50 Ways of Self-Improvement and Productivity

50 Ways of Self-Improvement and Productivity

I know a lot is being said about self-improvement productivity nowadays. We need to be careful not to get the wrong tram. By the way, not always living busy means you’re being productive and have improved well-being.

We need to be attentive to the signals our body gives, and most of all, we must be demanding and careful to choose which activities, people and projects will receive our attention.

So before really delving into the subject, let me make Kafka’s words my words and say that being productive and self-improvement means being able to do things you have never been able to do before.

I do not want this text to be just another one in the pile of articles that will stimulate you to work insanely fifteen hours a day and that suggest that we do dynamic reading to save more time in the day-to-day. There’s nothing wrong with these things, but this isn’t the proper way to improve yourself.

For me, self-improvement and productivity are simply knowing how to enjoy our time and energy. Having an optimized life implies in choosing which strategies to let go of our routine, avoiding at all costs to embrace ideas and tips that do not help us in any way.

I’m totally against the waste of time. I want more is for you to live. With ever more awareness, authenticity, and tranquility. I want your time to go to the things you really love and that your energy is spent on the opportunities that go your way.

I then made a list of the fifty best strategies so that you can make better use of your time – without giving up the rest and peace of mind, obviously. I have tested all these tips firsthand and I can tell from the chair that they all work.

Not all will match perfectly with your personality, body or lifestyle, but well, this is where the magic happens. Finding out what works for you is not an essential part of this trail. If you want to take your life a little more seriously and you’re sick of leaving some of your forgotten potential in the drawer, you’re in the right place and reading the right article.

Focus

Block Distractions

Put the cell phone inside the drawer or the closet if you feel you are giving in to the urge to look at all your notifications. An application like Forest can also be great for helping you to leave the cell phone or web pages aside.

Use the Pomodoro technique

Each time you select a task, dive into it for at least 30 minutes before doing anything else. If it’s too long, make each Pomodoro session an hour or a half an hour at the most. With each session ready, take five or ten minutes of rest away from your workstation.

Divide the week into blocks of time

Make a survey of all sorts of personal or professional activities you need to do throughout the week and group them on specific days and times in advance. So, when you arrive on Monday morning or Friday afternoon, you’ll know what you need to do.

Take a cold shower

Is it difficult to concentrate? Stop everything and go take a fresh bath, preferably cold. Empty your mind, let the noise of the outside world and focus on you. Taking time for yourself can work wonders for our focus, you see.

Empty your head

When you have too many things going on inside you, make a rain of your worries on paper. List all your problems (which, according to David Allen, are nothing more than projects) in a role and go putting out all the tasks that still need to be done.

Find your peak productivity

What part of the day do you do your best job and have more motivation? Run tests until you find your prime time track, no matter what it is, and strive to shape your workday around it.

Listen to ambient music

Try Noisli or Brain.fm to get in the right rhythm when you need to focus. The first site allows you to create well-tailored sets of music (such as a mix of bird sounds, thunders and people talking in a cafe), and the second site specifically designed to improve your brain’s quality and make you sharper and more attuned.

List what you will not do

Wanting to lose weight while you keep up the habit of hanging out with co-workers three times a week for pizza tricksters is difficult, right?

Make a list of your addictions and habits that are most troubling you: those that steal your attention well when you are at its peak or that leave you so confused that you cannot focus anymore.

Wear headphones

If you work with others or need to get along with family or friends while working from home, create the code that no one talks to you while you’re on the headset – even If you’re not listening to music. A visual and quick way for other people to know that you are busy.

Food

Do not drink coffee after 4 pm

There are very few people who can have breakfast at night or before bed and still have a great night’s sleep. If you have already had the test and you are aware that you have a caffeine sensitivity, avoid drinking coffee after four in the afternoon. This will greatly help the quality of your rest.

Drink More Water

For some, it can be a challenge, but drinking water is essential to keep your energy and health levels always up there. The old and good technique of always having a beautiful bottle around will really increase your chances of drinking more water throughout the day since you will not have to go to the kitchen to fill a cup.

Avoid Ultra-processed foods

The less you eat super-processed foods (which your grandmother probably would not even recognize as food), the better. What you put inside is the most important part of your day.

Drink green tea

Only if you are not too sensitive to caffeine. But, in the right dose, a cup of green tea can make you more insightful and alert.

