What Do You Do in The 1st 30 Minutes After Waking Up?

1st 30 minv2

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up? Do you grab your phone to scroll through emails, Whatsapp messages, Instagram or Facebook likes/comments/posts etc. that came through the night? Do you realize that this robs you of the opportunity to take control of your day? Unknowingly, those scrolls end up making someone else’s priority jump in front of yours! Perhaps you had planned to go to the gym/run/do your devotion/work on your personal project/that item on your list of goals for the year, but somehow you get preoccupied with other people’s agenda that your agenda ends up being pushed to the sidelines. You’ve got to find time to put yourself first before checking in with the rest of the world and clouding your brain with other people’s “stuff”!

But your phone is buzzing with juicy notifications waiting to be read, you’ll say! How can you resist the urge? Well, the following has really worked for me:

1. When I go to bed, I put my phone on airplane mode to remove all distractions. I only put it back on after I am done with my “me-time” in the morning. It may be hard initially but with time, it becomes second nature.

2. I then do these 5 things when I wake up which help me take control of my day:

1st, I write down 3 things I am grateful for.
2nd, I recall one positive experience I had over the past 24 hours and journal it. I expound more these two in my blogpost Are You Counting Your Blessings?
3rd, I think through and write 2 things I want to accomplish today to help me accomplish my goal and why. I basically ask myself: “What are 2 things that matter to me that I must absolutely work on today?” I break them down into:
– 2 personal ones and
– 2 work ones.
These are the primary things I purpose to focus on for the day. It is absolutely refreshing to look back the next day and tick off these items. Are there days when I don’t accomplish all the items on my list? Oh yes! I however make sure I accomplish most of them and put what I didn’t accomplish in my list the next day(s).
4th, I ask myself “What 3 items would I like to pray for today?” The beauty of recording your prayer items is it helps you retain evidence of requests God has been faithful in answering over the years lest you forget what God has done for you! This is particularly useful in those seasons when you find yourself complaining God is not answering your prayers. When you look back, you will realize He has been faithfully answering many of them along the way.
Lastly, I spend some time doing my devotion/reading the word of God and a chapter/a few pages of a book. This year, I have been using The 365 Day Daily Devotional by Dean Ivey and it has been great! Looking forward to finishing going through the Bible by the end of the year. You can also download the “Bible In One Year” app which I have used in the past and is free of charge!

“When you develop the habit of finding 30 minutes for yourself first thing in the morning to work on things that matter you, it creates a chain of events that are mind blowing”, says Mel Robbins, in Chapter 10 of her book The 5 Second Rule. I completely agree with her! It’s a game changer. Give it a shot and see for yourself!

Until next time,
Happy taking control of your mornings!

If you enjoyed this post, kindly rate it by clicking on the 5 stars below:

For more invaluable insights on my journey of marriage and life, do pop into the “Devotions/Life Insights” section on my blog every now and then.

You can also pop into the “DeeLicious Gourmet by Dee” section for a glimpse of some of the yummy but healthy dishes I have prepared while “cooking up a storm” in my kitchen (together with the recipes):
– Breakfasts
– Starters
– Main Courses
– Salads
– Eggless, Wheat-Free Desserts
– Snacks

Photo credits: Shizphotography

Thank you!
Dee

Is a Habit Really Formed in 21 Days?

Is a habit formed in 21 days

For almost 3 decades of my life, I could not stand the taste of water! It was not pleasurable at all! I instead used to drink up to 1 litre of juice everyday. To try and avoid judgement, I would go for the freshly squeezed ones and convince myself that they were healthy! Given that it takes 13-15 oranges to produce 1 litre of orange juice, that mere statistic should have been enough to convince me that I was injecting way too much sugar into my system. However, it wasn’t. Even my husband couldn’t convince me to reduce my juice intake. When he expressed genuine concerns about how it could possibly affect my health negatively in the long run, I told him to pray to God that it wouldn’t! How ridiculous was that? It’s amazing the things we can say when we don’t want to give up something! When we look back, we have a really good laugh.

