A couple of years ago, I was making a personal development course for entrepreneurs. I taught about seven mindsets that would encourage those taking the course to embrace excellence along their path of growth.
I thought that it would be fun to film that course while on a hike. The first mindset being discussed at the trailhead, and the final mindset being covered at the end of the hike, with a beautiful waterfall in the background. I like using as many senses as possible when I train others, and the hike was a fun visual to bring along in the course.
One of the mindsets I discussed is our topic today. My previous post set it up a little bit when I gave you the lyrics to a song by Eric Dodge called Why Not Today. If you want to go to that post first, feel free to click here and read it.
Back to the post at hand. During the hike I came to a heavily wooded area, and I knew it was the perfect place to teach the following principle: Today matters more than yesterday, and today matters more than tomorrow. Let me take you into the moment I was on that hike and continue to elaborate on this mindset.
Remember, we came to a spot in the hike where it was heavily wooded. Eyesight was limited to maybe 10-15 feet in any direction. Here’s what I had to say in that moment.
Sometimes, when we’re working in bettering ourselves, our eyesight gets a little limited. We lose sight of our long-term goals or vision because we get bogged down in the day-to-day “stuff.” We get a little buried in the woods. We can’t see the forest through the trees so to speak.
This mindset focuses specifically on today. It focuses on the here and now. Today matters more than yesterday, and today matters more than tomorrow. When you look at the idea that today matters it means that the time that you choose to dedicate right here, right now is more important than anytime you did yesterday, anytime you’ve done in the past five years, and it’s more important than any time you’re going to do in the future. When you focus on today, it enables you to put all of your energy in the here and now. And it’s in the here and now that things get accomplished. When we choose to spend time in past decisions, or spend time dreaming of the future ahead of us, we lose precious time we could be using to create that vision of a better and brighter future.
I want to give you a little activity that I truly hope you take advantage of in every way. Doing so will be, to some, quite miraculous in nature. The activity will be found inside of your calendar. It’s inside of what you’re doing day to day to day. Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to to get one week’s worth of time from 8am to 6:30pm, blocked out in 30 minute chunks. It is easy to make this in a spreadsheet, but I made one for you from Google Sheets if you want.
Break it into 30 minute chunks. Every day, for seven days, just account for every 30 minutes of your day. Write down everything that you did inside the 30 minute chunk. If you had something for an hour, an hour and a half, or whatever, that’s okay to just block it out together. But I want you to account for everything you did in the 30 minute chunks. Do it for a full seven days.
At the end of that seven days go back and look at which of those time chunks were spent towards accomplishing your goals. Which of those were pulling you in the direction you want to go? What did you have as a time wasters? Where did you spend time sliding away from your goals?
After seven days of doing that, you may find hours available to you that you didn’t know you had because those hours were in lost in 30 minute chunks. If you want to take this to an extra awareness-building activity, increase your time tracking from 6am-10pm. Watch how much time you have.
When I say that it’s it’s about today and that today’s more important than yesterday and today’s more important than tomorrow, it’s found in the 30 minute chunks of your life.
Here is a question to answer for yourself after doing the activity. I know you haven’t done it yet, but you can read the question anyway. You can ask yourself this question any time of day to give yourself an accountability check: If I keep doing what I’m doing right now, where will I end up?
This is a powerful awareness building question. At any given moment it allows us to pause and check in with ourselves to see where we are going. It is a potent antidote to the phrase that many of us face when we tell ourselves, “I just don’t have the time.”
I will leave you this week with some thoughts from a very close mentor of mine, Christian Simpson. When working with him, I have heard him say countless times, “I am not expecting you to trust me on this. I only ask that you test me on this.”
So I would also say to you. The activity above is utterly useless when it goes undone and untested. Don’t tell yourself you don’t have time. Prove it to yourself instead. I would love to hear the results of what awareness you come to only after you have tested it for yourself.
I can only speak to my own experience. When I do things today, I get closer to what I want. When I sit in the past, or daydream of the future, I tend to find myself only doing more of that very thing…sitting in the past or daydreaming of the future. Get up and get going. Your dreams come true when you go get them today.
If you want help clarifying that path to your dreams. If you want to get there faster, with more awareness, and with someone else who is entirely focused on your success to accomplish those dreams, then feel free to reach out. Get on my calendar and let’s have a talk about what coaching can do for you.
Until we meet again, don’t forget that one step up makes all the difference.