Watch out for “empty carbohydrates”

Most of us get super soft and slow after eating a prawn noodle – not to mention the monstrous hunger that has been attacking a few hours later. If you need to increase concentration and productivity, eat only the “natural” carbohydrates (sweet potatoes, cassava, and rice) and put more fat, protein, and fiber in your dish.

Motivation

Make a to-do list

The best thing for you is to make it easier for you to work tomorrow and make sure that laziness does not get so strong on your foot. If the list goes digital, even better. If it is divided into contexts (market, college, online computer, when you’re fed up), a thousand times better.

Reaffirm your priorities

Every day, in the morning, write down your current priorities in a notebook. Seize the moment and write down your greatest current goals as well. Having your goals always in mind will help you a lot to stay engaged with your projects and keep motivation a step higher.

Make a Gratitude Wall

Do you know all those unexpected things that put a big smile on your mouth? Record them somehow: taking a photo, writing on paper and putting it inside a pot, making a drawing, whatever. Gather all the little things, compliments and small day-to-day bliss in one place and come back to it when you feel that the motivation is getting low and the voices of discouragement are getting high.

Bet on yourself

Do you have difficulty making a big lifestyle change or implementing a habit? Make a public bet with someone or register your new commitment to the world: if you do not do or do such a thing by a certain date, you may have to pay or lose something. Or start a blog or a series of texts talking about your new routine and the difficulties of that change. Having the support and enthusiasm of other people always helps you at those times.

Start Small

Another great way to attack a change of habits or a particularly difficult project is to reduce your tasks to the microscopic level: what is the smallest fraction of this project or habit you can accomplish today?

Feeling confident from the start is a huge help to keep you motivated. Do not mind getting immense results from the face – this does not always make the person go with the project until the end. If you want to meditate and this is a great challenge, start with two minutes of meditation every day and increase over time.

Record the practical benefits

Still, in the “hard things you want to achieve” line, try jotting down in a notebook or making a voice recording of the practical benefits you’re feeling with your new lifestyle or your projects. The more you can see the positive and enriching sides of your goals, the better. Of course, nothing happens overnight, but to some extent, your ultimate goal should be present from the very first day of the new project or habit.

Do it first: Think Later

If you are hyper-motivated to do something especially boring or difficult, no matter how small it may be, just do it. Do not think! I know this is very difficult, but trust me. Every time we think of things that can, in some primitive way, put us “in danger,” our brain launches various strategies to stop us from doing that. But if what you need to do is really good for your health or your personal development, head right into the task before you can reason about.

Pamper yourself a little

Nothing much out of this world, but spending time doing things that really please you always raises the mood and improves the motivation of anyone. Try to stay away from the compensating foods (um, eat three families pizzas then really tickle me) and impulse shopping.

Instead, think of the activities that really excite you, stimulate you, and leave you with a good sense of security and peace. Create a calendar and real-time time to accommodate at least some of these tasks every week.

Measure your progress

The more you can see clearly how far you’ve progressed so far, the better. You can do this using an application for habits such as Productive or Momentum, you can make a table, print and colorize the blanks with beautiful colors every day that stands firm – the options are endless.

In the case of projects, create a section of “milestones” and think coldly about the steps that will mark your progress toward that goal. How will you know you are reaching your goal? Review your project and look at your milestones every time you are feeling unmotivated.

Get out of the box

Make a list of “unusual, bold and fun things to do” and refer to them whenever you find that the boredom of the routine is pulling your foot. The items on this list do not even have to be overpriced or fancy. Sometimes a simple beach trip in the middle of a day of the week can be bold enough.

The idea is that you plan activities and actions that are different and that really shake you. Note the beauty of a landscape, visit friends you have not seen for a long time, go dancing in a new nightclub, etc. Get out of your comfort zone and find out how you can play motivational hints in your week.

Time Management

Buy a Calendar

First of all, buy a calendar or choose a virtual calendar and put there all your deadlines for the next 6 months or 1 year. Evidence, documents that need to be delivered, appointments, etc.

Have deadlines

Now think about when the projects for these deadlines need to be ready for you to have a generous time frame: two weeks before the official date? One month? If someone needs to confirm, modify or approve your project before the deadline, it would be wise to increase your personal deadline.

