Adam Decker

Want to Wake Up with Energy? Plan Something You’re Exited to Wake Up For

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I am a morning person.

You have no idea how weird it is to say that. I’ve never been a morning person. I’ve always been the one who stays up as late as he can, just to read the book, play the game, surf the web, or just stay awake a few minutes longer. No longer. So, how did I do it?

Think back to the last time you woke up excited and ready to go. Was it the morning of a vacation trip? A birthday? Was it back as a child waiting for Christmas morning when you couldn’t bear the excitement of waiting a moment longer?

We wake up energized when we are excited for what happens in the morning. It’s as simple as that.

The thing that helped me realize this was a book my coach, Jodi Phillips, recommended I read. It’s called The Miracle Morning.

The Miracle Morning takes 6 of the best self-development practices and starts your morning with all of them. A typical morning looks like this:

  • 5 Minutes Meditating
  • 5 Minutes of Affirmations
  • 5 Minutes Visualizing Goals
  • 10-20 Minutes Exercising
  • 5-15 Minutes Reading
  • 5-10 Minutes Writing

Most folks will do one or two of these a day. Beginning your day with all 6 super-charges your morning and puts you in a fantastic growth mindset.

Try it once. Set your intention the night before or you won’t have the energy. What goals will you visualize? What will you read and write?

If you don’t want to wake up an hour early (it’s really not that hard once you experience how awesome this day is) then do half an hour or even just 6 minutes. One minute for each activity.

Personalize it. Don’t do these activities just because I said so. Take a personal development practice that matters to you and do that. I’ve added working memory exercises and a strategy game called Tak to many of my mornings. Make it yours.

I’m a morning person. So are you.

How to Achieve Your Goals

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Over the last few days, I’ve given what I’ve learned from the first 4 books in a crash course on entrepreneurship my mentor had me read last fall. These four, The 10X Rule, Think and Grow Rich, The Compound Effect, and The One Thing, are all focused around actions and mindsets I need to have in order to reach the goals I set for myself.

Before I read them, he let me know that the books could combine into a bigger picture. Each one was powerful, but if they were combined, they would be incredible. After I finished reading The One Thing, I saw what he meant.

The 10X Rule tells you to multiply your goals, your expected needed effort, and your actions to reach your goals by 10. Think and Grow Rich tells you to imagine your goals so vividly that it already feels real, and have a plan to add value either with that money or for that money. The Compound Effect teaches that if you do something every day, the effects from it will gather and increase like compound interest. The One Thing Teaches you to ask “what’s the one thing I can do, such that by doing it, everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?”

Now take all of those lessons and apply them to a single objective. What is your goal? Now multiply it by ten. Do it again. How much effort/actions will it take to reach that goal? Multiply that by ten. Visualize yourself already having achieved your goal. Touch it, smell it, see it, live it. What good are you going to do with it or for it? Visualize that. Ask yourself what the most effective single action towards accomplishing your goal is. Now do that every single day.

It’s not easy. It requires a lot of thought, soul searching, and planning. But if you do it, really, truly do it, you’ll actually achieve what you intend to. It won’t be fast and it won’t be easy, but you will achieve your goal, unlike 90% of people who set out.

Interest on Life: The Compound Effect

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Of all of the books I read in my crash course, I think this was probably the simplest and most modest in its goals. It made no grand promises  like The 10X Rule or Think and Grow Rich, or remarkable insights on human psychology like many of the other books I read after it.

What The Compound Effect invites its readers to do is very simple. Do something every day towards one of your goals. The effect of doing small things towards our goals will compound over time in the same way that money increases with compound interest.

A man’s life can vary widely based on a few simple choices that he makes every day. The example given in the book is about two men from very similar backgrounds. One decides to buy a new TV and watch the cooking channel after work, while the other chooses to listen to an educational book or podcast on the way to and from work.

While the first man’s days are filled with images of good food, the other’s are filled with great ideas about many aspects of life. Each of these actions by themselves won’t change their lives, but by being around these influences for a prolonged time, their actions will start to change.

The man who watches the food channel may start thinking about eating nicer food, so might buy a grill or start experimenting with new and fancy recipes. The man listening to podcasts and books might start walking around his neighborhood every day. Then these new actions, compounded, wind up with the first man overweight and the second lean, fit, and doing well at his workplace.

I read an article today by Grant Cardone, the author of The 10X Rule. He challenged the adage that says “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” He said that this is not true.

“You are the average of the 5 actions you do every day.”

What are your actions?

My main action? Listening to books. Books like this one, like the other’s I’ve written about and the ones I’m going to write about. I’m far from perfect for doing it every single day, but I am consistent, and I keep coming back when I fall down.

That’s so weird to me that I just wrote that down. I’ve only kept a habit for longer than 6 weeks a handful of times in my life, and most of those eventually stopped with a life change such as moving. I have been consistently reading for over a year, and I’m not going to stop. I say that with wonder, because that would never have happened before. Holy cow.

What’s even cooler is how I see that habit shaping my life, even over a single year. My Etsy shop would not have existed without it. The other projects I’ve attempted would not have been. This habit leads me to try new things over and over again until I find what works. That is the real magic of this book I think.

In a way, that makes it the most powerful one I’ve read.