Creating good practices...
Creating practices in your life makes perfect...
...especially when the practices lead to a more productive workflow.
The other day, I was having a chat with an old friend who is itching to ditch her stable, corporate gig and is debating going out on her own.
In addition to the avalanche of questions focused on uncovering my motivation to take the leap, she also asked me about discipline - specifically, “how to you maintain a routine when you work for yourself?”
It’s a great question, because without it, I would be spending the majority of my days sitting on my ass watching ESPN and spacing out.
My answer to her was pretty simple:
Create solid practices in all areas in your life and that will help you with creating healthy, productive habits around the different areas of work related to your business.
A practice is a repeated performance of related activities to acquire or improve skills.
For example, in addition to the gluten-free (minus a few beers a month), sugar-free (minus a few Kind bar treats a couple nights a week) and dairy-free life I live, I also intermittent fast.
Because cutting out everything I used to love to eat isn’t enough, really, lol
Now, when I first started the fasting process, boy, did it suck to force myself to eat my meals within an 8-10 hour window, especially considering that I can work very, very long days that usually involve physical activity.
But, after a week or two, I began to notice that it became much less of a hassle, and now, several months in, it’s simply become a part of my life.
I really enjoy the discipline involved, and I’ve found that the discipline I employ with my diet has leaked into other areas of my life, as well.
In the time that I started intermittent fasting, I’ve dramatically increased my productivity with content creation, improved several, backend business processes, like my accounting, for example, and refined my client onboarding process.
All in all, I’ve experienced an more positive outlook on my life and business.
By creating a healthy habit in one area of my life, it helped spread the positive vibes to other areas of my life, which has translated into creating a series of other healthy practices that have ultimately benefited my overall production level.
Not a bad trade-off for the effort, if you ask me...
After all, the way you approach one thing is the way you approach everything - yes, it is cliche, but, when you live with this in mind, who gives a shit if it’s cliche!
Turning the attention to you...
What practices have contributed to the discipline in your life and business?
PS - For those of you who aren’t in the know, I mail out these blogs 3x a week, and lemme tell you, they’re a real party, so, if you’d like to get in on this, sign up for it here and I’ll throw in a free gift for you...because I care, :)