I give this tip to people who are always late or usually procrastinate a lot. Consider this deadline as your true and do all the project planning on top of it. If anything unexpected happens, you will still have time.

Create gaps between appointments

Write in your schedule or calendar your weekly appointments: classes, meetings, jobs, customer service, extra activities, courses, doctor’s appointments, etc. Then create a block of “time in transit” and more or less calculate how much time you will spend to get on your appointment and how much time you will spend coming back from it.

The same goes for when you organize your blocks of time, suggested up there: you never finish one task and fall headfirst into another. Calculating this half-time between our commitments and tasks helps a lot to make better use of energy and not to create unrealistic expectations of what our day will be like.

Get ready the day before

Are you going out to the gym as soon as you wake up? Do you have an important meeting at work? Are you going to make an online appointment with a client? Prepare the night before, everything (I said everything) that you will need the next morning: clothes, things to carry in the bag, meeting agenda, the material needed for consulting, etc. The more you can save your precious time for tomorrow even today, the better.

If it takes less than ten minutes, do it now

Jotting down something to do on a piece of paper and having to remember it hours later is often more time-consuming than just doing it now. Choose what will be the minimum window of time that you can use with ease on your day spontaneously: two minutes, ten minutes, and fifteen minutes? Any task that appears and that only takes that amount of time to be done, do it soon.

Have two inboxes

A virtual (using the Todoist or the Evernote) and another physical (a plastic box on your table, a place to accommodate the correspondences) and put in them anything that requires some kind of action.

Do you need to do something about this email that has arrived? Create an entry in your virtual inbox (or have a section of the email called the “inbox” and move there any emails that require some kind of action in response).

Did you get an account, an invitation, or a paper request? Put it in your physical inbox. Once a day, see everything in your inbox and put each thing in its proper place. Centralizing your loose ends is an immense gain of time, really.

Delegate to other people

Whether at home or at work, you can certainly share your daily burden of chores with someone – especially if you’re trying to hug the world with your legs. No one should handle all the work in the world alone and the best way to create this reality is through honest and direct communication. Ask your husband, wife, son, or roommate to share household chores with you, for example. Make sure you do not get heavy on anyone and that each one contributes your part.

Create weekly goals

What will you strive to accomplish this week? How can your time reflect your current priority number one? The best way for you to enjoy your time well is to know exactly where to spend it. Every Sunday or Monday make a list of things you want to achieve over the course of the week and put the specific amount of each of those goals on the side.

No abstract things like “losing weight” or “getting ahead of work.” Do the same at every start of the month and review your goals every weekend. If they are aligned with your reality, you will enjoy your time much better.

Record your time

Do you know exactly what has been consuming so much time of your day? If not, I recommend the Toggl. It is an online timer that allows you to create projects and tasks.

Every time you start doing some personal activity, related to work or studies, play on the timer. I did this for a few months, just for my work hours! The clarity I had about where I was putting more energy was enormous. Knowing what you spend your time with is the best antidote to that feeling that you worked, worked, worked, but did not go away.

Respond to Emails and Notifications

This is great for anyone, but especially for people who work in large companies and who oversee teams. If you give in to the urge to look at all social network notifications and open every email that comes to you, you may well end up staying in it for hours on end.

Your attention will be cut off several times and the thread of your concentration may break. The fewer times a day you do it, the better. Choose in advance the time to respond to emails, put it on your calendar or your daily schedule, and, most important of all, really respect it.

Activities

Find out which activity gives you pleasure

This will not automatically get you in shape, but it’s a start – especially for people who do not like to get bored and would rather sit around all day. What kind of hectic activity do you enjoy doing? It’s worth everything: walking on the beach, dancing crazily in your room, cleaning at home, swimming, boxing, whatever. Go experimenting with different things until you find something you support to do a few times a week. When in doubt, choose something fun.

Make micro-movements throughout the day

The more ridiculously easy and practical you become in the habit of moving, the better. If you live, study or work in a place with stairs, please: go up for them instead of picking up the elevator – even if it’s time to leave. Take two minutes of your morning to do some push-ups or to jump rope and run around your room twice in the afternoon. Quick and easy!

Stay stretchy at morning and night

Watch some videos on YouTube (I particularly recommend videos from Cassey, Blogilates) and make that commitment to yourself. Put it on the agenda and take a few minutes of the day to stretch and open your body. It’s a little costume that works wonders.

