A New Way to Start the Day

In Fort Wayne this morning, it is dreary, rainy, slippery, and will only get worse. Then when I got to work and started opening emails, I found this from the DLM Blog:

7 Simple Ways To Burst Out of Bed Each Morning

Posted: 23 Nov 2008 05:59 AM PST

Way before the sun peeks over the horizon, a few chosen people awaken from their slumber and dive head first into their day. These chosen few accomplish a ton before the rest of us would ever consider rising from our nice warm beds.

Who are these juggernauts that have command over the morning hours?

In theory, your productivity level shouldn't differ if you rise at 4am or 11am. What matters is the quality of sleep that's giving your mind and body sufficient time to recover.

These early rising juggernauts, these unstoppable agents of productivity, they see things differently. They see these early hours as their chance to lay claim to their share of the day. They rise with purpose, act with determination, and achieve ruthlessly.

The sun has not caught me in bed in fifty years. - Thomas Jefferson

The world is in awe of these special people, so let's take a look at what pops them out of bed like a toaster strudel and what gets them up, sometimes before the alarm!

1. Appointment With Waking: The harsh truth about the human body is that we're creatures of habit. In some ways this can be extremely inconvenient when trying to take on new things. However, if we allow ourselves to live within the rules of our body's natural cycle, which is a 24-hour circadian rhythm, we will be pleased with the body's functionality.
   
   This means that when you find a waking hour that will work best for you each day of the week, you should stick to it. This will allow your body to want to support you in your endeavor of waking up, and rise you out of bed feeling fresh as a daisy.
   


2. The King and The Pauper Way Of Eating: The way our bodies function optimally is if we eat like a king in the morning and a pauper in the evening. This means that it's best to eat heavier, bigger portions in the morning because these meals will give us high energy throughout the day and then burn off.
   
   Eating like a pauper, meaning small light meals, in the evening allows us to go to sleep on an empty stomach. If your body is functioning normally, and you don't have stomach ulcers, going to sleep on a mostly empty stomach will allow you to sleep better. This nightly fast allows your body to take it's focus away from digestion and put it towards repair and rejuvenation of the body's cells.
   


3. Living With Purpose: Young children will do anything to avoid going to sleep at night. These same children are also the ones that can't wait to get out of bed first thing in the world. The simple reason for this non-lazy behavior is that they don't want to miss a thing.
   
   As adults we may need more persuasion than 'not wanting to miss a thing'. This is why we take extra steps in creating fun, life changing goals, and scheduling specific ways of how we'll get a step closer to these goals during this coming day. What we all need is not necessary a cause we're willing to die for, but at least a cause we're willing to LIVE for.


4. Plan Your Day: We can say we're going to live with purpose, but unless we plan, we can tell ourselves that we'll start living with purpose next week, or the week after that. Planning is one of the fundamental ways to maximize your mind to achieve your goals, and as such it plays a critical role in allowing us to have an awesome day, everyday. We need not do more than take 15 minutes the night before to succinctly organize the next days schedule.
   
   A schedule complete with waking time, most important things of the day, eating and recreational allowances. Having a tight schedule allows me to live out my day with definitive purpose, while getting more done, having more fun, and not wasting precious moments of my life.
   

   “Happy people plan actions, they don't plan results” - Dennis Wholey
   

5. The Water Hack: A bit of water before bed and half a liter as soon as you get up. The water before bed will serve in the rejuvenation process we mentioned above. While you sleep all your cells will fill up with this fresh water and create an over all well being within your body.
   
   The water in the morning does two things. One is it provides your first dose of water to get your mind and body going. Another function, as told to me by my endocrinology teacher (a very qualified person to say this), is that a dose of water in the morning triggers a cascade of physiological functions that engages your digestive system and causes you to excrete feces. You'll feel nice and light first thing in the morning!


6. Work That Body: In number 1 above I mentioned that our bodies adapt around a 24-hour circadian rhythm. This works for sleep, eating, exercise, and many other bodily functions. We're a pretty efficient physiological machine when you think about it. This is why getting a dose of exercise is optimal in the morning. It gets the blood flowing and stimulates you to function on a higher level.
   

   "Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness." - Edward Stanley

   Once you're used to this routine, your body will prepare by providing you with high energy before you start to work out. As you can see, if you wake up with this high energy, you're going to just pop out of bed.
   


7. Have 'Me' Time: No morning is completely satisfying unless you've scheduled in some 'Me' time. Whether you enjoy meditating to clear you mind and give you laser sharp focus, or reading to gain some new knowledge about the world, make sure you schedule in this time.
   
   There may very a variety of things you enjoy doing, so this will be custom tailored to the individual. The point is that when you have something you REALLY enjoy doing right when you get up, you won't be able to wait until that alarm goes off till you jump out of bed and get to it!

See, that's all it takes! Try it for a couple weeks, get used to it, and soon you'll be relishing sunrises like this:

Written by Alex Shalman who is the author of How to Get a Girlfriend and Practical Personal Development Blog and Podcast.

Photo Credit: ohsoabnormal

~~Great Free eBook written by a friend, Jonathan Fields~~

With everyone focusing so much on the negative side of the economic meltdown, there a massive opportunity that’s being missed. It’s not scammy, it’s not about capitalizing on people’s misfortune or cashing in on a on trend. It’s real, it’s deep and if you tap it, it will change the way you work and live. It’s all laid out in the revolutionary Fire Fly Manifesto

Tonights Video: Car Ride

My Daughter Rachael and her guy Brandon do something like this during the warmer months.

