Night owls, listen up! Wake up with a bang in the wee hours. But if you can’t stomach a 6 AM rise and shine, no worries. There are plenty of tips below to double your success.
I once was a night owl. Not anymore.
When I worked eleven-hour days, I felt charged. I’d wake up at 6 AM, train in the gym, shower, clean, and rush to work. Then I’d come home and train in the gym again. After that, I’d go to sleep by 8:30 PM. I felt on fire.
Waking up early changes your life. Early birds who make their beds first thing start the day with an achievement. Even Navy Seals urge you to make your bed as soon as you wake up. But I say, wake up early, rush to the gym, and then make your bed. Now that’s accomplishment!
Early morning, you have no distractions. No need to worry about looking like a Lulu Lemon Goddess in an empty gym. You finish chores first thing, not guiltily mulling them over the entire day. And early morning achievements boost your confidence, snowballing even bigger accomplishments ahead.
On the flipside, the less active your life grows, the more you dwell. An idle mind is the devil’s playground, isn’t it? One friend led a stagnant life. She said she needed more stress. She craved the distractions from petty worries—and she longed for the hardships that come with trying new things. Yes, to do anything worthwhile, you must go through some suffering, says author Michael Mackintsoh.
I wouldn’t want to relive my undergrad experience. Tormented by peers, I went through depression, crying every day. But I hung in there and wound up with the silver medallion and a graduate degree. If you hang in there long enough, you end up with the promotions, the degrees, the trophies, the medallions, and tenure.
Double your success with tips from Michael Mackintosh in his book Get It Done: The 21-Day Mind Hack System to Double Your Productivity and Finish What You Start:
- Do more than double your success: “I believe you can be at least 2-16 times more successful than you currently are” (location 55, 2%).
- If we slack off, we feel it: “Every day that we put off doing what we need to do and live below our potential, we die a little” (location 4, 7%).
- To achieve anything worthwhile, we suffer: “Life isn’t easy, and, one way or another, we’re going to feel at least some degree of discomfort or pain …. No matter how successful we are, or how much money we have, we’ll all experience some kind of pain in our lives” (location 5, 7%).
- Our best suffering leads to rewards: “A meaningful life of authentic suffering … leads to joy, freedom, wealth, love, and deep satisfaction” (location 8, 9%).
- Focus on the tasks with the biggest rewards: “The 80/20 rule says that just a few things in life matter a lot while the rest is essentially pointless and trivial” (location 15, 12%).
- Drop the time wasters: “Right now, 80% of what you do is a waste of time and can be removed or dramatically reduced” (location 19, 15%).
- Beware perfectionism—it slows you down: “It takes exponentially more work, time, and effort as you approach perfection while working on a task. That means, the longer you work to make something ‘just right,’ the longer you have to keep working to improve it just a little bit” (location 23, 16%).
- But sometimes perfectionism makes sense: “The key is to know when you need to make something good enough, and when you need to go the extra mile to create something truly great” (location 24, 16%).
- And learn the secret of focus: “Remember the classic acronym—FOCUS: Follow … One … Course … Until … Successful … Focus on completing one project at a time” (location 48, 29%).
- Most of all, share your gifts: “Souls are calling out for support in so many different ways. Some of them are calling out to you, yes YOU personally. They need YOU. They need you to serve them and teach them how to swim” (location 52, 30%).
Sometimes our successes seem small. And, wow, do we suffer to gain those wins. But each win—and each loss—fuels our growth. Yet, we grow the most when we share our wins with others.