So how did I get to this point today, where I find myself drinking up to 3 litres of plain water everyday at my own free will and actually enjoying the taste of it? – a point where I can go for months without drinking juice and not crave it at all? – The Power of Habit! I don’t know whether it took me 21 days but in 2013, after putting on a lot of weight after marriage, I decided to venture into a healthy eating lifestyle. This entailed drinking lots of water. I stopped buying juice completely because I knew if it was in the fridge, I wouldn’t be able to resist it! Strongwilled as I was, I knew the limits of my willpower! Whenever I would drink juice, I would dilute it with water. At 1st, I didn’t like the taste it. However, with time, my taste buds got used to less and less sugar. To try improve the flavour of my water, I infused it with fruits. I invested in several water bottles (3 for me and 3 for Chief) making sure I always had a bottle of water with me in the house, office or when I was out and about. I had a schedule from Jane Mukami’s 21 Days of Change Facebook Page and since I knew I was very good at following rules, I used that to guide me. It entailed the following:

Drink 500ml water with lemon on an empty stomach upon waking and wait about 20-30 minutes after consumption prior to having breakfast
Drink 300ml water 20 minutes prior to lunch and dinner
Drink 500ml water after every meal
Drink 500ml water with lemon after dinner or before going to bed
Sip water every 20-30 min throughout the day
If working out, drink an extra 1.5 litres to replenish the body due to the sweating process

As you know, drinking lots of water, comes with a price – peeing endlessly! I hated going to the loo all the time and waking up feeling like my bladder was about to burst! I however liked the results in the mirror – I was losing the weight. With time, my body got used to water. I still pee more frequently than I used to before I started drinking water but not as frequently as when I started. Today I enjoy the taste of water – plain water without the infusion of fruits! I carry a bottle with me everywhere I go and sip away at work, while driving, in church, at restaurants and in people’s houses when I visit:-) I keep getting asked whether it’s special water – no it’s not☺️. It’s just a part of me and I enjoy taking a sip every now and then! I also enjoy taking count of the number of bottles I have drank each day. There’s a pleasure that comes with it😉.

Honestly, if 4 years ago you had told me that one day I would come to love water like this, I would not have believed you! God must have surely heard my husband’s prayers and answered them way more than he had anticipated!

So, can a habit be formed in 21 days? From my experience, I have learnt that when you consistently discipline yourself to follow something to the letter over a prolonged period of time, it becomes one with you! What habit would you like to form today? Would you like to work out more, read the Bible more or be consistent in your devotion, study more, start reading books, stop a habit e.g. stop taking sugar or alcohol or smoking or stop watching things that are not adding any value to your life? Why don’t you try it for 21 days and see how it goes! You will be amazed at what you can teach your body to do with some repetition and structure!

Until next time,
Happy habit forming!:-)
Dee

If you enjoyed this post, kindly rate it by clicking on the 5 stars below:

Or my following posts on marriage:
–Am I Spoiling My Husband Rotten?
–Invaluable Benefits of Knowing, Understanding & Communicating Your Spouse’s Love Language
– Recreational Companionship – The 2nd Most Important Need For a Man
– Take Time to Touch (If Only for a Minute) Once a Day
– 19 Invaluable Nourishment(s) For Your Marriage

For more invaluable insights on my journey of marriage and life, do pop into the “Devotions/Life Insights” section on my blog every now and then.

Kindly take 2 seconds to vote on the following in order to help me know which posts you enjoy most and would like me to post more of (you can vote for more than one):

Thank you! Your feedback is appreciated!

An Invaluable Habit I Have Acquired That Takes Only a Few Minutes A Day – Series 1

Ted Talk.jpg

What do you do when you are getting ready for work? Well, I casually started a habit that invigorates me! For 10-15 minutes, as I am getting ready, I am transported to a different part of the world where I get to listen to great insights from someone smart – someone I will probably never meet in person – but whose insights will sharpen me or teach me something new. What am I talking about? TEDTalks!

TEDTalks are daily video podcasts of some of the best, short, powerful talks where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes or less. The talks cover almost all topics in more than 100 languages. Some of them are extremely hilarious and completely light up my morning. They are freely available on You Tube and below is a summary of 5 TEDTalks, all of which taught me something invaluable:

1. Why do ambitious women have flat heads? | Dame Stephanie Shirley
Dame Stephanie Shirley is the most successful tech entrepreneur you never heard of. In the 1960s, she founded a pioneering all-woman software company in the UK, which was ultimately valued at $3 billion, making millionaires of 70 of her team members. In this frank and often hilarious talk, she explains why she went by “Steve,” how she upended the expectations of the time, and shares some sure-fire ways to identify ambitious women.

