Faith Venture

My recent reading has led to a couple of lists of daily habits of successful people. I like lists. I make lists.

This list came from Richard Koch in his book The 80/20 Principle that I touched on yesterday. These are seven things he tries to do every day.

• Exercise
• Mental Stimulation
• Spiritual/Artistic stimulation/meditation
• Doing a good turn
• Taking a pleasure break with a friend
• Giving yourself a treat
• Congratulating yourself (at the end of the day)

These are actually common among successful people however you wish to define success.

Get the body moving, get the brain going, get in touch with your soul and God, do something good for someone during the day even just a random act of kindness, evaluating your day (Benjamin Franklin liked to begin the day with “what good shall I do today” and finish with a reflection “what good did I do today”.)

I liked Koch’s idea of a “pleasure break”–maybe a coffee or even a phone call. Sometimes we forget about ourselves. Get outside for a bit. Or allow yourself a scoop of ice cream.

The key is to be intentional about your day. Avoid just getting out of bed and drifting from one crisis or annoyance to the next. Avoid the things that get your negative emotions agitated.

And when the day is done, you can look back and say to yourself, “I’ve contributed today. Good!”

This entry was posted on October 15, 2020 at 8:05 am and is filed under Disciplines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.