5 MORNING ROUTINES TO WIN THE DAY

Tim Ferris, author of ‘the 4-hour Workweek’, has his 5 favorite morning hacks to maximize his productivity. As per Tim, positive momentum and a distraction-less start of your day don't come naturally, rather it’s manually earned every day by following a strict routine. After Interviewing hundreds of ultra-successful people, from the famous chess prodigies to athletes to billionaires – he has picked the common denominator out of all and made a list of his top 5 routines.

Out of his top five routines, he claims that even if he gets to three routines per morning – he wins. And as the famous saying goes, “if you win the morning, you win the day”.

Tim Ferris is an efficient all-rounder – he fluently speaks 5 languages, is a national Chinese kickboxing champion, holds a world record in Tango and is a best-selling author. That’s a big list for a single man – and getting demotivated from a long list of someone else’s achievement is not the point. Rather, it is a proof that the only thing that’s stopping us from succeeding in any field is our mental limitations, and Tim has a way out.

There is a lot we can learn from Tim, and his belief that single individual can achieve greatness, and with a right set of mind – can reach the pinnacle of his field. So, let’s get started.

Top 5 Morning routines

5. Make your bed

It might sound like an unimportant ritual, but it gives one a sense of control at the very beginning of the day. It’s a form of strategy that helps you to deal the intangibles and curveballs that life throws at you. No matter how complex your day is planned ahead – you can always make your bed and straighten at least one thing.

4. Meditate

He states, ‘more than 80% of the world class performers I’ve interviewed practice one form or the other of mindfulness’. As per Tim, there are few who go to Headspace, few who opt for guided meditation, and others who stick to traditional meditation techniques.   

3. Do Pushups

Tim says, doing any kind of physical exercise first thing in the morning helps you to stay prime, and wake your complete body at a go. He prefers to do the pushups, but he recommends any kind of exercise – sit-ups, lunges, and squats. Doing so quiets ones’ mental chatter and effects the mood dramatically.  

2.  Hydrate yourself

You need to water yourself and take out the dryness of the entire last night. He recommends titanium tea which is one teaspoon of turmeric, some ginger shaving and a teaspoon each of black tea and dragon tea. He recommends it for excellent cognition and weight loss. He personally prefers it with a glass of cold water, but even warm water would do the same trick.   

1. Write a Journal

The most important trick in his list is to write a journal for whatever is going in your head. You can plan your day or prioritize things or just express gratitude for the various labels in your life. When Tim writes his journal, he broadly considers four categories; opportunity for the day, some small goals, yesterday’s achievements and relationships.  

Are you jealous of other’s success?

How do you feel when your best friend bags a promotion, or for that matter, if he gets into a happy relationship? Don’t you often brush off these type of news with a shallow statement – perhaps saying – ‘it’s never going to last’.

We all acknowledge that jealousy at its core is a form of protective shield. It exists to give us a defense mechanism against all types of the successes of other people – that might, in various cases, demoralize us. We often mourn to our peer’s victory, often refuse them with a superficial tag, protecting our ego, screaming;’ I am a much better person than everyone else’. We don’t necessarily put that out loud – but most of us religiously believe in that statement.  We believe that our adversity is this temporary phase which will vanish as soon we want them to vanish. We all with our inner beings agree – that we’re and everything about us – is in control.

According to one study – it’s hard not to hate people around us – especially people that we grew up with; our friends, siblings, co-workers, spouse – merely to be just okay with this socially ranking based society. Certainly, this comparison trap swallows us – changes our perception and judgments. While jealousy is a natural response to so many adversities of life – it’s not necessarily beneficial and healthy.

Courtesy: AK Mishra Library

Don’t mix exteriors to interiors

In this social networking world, it’s easier than ever before to fall for complaints. In our terrible lives, we often complain about how other’s success looks completely unachievable. We always try to believe we’re fixed beings and there are differences that we often get confused about – but the evident truth is we’re a constantly changing species and we evolve every day with our every new experience.

We often ignore people’s journey to their success and regard it as pure dumb luck, effortless or unearned. We often fall prey to over-simplification and reactive thinking, for a simple reason because it’s easier to pass comments than to ask tougher questions to ourselves; How does their success relate to my own values?, or What do I admire about their story?, or What have they done to get that? When we introspect and try to answer these questions – we reflect, and immediately come out of the comparing trap and turn inwards to face our own desires and fears.

It’s not a secret that envy and admiration are the reactions to what we value the most. If we somehow align ourselves with what we value – we’re much inclined to a richly satisfying life. We should use other’s success as a mirror to our life – and that’s a critical key to most of our life’s hardships.

How to minimize your jealousy?

Avoid comparisons

Acknowledge that everyone around you is on a different track of life and all of them have their own set of weaknesses and strengths. We should also accept that these things that limit us don’t completely define us. 

Accept

We should all admit jealousy as our natural reaction to other’s success. We should be completely honest and put aside our bruised ego whenever we face things we wish we could do. And most importantly, we should accept ourselves completely to recognize our true potential and uniqueness we are endowed with.

