that staying discrete was fundamental.
I approached the person in question and asked for a few minutes of their time.
I didn’t ask them to admit their mental illness struggle; I just shared my story.
I talked about the anxiety stopping me from having a normal life, eating the right foods, going on dates with girls, having the career I wanted and traveling the world.
I wasn’t sure if any of it was sinking in or even helping. I felt compelled to go on. One thing I knew was that he was paying attention. I could see it in his eyes.
I then went on to talk about how I beat mental illness. Strategies such as:
- Creating fear lists
- Seeking professional help
- Working on myself
- Books I read
- Events I attended
Out of nowhere, he started opening up about his own struggle. I was shocked.
It wasn’t pretty. He had an extreme case of mental illness that I certainly couldn’t diagnose or give professional advice on.
“All I could do was show him through my own story that there was hope”
I offered him access to all the resources I had. I told him that he had my full support and I’d be happy to help in any way I could. He then said:
“What was your psychologist’s name?”
I told him I’d look it up and send it to him. I didn’t have the answer in front of me, but I was determined when I got home to find it.
At the end of the catch-up, he smiled. I don’t think he’d smiled like that in a very long time.
That smile gave me so much satisfaction. It made my own struggle with mental illness worth it. All those sleepless nights, times spent vomiting into the toilet and dark days where I didn’t want to go on made sense.
“It took more than seven years for me to understand that my own battle with mental illness actually had a benefit”
That benefit was the satisfaction in seeing someone beat their mental illness because I was able to defeat mine.
It’s probably the greatest satisfaction of my entire life.
That’s one thing I can teach you about life that will help you forever.
Everyone wants more time, that is something almost all of us share. Time is the most valuable resource and when you learn how to make your time work for you and how to get the most out of it – you experience life differently.
Improving how you manage your time is one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself – it’s a real game changer in your business and personal life. There are many ways that you can get more productive and get the right things done sooner; but not all of them are obvious or bring the same results.
Here are 5 productivity shifts you want to make if you are trying to make the most out of 2019:
1. Ditch your to do list
Productive people don’t keep to-do lists, they schedule everything they need to do in their calendar and work directly from their calendar! To-Do lists are just ineffective and they are impeding your productivity. A never ending list of items only leaves you overwhelmed and with a false sense of ‘productivity’.
If you schedule your To Do’s directly into your calendar at a time to get them done, you commit to it and you are more likely to get it done. Less is more – you don’t need a separate list to remind you what you need to do.
“Productivity is less about what you do with your time and more about how you run your mind.” – Robin Sharma
2. Give up on motivation
Productive people don’t always have to be motivated before starting something. They balance discipline with motivation and do what they need to do, regardless of motivation. When we come up with resistance to take action on what we have planned, we might tell ourselves that we are not motivated and we believe that we need to be motivated to complete any task.
If you want to increase your productivity, you need to challenge yourself more in the moment to take action and give up on motivation sometimes. Do what you need to in order to get the results you want in the future. Don’t make decisions based on how you feel now, make them based on what result you are really after.
3. Master your mornings
Wake up early and get yourself into the productive mindset with your routine and diet! Productive people start the day with some sort of routine, whether it’s meditation, exercise or visualization, etc. AND they have a healthy breakfast to fuel them for the day. Your health is everything when it comes to productivity, what you eat directly affects your productivity.
We can just no longer ignore the direct connection any more. Get in the right mindset to start your day and fuel your mind and body to get the most out of it. Starting your day off in any other way undermines your success – there is no doubt.
4. Schedule according to energy
Productive people know their energy cycles and they plan tasks around their energy levels. Why plan something at a time when you know it will be hard to rise to the challenge? Schedule tasks that require focus and concentration for those times of day that you feel the best and you will find it’s easier to follow through and you will be at your best to perform. Identify your filler tasks and complete those when your energy drops. Be more realistic when scheduling your tasks and set yourself up for wins.
“Productivity is never an accident it’s the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning & focused effort.” – Paul Meyer
5. Working backwards
Productive people always focus on those activities that will take them to the next level. They plan backwards, they look at their goals, then identify the tasks they need to do to support those goals. Those tasks get broken down into weekly actions. That’s how they plan.
Don’t only plan on tasks that come in or those which you ‘feel’ or ‘think’ you should be doing. Your day needs to consist of at least one activity that directly supports your longer term objectives, your big project. What sounds like common sense is definitely not common practice.
Create the right habits to achieve your goals, work on adopting easy tips and techniques so you can manage your time and yourself better to get things done.
We all have access to the most powerful computer ever created in the universe…our brain. Unfortunately, few of us have ever been taught how to use our minds efficiently, and even fewer have learned how to develop a fabulous memory. Thankfully, like any skill, memorising can be learned and using the correct strategies, your memory can be improved in only days.
