What are the things that you can do today? Not tomorrow, not next week. Today, right now.
What are the things that if you would accomplish today would make a big impact on your life? What can you do right now? I recently started to ask myself these questions every day, and they really help me to stay on track.
Some people spend a lot of money to hire a coach that will tell them things that they already know. You already know that you should work on your most important things everyday, that creating something remarkable is better than searching for the quick fix. Yet the reason we hire a coach is that even though we know what we should do, it’s easy for us to forget it. We have so many things to do and remember that it’s often impossible to keep track of the big picture. Or is it?
The job of a personal coach is to help you stay on track so that you can grow your business and personal life. You should definitely hire a coach if you have the opportunity, but you should also know how to be your own personal coach. The main reason is that at the end of the day you can only blame yourself if you didn’t achieve your goals.
So how do you become your own personal coach? The answer is through habits. In my experience coaching works because you exchange money on a regular basis for a specific amount of time with another person. You can’t miss it. Having a regular schedule is what makes the thing work well. It’s unlikely that you’ll see great results with only one or two sessions.
In order to become your personal coach you have to schedule a fixed amount of time each day in which you can critically analyze the areas of your life where you want to grow. For me twenty minutes every morning are enough, but you are encouraged to experiment with other combinations.
What you do in that time is completely up to you, but here’s how a typical session “goes” with myself:
- I quickly review what I did the previous day (I keep a journal of what I do every day).
- I write down the things that I know I have to do today.
- For each area of my life where I want to improve, I ask myself: “What are the things that I can do today that would have a big impact on my life?”. I write down the answers together with my previous list.
- I schedule the things that I’ve written starting from the most important first.
- I start working on them.
For this to work, I highly recommend having a journal of your accomplishments. Think of it as a log of your activities, but where you only write the important things that you did during the day. It also helps to have a list of the areas of your life where you want to work every day. My list consists of work, health/sport, my blogs, study.
What would happen if you would do this every day for the next year?
Posted on July 19 2010
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Life logging works wonders (you already know it), and that’s why I wrote that post almost two months ago: http://www.mostlymaths.net/2010/05/life-bookmarking.html
I am preparing a second post, discussing pros, cons, and learned lessons.
But EVERYONE should be doing what you advocate here!!
Ruben
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Hey Ruben, I remember the post you’re talking about. Thanks for your comment!
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Setting a medium and/or long-term goal also helps.
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That’s for sure, Jen.
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You’re just truly genius.
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It would be great if you could add notification system in your comment section. So, I can read back in email what you just have replied to my comment. Just a suggestion!
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Hey Brang, I’m thinking about adding that. Thanks for the comment and suggestion!
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The first part of your blog reminded me of a sign I have in my office:
Present choices determine future consequences – Today is the only day you can affect – You learn from the past, you plan for the future, but you deal with who you are today – Today is the best day there is.
This has gotten me through many a day…
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That’s a great quote Steve! Thanks for sharing it.
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Your quote reminds me of a nice quote I read somewhere around 10 years ago and google has been so kind as to telling me who said it: Nikos Kazantzakis, a cretan painter:
By the way, Oscar: Are there any formatting options for comments? :)
Ruben
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Not really, but something is accepted.
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Hi Oscar,
What do you think of the GTD?
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I think GTD is ideal if you have a lot of stuff to do. I’m more for focusing on just the most important things, and avoid doing non essential tasks.
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Your blog is always a dose of positive affirmation. A huge fan. Keep doing what you are doing.
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Thanks a lot Renelda! I highly appreciate your comment.
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Great post… I also believe that daily sincere introspection and that inner voice is the real life coach we all have and need.
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This is a great idea – does anyone have a crib sheet? How do you write things down? Do you have different areas/segments of life you comment on?
You mention ‘work, health/sport, my blogs, study.’
Do you have any advice here?
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Hi Justin, I just use a notepad, that’s everything I need. I’ll talk more in future posts about finding what you’re passionate about.
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Great stuff. Still it is not much different from maintaining a “daily to-do list”. Setting goals is not mentioned (unless I missed reading it). With set goals, the direction is clear and the “habits” steered well towards the goal(s).
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