Now is the perfect time to get prepared for what’s next. If you’re going through a rough transition in life right now, this could be the perfect packaged discomfort to prod you to make a shift in your life to make things better.
If you’re feeling pretty on top of your game and cruising through life right now, maybe now is the time to go to the next places you only imagined. No matter how comfortable or uncomfortable you are, or what the circumstances of your life might be, no matter where you are in the world or what you have done or not done, now is the perfect time to get prepared.
Eric Wood, accomplished podcaster and former NFL player, wrote Tackle What’s Next: Own Your Story, Stack Wins, and Achieve Your Goals in Business and Life to give you some proven tools that will help you prepare for the next, best chapter of your life.
Your day is today, and by following the principles of this book, your what’s next will be your best yet.
Examine Your Gifts
You’re here on earth with a full slate of natural gifts that you’ve used all your life, gifts that will continue to serve you as you get to the next step. To find out what you’re going to do next, you need to begin by examining your gifts. You can do this by answering four questions.
Question 1: What Are You Good at Naturally?
Don’t overthink this. These are things you seem born to do or were born with by luck.
Question 2: What Have You Learned to Do Well?
Sometimes we learn to be very good at something that started as a natural knack or talent and then we honed it into something special.
Question 3: What Do People Who Love You Say Your Gifts Are?
Sometimes your gifts are obvious to everyone but yourself. The people who love you and know you the best are keenly aware of your qualities and attributes.
Question 4: What Are You Resisting?
When we resist certain things, it can be a clue where our head is, and that can tell us where we need to go. Sometimes what we resist is a gift we have to offer the world.
Your Routine
The little things you do every day add up to huge benefits over time. Are you being intentional with your routine? It’s a critical question that can shape your future. If you stick with an unintentional routine, you’ll likely get more of the same.
But if you want to break out and fulfill your goals, you need to switch it up and be intentional, starting with your morning routine. The pandemic has disrupted many people’s routines, leaving them with too little or too much time.
It’s a struggle to be productive without structure, but being intentional can help you make the most of your time and achieve your goals.
Starting Your Day with Wins and Building Momentum
Ever had one of those days when you feel unstoppable–a day you seem to rack up win after win after win, and nothing is slowing you down? Each success seems to fuel the next one, and before you know it, you have an unrestrainable momentum that takes on a life all its own.
In football, we strive for that kind of momentum, and we recognize that feeling on the field when it happens. It’s not any single moment–it’s when one team is successful in several events in a row, which leads the crowd and team to believe that more winning events are about to occur.
Just like in football, our life momentum comes from a series of events stacked up on top of each other over time. When you start racking up wins through your consistent morning routine, you inevitably build positive momentum in your life. That routine you devised set you up for success and is a promise you keep to yourself.
Examine the People You are Spending the Most Time With
To be successful, it’s not only important to watch what you think but also the people you spend time with. Spending time with people who add value to your life can uplift and support you to achieve things you may not have thought possible.
On the other hand, people who influence you negatively can hold you back. Seeking out people with strengths where you have weaknesses can help round you out and contribute to your success. You can create or join groups of people to enhance your learning and upgrade yourself exponentially.
Core values contd.
When we find ourselves in a spot where we don’t feel right, one of the first places to look is whether or not we are aligned with our core values. When you already have a reinforced and clear sense of your core values, it makes being resilient and strong at difficult points so much easier.
It doesn’t stop the storms in life from coming; you’re just better prepared to weather the storm.
Control What You Can Control
The best of the best prepare their mind and body, and they do it every day. Preparation processes can be seemingly mundane process goals that make up a more significant overall product goal.
For example, preparing your clothes the night before, planning meals and prepping supplements for the week, and preparing for the day with your morning routine are all ways to make you as prepared as possible. Control the elements that you can control every day.
The hardest part about preparing is that it takes intentionality and willingness to change. And let’s admit it, change is hard for a lot of people. You win success on a daily basis by what you do every day.
Once you can create the proper habits that prepare you every day for success, you can evolve to where it doesn’t take the same kind of willpower each day to prepare. It becomes second nature.
Get into a Routine that Sets You Up for Success
You are creating your future by the things you do every day. Your morning routine is where the rubber hits the road.
If you have a particular vision about what you want from life, how are you putting that into practice today and every day?
The truth is you already have a morning routine. Most of the time, you do the same things every morning and then later into the day.
So the question then becomes–is your routine intentional? Is it supporting your future? Or is your routine just something that you do every day without really thinking about it?
What to do in the morning?
- Gratitude practice: actively recognizing things you are grateful for in your life.
- Morning reading: reading self-development material or nonfiction to feed the mind with positive content.
- Extended moment of silence: meditation, breathing exercises, silent reflection, prayer, or time away from screens and devices to quiet the mind.
- Some kind of exercise: swimming, running, lifting, yoga, or tai-chi to get the blood pumping and connect with the body.
The combination of gratitude, morning reading, exercise, and silent reflection helps people take control of their morning and start the day intentionally, rather than in a frantic state reacting to external stimuli.
Visualization works!
Visualization exercises can help individuals achieve their goals in both sports and life.
The Buffalo Bills NFL team hired a performance coach to introduce these exercises to their training. Visualizing actions can provide similar benefits to actually performing them, and adopting a positive perspective is important. Negative thoughts can be taxing on the mind and body. Thoughts become actions, which become habits, and create an individual’s future.
Therefore, it is crucial to intentionally create positive thoughts to shape one’s reality. Visualization can provide benefits such as increased calmness and better decision-making. Individuals must actively create their future to avoid undesired outcomes.
Examine Your Core Values
Ever had that uneasy feeling that you are totally off course? You know you’re headed in the wrong direction, and maybe you’re not even sure how you know that. But you feel it deep in your gut, and that uncomfortable feeling tells you something needs to change.
Compare that to the opposite feeling, when everything seems right. You feel like you have the wind at your back and you’re sailing in the right direction. You may have challenges that come up. However, you feel you are entirely equipped to handle them.
The difference between these two vastly different feelings goes to the very essence of your own core values and whether you live your life aligned with them.
Fill Your Mind with What You Want to Show Up in Your Life
- Deliberately choose positive thoughts that spark growth to be successful in all areas of life
- Thoughts become behavior, behavior becomes actions, and actions become the future
- To harness the power of the mind, discipline is required to steer it
- Negative self-talk are self-limiting beliefs that can be replaced with more productive beliefs
- Filling the mind with positive thoughts can lead to positive outcomes in life.