One of the best coaches on memory is Dominic O’Brien the eight-time world memory champion. Self-taught after watching Creighton Carvello memorise a pack of cards on the BBC’s Record Breakers programme. Dominic, through his work on memory, has given us many tools and techniques for improving memory.
Below are 5 rules that will help you develop a better memory:
1. The Rule of Five
Probably seen as one of the most significant contributions to the body of knowledge on memory is O’Brien’s Rule of Five. This rule details how to remember things using a strategy of regular staged repetition.
These stages are as follows:
- First Review:Immediately
- Second Review:Twenty-four hours later
- Third Review:One week later
- Fourth Review:One month later
- Fifth Review:Three months later
Utilising stage repetition at these intervals ingrains the memory for the long term.
2. The Dominic System
The Dominic System is a system for remembering numbers. The system is a Person Action system where the association between two sets of paired numbers is the person with the action of the next person.
1139 would become Andre Agassi doing a roundhouse kick which is the action of Chuck Norris. This system combined with the journey method allows for long random numbers to be easily recalled without error. The fantastic thing about this system is that you get to customise for yourself with memorable people and unique actions which when combined really make it easy for you to recall numbers. The table below associates each number to a letter.
Number 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Letter O A B C D E S G H N
Creating a simple document with pairs of numbers in one column, the letter pairs in the next and an action column will help you learn this system quickly.
“Nothing can substitute for just plain hard work. I had to put in the time to get back. And it was a grind. It meant training and sweating every day. But I was completely committed to working out to prove to myself that I still could do it.” – Andre Agassi
3. The Link Method
This method relies on two essential elements of memory, association and exaggeration. Utilising these two elements, it is possible to link together unrelated objects to allow you to remember them.
Trying to remember a list of five separate words such as: balloon, papaya, gold, football and hat, might go something like this. You imagine seeing a giant balloon and inside the balloon you can see a small papaya, in bursting the balloon the papaya falls out and as it hits the floor a gold football bounces into a large sombrero.
4. The Journey Method
Using location has been a fundamental part of mnemonics almost since time began. Before humans, writing elders would pass knowledge to others using stories of journeys, with each piece of knowledge being associated with a location on the journey.
O’Brien’s system utilises journeys that you would undertake on a daily basis, like your commute to work or train stations on well-known line. Items are then associated and exaggerated along the journey, so for instance if you were trying to remember a list of ten random things you would associate each piece along with a unique ten stop journey and utilise exaggeration to make the items more memorable.
“You are well equipped with an incredible potential for absorbing knowledge…Anything’s possible.” – Dominic O’Brien
5. The Story Method
To remember groups of information, create a story that links them together. Remembering the planets of the solar system and their position relative to the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Imagine that Mercury was hitting the nineties as Venus tossed the tennis ball into the air, striking the ball it soared over the net striking the earth and bouncing high into the air, knocking the mars bar out of Jupiter’s hand, and so on.
Developing a good memory will assist markedly in all of your personal development goals as well as assisting greatly in your daily life. The methods above are tried and tested by one of the leading memory champions. Whether you want to become the next World Memory Champion or just improve your recall, the techniques outlined above will assist greatly.
Combining the various elements will create an exponential improvement in your memory that you will find hard to believe, and you will be kicking yourself for not applying them sooner. The best part about using these methods is that they are fun, so enjoy using them.
Which one of these memorizing methods sounds most interesting to you? Share with us below!
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Shunmuga
Nov 24, 2015 at 12:46 pm
Such a wonderful article. After reading this, I came to know that I am also on Autopilot. I should change this mode as soon as possible else I will regret about it later in my life. Each words from this article makes me to think of what I am doing now and how I am going to change it.
Thank you Tyler
Tyler C Beaty
Dec 2, 2015 at 12:11 am
Hi Shunmuga, you’re quite welcome. Thank you for commenting!
I found that writing down the things I need to change in my life helps me follow through and take action. If you haven’t already starting writing down the changes you need to make, start now! You can even share it here in the comments so we can help hold you accountable! 🙂
PRAKASH D
Nov 21, 2015 at 5:40 am
It is realistic. I am facing the same problems what you stated in this article. But i am trying to over come those problems. The great man APJ Abdul kalam once said all youths wants to stay unique, do unique but the society
tries to keep him like others. We have to come over these problems if we want to be stay unique in this society, by reaching our dreams.
Tyler C Beaty
Dec 2, 2015 at 12:12 am
Hi Prakash, I really appreciate your comment. What steps have you taken, or are you take to overcome the problems you’re facing?
Nick Scuderi
Nov 20, 2015 at 2:37 pm
Amazingly true article. Routines are a very dangerous cause they make life easy, but you stay in the same space your whole life. We need to break out and become uncomfortable to move ahead.
Tyler C Beaty
Nov 20, 2015 at 7:55 pm
Thanks for commenting Nick, much appreciated! You’re right, we have to continually get out of our comfort zones to really move ahead and change our lives.