New Years Prep

If one of your resolutions for 2010 is a career change, don't wait, start now with these tips from the DLM Blog:

5 Steps to Creating a Killer Career Plan

Posted: 18 Nov 2008 01:36 PM PST

How many people out there are unhappy with their careers? Many people don't even consider themselves as having "careers" per se, they just have jobs.

For many people, their career or job feels more like it picked them rather than the other way around. Have you ever looked back on your time working at your career/job and wondered how so much time got away from you and why you didn't make a change yet?

Life is too short to work at a job in which you are unhappy. Most people stay in their current jobs because it is comfortable and they are probably comfortable with their duties and responsibilities. Nothing new to learn, you have it all figured out right?

Well what most people don't think about is that the seemingly secure, dependable job you have could be terminated tomorrow. Some people have mandated job security, like tenure with teachers. But the overwhelming majority of us could be fired from our jobs tomorrow. So don't keep working at a job you don't like because you feel some false sense of security. Go do what you enjoy, because that job security you feel is most likely misplaced.

Follow these steps to find the career make you feel fulfilled.

1. Create A Fake Advertisement About Yourself
   If you had to write a five sentence advertisement about yourself highlighting your best attributes, what would it look like? What would you say? Stop wondering. Sit down and do it. Write out 3-5 sentences describing your best work related attributes that an employer would be most interested in.
   
   This exercise takes some real, honest self analysis. Truly look at your work ethic and marketable skills and try to put them in the best possible light. Once you are satisfied with your description for your ad, sit and think about how you might like to improve the description of yourself. What would be some great attributes to have? What could you do to improve yourself so that your ad seems more appealing?
   
   Now that you have done your self analysis and created an honest, positive advertisement for yourself, and also identified goals to improve your self description, it's time to make your advertisement for some far off date in the future. Pick a time period within which you seek to accomplish your career goals. I recommend at least five years, but it could be ten or twenty, it is up to you. Envision what you would like to accomplish in that time period and the skills you would have to possess in order to accomplish those things. What attributes would you need to possess in order to reach such goals? What experiences would you have to list in a description of yourself?
   
   Remember, you are selling yourself, so be optimistic and positive about what you can accomplish in the time period you have set for yourself. Look at the advertisement for the future and picture how you can accomplish those goals and gain those attributes and experiences. Once you identify who you want to be in the future, you can start taking the steps to get there.


2. Share Your Advertisement
   Creating a career plan is really about pleasing yourself and making sure that you are working on a career that makes you happy. At the end of the day, YOU need to feel fulfilled. Do not make a career plan you think will make other people happy, make one that will make YOU happy. However, a little feedback can be a positive thing.
   
   Share your plan with someone you trust. Tell them you are thinking about your long term career goals and that you have created a description of your future self that you hope to achieve through self development. That person may see some holes in your description, or an area you may not have considered. Many times, a second set of eyes can really help open up a different perspective on self analysis and goal setting.
   
   
3. Develop A Plan
   Creating a future advertisement for yourself does little good without taking steps to become that person. You need to chart out a plan for meeting each specific attribute you listed for your future self. If you want more experience in a certain field, consider volunteering on a small scale to get your foot in the door until you can get a paid position. If your future self requires more education to reach your goals, check out the courses offered in your area that may lead you down the path to your future ideal self.
   
   This could be a time consuming process filled with research and leg work. Plus, it is not as fun as sitting and writing down a description of who you would like to be. That exercise is filled with wonderment and positivity. Developing a plan is tough leg work. However, a future description of yourself without a plan to get there is useless. Getting to be the person you want to be and the career you strive for will be hard work. Don't let anyone fool you into believing anything else. But at least you will have the good feeling of knowing you are starting to set the wheels in motion to become your future ideal self.
   
   The point here is that you need to make a plan to achieve specific goals that will build on one another and eventually culminate in you becoming the embodiment of the person you described in your future self advertisement.
   


4. Take Action
   Now that you have a plan to become that person you described in your future ad, you need to begin implementing the steps you laid out in your plan. Set aside a time period every week where you can sit down with your future self ad and your plan to evaluate what you have done to reach your goal and carry out your plan. Congratulate yourself on steps you have taken, and be brutally honest if you have not done much of anything constructive to meet your goals.
   
   This is a self evaluation exercise, but it does not end with the descriptions of yourself in your present and future advertisements. Self evaluation throughout the process is essential to ensure you are continuing to take steps to meet your career goals and to maintain the motivation you need to make any of the big changes in yourself you need in order to become that future person you described.
   


5. Visualize
   The last step here involves visualizing what you will be like in the future, after you have become that future person you described. Think about the happiness and fulfillment that will result from you working at a career you love. What will that bring with it? Make sure you think about the payoffs and why you want to be that person. I suggest doing this at the end of your weekly session to evaluate how you have implemented your plan.
   
   Visualization will help you to maintain motivation to become that future person and create that career you seek. Many times with these type of goals setting exercises, people start out strong, but then fade when the motivation wanes. Visualizing the greatness and positivity that will result from you meeting your goals, carrying out your plan, and becoming that person you seek to be will help maintain your motivation you need to carry you to the end of your journey.

Written on 11/18/2008 by Mike S. Mike writes about personal development for intellectual thinkers at his website at his website mikesalara.com

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