Activation Exercise
If you feel like you would like to change up the relative proportions of crap and wisdom in your daily life, then these prompts may help you!
Exporting Crap
Identify any consumption that is not serving you (can be TV programmes, radio stations, online or paper publications, podcasts, social media feeds). Which of these can you commit to cutting out entirely? Which can you commit to reducing?
What unnecessary noise can you cut out of your day (i.e. radio on automatically in the car, device pings and beeps, smart devices)?
What digital notifications are absolutely necessary? What others can you commit to cutting out?
Identify anyone in your network – friends, family or colleagues – who you find excessively negative or unsupportive. Given that your options are to change, accept or change your view of these situations, identify next steps for each relationship. It could be that changing your perception may help; it could be that you need to have a frank conversation or reduce or eliminate time spent with this person.
Name one mindfulness tool that you will make time for daily in order to achieve more head-space.
Implement a short daily journaling practice. This will help you to both export crap and download wisdom, and it can be as brief as writing down three things you’re grateful for each day, or as open-ended as writing the biggest problem you’re currently facing as a question, and seeing what kind of solutions you can brainstorm on. See the Resource section below for suggestions on how to get started.
Importing Wisdom
Identify five real-life ‘chimps’ and five virtual mentors: people who inspire you and motivate you and from whom you can learn. Keep these people close. Put a date in the diary with your real-life chimps.
Identify a time in your daily routine when you can swap out entertainment for education. Maybe it’s your commute, or while you’re cooking, or your usual TV slot after dinner. Pick your favourite medium (books, audiobooks, podcasts, YouTube) and get stuck in.
Pick one of my suggestions for micro-dosing on wisdom and identify a two-minute time-slot in your day to action it.
Think about the form of wisdom, education or personaldevelopment you most want to absorb right now. Is it cooking? Learning a new language? Overcoming your limiting beliefs? Give yourself the gift of tackling this daily. Our brains love to learn so you’ll be chemically rewarded for investing in yourself!
Resources for Chapter 4
Journaling
You can find my blog post on journaling here. It explores various journaling methods and their benefits.
I highly recommend this Miracle Morning podcast episode with Chip Franks, where he details 10 incredible journaling techniques. You can read my summary of the episode here.
Your Inner Leader
I like this 15-minute meditation for accessing your inner leader.
Books
Awaken The Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Life – Tony Robbins – So packed with valuable insights and actionable practices – it’s an absolute bible
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World– Cal Newport – If you want to achieve a narrower focus and really high quality work, this book is for you
Stress Less, Accomplish More: The 15-Minute Meditation Programme for Extraordinary Performance – Emily Fletcher – A brilliantly practical, non-scary guide to meditation
The Artist’s Way: A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self – Julia Cameron – You don’t need to be an artist to benefit from the beautiful practices that awaken creativity in this book
The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner – Jonathan Levi – How to learn is the meta-skill that drives all other skills
The Universe Has Your Back: How to Feel Safe and Trust Your Life No Matter What – Gabby Bernstein – A wonderful perspective on our links with the universe
Super Attractor – Gabby Bernstein – I love this book so much. Allow Bernstein to show you how to tap into the universal support and wisdom that’s always available to us.
Digital Programmes
The opportunity to learn from the best in the world in any genre, from cooking with Gordon Ramsey to screenplay-writing with Aaron Sorkin.
Please note that this page contains Amazon affiliate links.