She shares 2 secrets of success which stuck with me:

i) Surround yourself with first class people and people that you like
ii) Choose your partner very very carefully

2. How to become a millionaire in 3 years | Daniel Ally
Daniel Ally talks about 3 key principles (summarized by the acronym”BIG“) used by the most successful people who have ever lived. This valuable session offers the solutions that you’ll need to be successful for the rest of your life, whether you want to be a millionaire or not.

B – Read more Books. If you want to learn about money, read books that talk about money; If you want to learn how to manage relationships or become a better communicator, there are many books on that. Most people in the world read 1 book every single year – Facebook! If you study miscellaneous things, you will get miscellaneous results. You become what you study! You say you don’t have time to read? If you read 10 minutes a day for 30 straight days, that’s 1 book a month. 1 book a month in 12 months is 12 books a year – You can do in 1 year what most people do in 5 years.
Remember: Leaders are readers. If you want to succeed, you have to read.
I – Get around the best Individuals you can. We are the sum total of the 5 people we surround ourselves with the most. Are your leaders taking you to the place you want to be? You need people who are inspiring – people that can help you and lift you up to the goals that transcend your own possibility and thinking – people that are smarter than you – people who have gone further than you and know exactly what you need to do to get to the next level. How do you find these people? If you read more books, you’ll find an “about the author” section at the back of the book. Reach out to the authors. Thankfully we live in a new millennium which allows us to get onto their social media and websites and have a conversation with them. We can change by actually understanding what they teach. And if we ask enough questions, we can make great progress in our life.
Remember: The people you are looking for are also looking for you. So get yourself around those people.
G – Set higher Goals. Goals make you stretch and help you to become more of who you are. The problem with New Year’s Resolutions is: a person tries to do too much too fast. The problem with Bucket Lists is: one gives themselves too much time – there’s no urgency. Write your goals down so that you can hold this steadfastly to who you are. Create a plan of action to achieve your goals. Select 1 overarching goal that you would like to accomplish and list 20 ideas that correspond to that particular goal. Imagine if you did this in every area of of your life – financially, for promotions, for your family etc and you wrote your goals down everyday – you would be able to accomplish many things in your life!
Remember: A dull pencil is better than a sharp mind.

3. The happy secret to better work | Shawn Achor
We believe that we should work to be happy, but could that be backwards? In this fast-moving and entertaining talk, psychologist Shawn Achor argues that actually happiness inspires productivity.

Most companies and schools follow this formula of success: “If I work harder, I’ll be more successful; and if I’m more successful, then I’ll be happier”. The problem is, it’s scientifically broken and backwards. Every time your brain has a success, you just change the goalpost of what success looks like. If you got good grades, now you have to get better grades; if you got into a good school, now you have to get into a better school; if you got a better job, now you have to get a better job; if you hit your sales target, now you have to change your sales target. If happiness is on the opposite side of success, your brain never gets there!

We need to reverse this formula because our brains perform significantly better at positive than at negative, neutral or stressed! This is referred to as the Happiness Advantage. If we can find a way of becoming more positive in the present, then our brains can work even more successfully. Here are 5 ways you can train your brain to become more positive (in just a 2 min span of time done for 21 days in a row) allowing your brain to work more optimistically and more successfully:

i) 3 Gratitudes: Write down 3 new new things you are grateful for each day for 21 days in a row
ii) Journaling: Journal about 1 positive experience you’ve had over the past 24 hours – this allows your brain to relive it
iii) Exercise: This teaches your brain that your behaviour matters
iv) Meditation: This allows your brain to get over the cultural ADHD that we’ve been creating by trying to do multiple tasks at once – it allows our brain to focus on the task at hand
v) Random/conscious acts of kindness: Write 1 positive email praising or thanking somebody in your social support network

4. 10 ways to have a better conversation | Celeste Headlee
In this insightful talk, Celeste Headlee shares 10 useful rules/ingredients for having better conversations:

i) Don’t multitask – be present – be in that moment – don’t be half in it
ii) Don’t pontificate – you need enter every conversation assuming that you have something to learn. Everyone you will ever meet knows something that you don’t – everybody is an expert in something
iii) Use open ended questions – start your questions with who, where, how and why e.g. what was that like? how did that feel?- then you’ll get much more interesting responses
iv) Go with the flow – that means thoughts will come into your mind and you need to let them go out of your mind – don’t stick to the script if it doesn’t flow
v) If you don’t know, say that you don’t know – err on the side of caution
vi) Don’t equate your experience with theirs – if they are talking about having lost a family member, don’t start talking about the time you lost a family member; if they are talking about the trouble they are having at work, don’t tell them about how much you hate your job – it is not the same – it is never the same – all experiences are individual. More importantly, it is not about you! You don’t need to take that moment to prove how amazing you are or how much you’ve suffered. Conversations are not a promotional opportunity
vii) Try not to repeat yourself – it is condescending and really boring. If you have a point to make, don’t keep rephrasing it over and over
viii) Stay out of the weeds – frankly, people don’t care about the years, names, dates and details you are struggling to come up with in your mind. What they care about is you, what you are like, what you have in common – so forget the details
ix) Listen – this is the most important one. If your mouth is open, you are not learning. Most of us don’t listen with the intent to understand – we listen with the intent to reply
x) Be brief – a good conversation is like a miniskirt: short enough to retain interest, but long enough to cover the subject

All this boils down to this: Be interested in other people! Go out, talk to people, listen to people, and most importantly, be prepared to be amazed!

5. Why I read a book a day (and why you should too): the law of 33% | Tai Topez
In this talk, Tai Topez reminds us that everyone wants the good life, but not everyone gets the good life because not everyone is willing to do what it takes.

Imagine for a second how much more successful you would be if you just started a company 50:50 with Bill Gates as your business partner and he was using every trick of the trade that he used to build Microsoft into one of the biggest companies in the word. Imagine how much more money you would have in your bank account if Warren Buffet was teaching you how to invest in the stock market. Imagine how fit you would be if Arnold Schwarzenegger was your personal trainer showing you how he built his body into one of the most fit bodies. Imagine the change you would be making in the word if Mother Teresa and you were running a charity together and she was showing you what she learnt on the streets of Calcutta helping the poor, the sick and the dying. Mentors have the power to do this in your life. Mentors are more powerful than you can imagine in their ability to transform your life. Your ability to copy mentors is the biggest predictor of the success you’ll have in your life. Did you know Albert Einstein had a mentor? Every Thursday, he would have lunch with him growing up; Oprah Winfrey said she had 2 mentors; Alexander the Great had Aristotle; Bill Gates had Paul Allen; Warren Buffet had Benjamin Graham.

Here are a few things you can do:
i) You should spend 33% of your time around people lower than you – you can mentor them and help them
ii) Have 33% of people at your level– these become your friends or peers
iii) The last 33% are what most people forget about – these are people 10/2o years ahead of you. They’ll make you feel a little bit uncomfortable but that’s what you want. Don’t make the mistake of finding somebody just a little bit better than you. Find somebody 10 times further ahead than you. Don’t be afraid to go to the top! You can get people like Warren Buffet or Bill Gates. You’ll be surprised
iv) Humility: You have to be humble
v) Perseverance: You must persevere
vi) Read more: You should see books as hidden treasures. Some of the great mentors are no longer alive. They can however be in your library! Stop seeing a book as a one time event. See it like a friend – read it over and over and just like friends, pick a handful of them. Find 150 books that you can read over and over for the rest of your life. There is no rule about how fast you have to read them. Set your own pace. Sometimes books have just 1 or 2 things that are worth reading. You should try to read at least 1 book a week. There is always someone to learn from. Read more. You will never find all the answers from just one person.

Did you learn a thing or two like me from these 5 TEDTalks? In a world where internet is becoming cheaper, faster and more reliable – even in third world countries – why not take the time to listen to a TEDTalk while you are getting ready for work? It doesn’t have to be every day – even once a week is fine! If you have time to go through Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/Whatsapp, then you have time to watch TEDTalks. There are thousands and thousands of topics out there freely available for you and I to tap on to! Give it a try!

Watch out for Series 2 where I highlight other TEDTalks I have really enjoyed.

Until next time,
Happy TEDTalk Listening!:-)
Dee

If you enjoyed this post, kindly rate it by clicking on the 5 stars below:

Or my following posts on marriage:
–Invaluable Benefits of Knowing, Understanding & Communicating Your Spouse’s Love Language
– Recreational Companionship – The 2nd Most Important Need For a Man
– Take Time to Touch (If Only for a Minute) Once a Day
– 19 Invaluable Nourishment(s) For Your Marriage

For more invaluable insights on my journey of marriage and life, do pop into the “Devotions/Life Insights” section on my blog every now and then.

Kindly take 2 seconds to vote on the following in order to help me know which posts you enjoy most and would like me to post more of (you can vote for more than one):

Thank you! Your feedback is appreciated!