Reframe Jealousy into Inspiration

The same emotion that fuels jealousy can be used for motivations and inspirations to accomplish something for you. Instead of downplaying other successes, you should ask yourself if you aren’t capable of what someone else has done already. You should think, more usual than often – If they can do – I can do it too.

Compliment

Make it a habit of complimenting people on their achievements. Celebrate all the success stories and rather to resent on what did not work for you – celebrate the possibility of it. It’s a lot lesser stressful and at the same time – healthier.

Reflect on your jealousy pattern

Learn how to figure out a pattern of the areas around which you find your jealousy, and those would be the valuable signs of your life to show where in life you need to put more focus in. 

Do you think your jealousy is holding you back from tapping your full potential? Comment below to let us know about your concerns and we’d help you to handle it progressively.

Is your Job fulfilling and meaningful?

The idea that the work should be fulfilling rather than its obvious nature of necessity for survival is quite a new concept. The first requirement of any job is to pay -- and then the secondary requirements, as important as money but less recognized – like it should have a meaning, should help other people, should make a change in the society. But how many people can actually raise and say that they have these attributes?

If we dwell ourselves into the dictionaries of past – say pre-1900, the word ‘fulfillment’ doesn’t even appear. In this modern world, we don’t just expect money from our labor but, we also— to our lesser or greater extent expect meaning and satisfaction. It’s evidently too much to ask and gives us a clear reason why there are so many people having a career crisis.

 What does it mean to have a fulfilling or meaningful job?

Seemingly, to feel a job is fulfilling and meaningful, a job should have following attributes in it;

1.    It should tap the most talented part of us.

2.    It should help other people.

3.    It impacts the society and makes a difference.

4.   It should make a great contribution towards fulfilling the organizational goal

Often on the Sunday night after the sun is set – we think about where our job is taking us – if it’s giving us any value and meaning at all. And it’s surprising to acknowledge that you’re not alone – almost all of us have that anxiety.

Courtesy: AK Mishra Library

It’s perfectly normal to be confused about your career choice

Before the industrial revolution – there were about 200 trades out there, which over time have stretched to half of a million. The result, we get so anxious to make a right choice – we don’t make any choice at all.

Knowing yourself helps

For knowing what to do with your life is a complicated calling and almost all of us are never confident even if we think we know what it is. It’s not to say that we don’t have a taste rather it’s the lack of clarity.

Thinking a lot clears the dust

If you think making a decision to buy a new house takes months of research – then picking a right career is indeed a result of a long-term thinking. We shouldn’t feel guilty about taking time – but seeing the long term result – to spend a life doing something worth and provide it time with generosity.

Try something new

I wouldn’t recommend you to sit on a bed and contemplate your inner-self to find the right choice. Rather the recommended process is to go out and collide with the society and find out a series of things that doesn’t match with you. Only through that - a continuous friction, you’ll be able to find a right choice.

Be confident

Our immediate world is surrounded by the self-help books that help us understand the importance of confidence. There are too many pieces of advice which after a sincere moment looks so mundane. But, the truth is – confident does make a difference in the real capitalist society and there are always opportunities to grab if you’re confident enough to ask for them.

Why is it so hard to find a fulfilling and meaningful job?

We all feel that our work is a big scam that does give us money but at the same time, takes all our precious time. While there are many factors we can blame that doesn’t let us reach our ultimate goals – there are three factors that stand out.

1.    No one tells us our authentic working identity

Through our universities and society – we’re prepared for any job rather than a particular type, the one that suits your talent and interests. We’re often our best at work when we deeply believe in the work that we do.

Courtesy: AK Mishra Library

2.    Working for something that actually makes a difference

In today’s modern world – it’s very easy to pack a product in a shiny wrap that at the end of the day adds no value to a customer's life. You might already be working for such a brand for money – but at the end – it’s really hard to derive any meaning out of these jobs.

3.    Tangible results

You might be working on something huge and it might feel like – if things go the way they’re going – it might change the world entirely by 2025. Looking at the timeline – it might get stressful, full of hopelessness accompanied with doubts and this happens essentially because there are no real immediate results, nothing tangible and that can sadly take out the core meaning out of your whole picture.

We live in a society where working in a bigger organization is appreciated, but often, it loses meaning because of the above reasons.  We often move out to work in smaller organizations with much real by-product and that often is enough to give us meaning.

What can you do to make job fulfilling and meaningful?

Fulfillment is felt when you establish the love for what you do, and you establish that love when you keep yourself distraction, stress and most importantly monotony free. Simply put, to actually feel that connection and bring love for your work, you ought to try something new every day.  Try to learn something new, see beyond the projects you’ve been doing since long, and try to find out something new; maybe new ideas that can make an organization grow. Try something that taps your innermost talent, and if you cannot really add that in your job, try to do that in your spare time; may be at office itself or at home, but do something what you love; because this actually brings contentment and increase your productive thinking capacity which can help you add more value to your organization with your work.