Read before bed

This will increase your world knowledge, enrich your imagination, enhance your empathy and give you a brief and well-deserved rest from the real world. Put this habit on the list of habits and separate a safe time, when no one will disturb you.

If in doubt of what to read, take a walk in a bookstore and read the first few pages of the books that appeal to you. Go home only after you have found one that you enjoy and devote to finishing it within a month.

Breathe

It sounds like a silly hint, but oh, it is very powerful. Breathing rhythmically and deeply demonstrably reduces stress and anxiety.

Try to create small cycles for your breath and do this at least a few times a day: breathe counting to five, hold your breath counting to three and release counting to eight.

Exhaling greater than inspiration helps a lot in some cases, and in general making balanced cycles (breathing, holding, and exhaling counting to five) helps to leave both body and mind equally balanced.

Exercise

Another way to improve your mind and body is to do at least 30-minutes workout a day. Exercise is the best way to stay physically fit as well as mentally active. I must say this is the most recommended thing by experts when it comes to personal or self-improvement.

Environment

Sit down with good posture

This is essential here for those who work seated, so read it calmly. The ideal posture for when you are working on the computer is to look straight forward without having to raise or lower your head to see the screen well.

Your arms need to make a 90-degree angle to the table without you having to lift your shoulders or have to keep your wrists arched. Your knees also need to be at 90 degrees with the floor, which often means having to put a box, a pouf or some kind of footrest.

Your spine must also be straight, but not rigid. If your chair does not let you do this naturally, put some pillows until you reach that position.

Put on work clothes

Even if you work from home, especially if your computer desk needs to be in your room or in a superfamily environment – then it’s vital! That’s one way of saying to your brain: “Look, I know the warm bed is right there on the side and that the refrigerator is super close, but now it’s time to work.” Even if you wear the same clothes as staying at home, choose some of them to be used only in the moment of focus and attention.

Get some sunlight

Get some sunlight through the window of your office, on the way to work, on the porch of your house or even in front of your building. Sunlight reduces the production of melatonin (a hormone that, among other things, makes the body understand that it is bedtime) and makes you more alert and more awake. A simple, natural and free hack so you can wake up when you are fishing in front of the computer.

Leave your table organized

I am talking about an organized environment, which will give you a clear mind. The relationship is not always necessarily cause and reaction, but having a relatively clean, decorated and organized place gives a good internal peace.

If you have chaotic tendencies, give a humble clean on your desk every time you finish work. Leave only the necessary things on top of it and keep the phone away from the bag or drawer to avoid interruptions.

Set up your place of work with things that have to do with you and that make you happy, too. The more welcoming and personalized the better.

Change the environment

If you always work at home, working elsewhere can give you over-energized productivity and concentration. Sometimes changing rooms will make a difference. Going to a cafeteria, a college library, a park (which is safe, of course) or a coworking office in someone’s home are cool ways to change your environment and add a dose of variety to your day-to-day.

Rest

Stop working early

It’s that thing: if you have not been able to do everything you needed to do from morning till afternoon, is it really late in the day that you’re late? Stopping working a few hours before bedtime is my best remedy to prevent me from waking up totally cheated and tired of looking at the computer screen, actually.

I know that we cannot always have this luxury and that many people feel really more productive at night. But if you’re like me, and you know your peak productivity is in the morning, watch your night and create a loving nightly routine: read a good book, listen to podcasts, stretch, take a shower, and talk to people in your home.

Meditate for ten minutes

The best app I know is Calm, but I know a lot of people also like Headspace. Meditating helps to reduce stress, increases your awareness with the present moment, deepens your breathing, and makes you much more aware of what is going on in your head.

For as short a time as it is, it is a most valuable habit to have on a day-to-day basis – preferably in a hectic time, when you are feeling overwhelmed or confused. Meditate clears the mind and leaves you in a truly calmer state.

Avoid computer, television or cell phone before bed

Do you know that blue light that radiates from all those gadgets? They really affect your sleep and tell your body that it is still day out there. The more you can avoid those lights near sleeping, the better.

The Flux application, for example, leaves your computer screen orange after sunset. And oh, I thought it was an exaggeration, but my eyesight is even more rested when it comes in contact with the orange light instead of the traditional blue glow.

Stop and go do something else

Creating small rest lakes throughout the day helps tremendously in keeping energy high. Ultimately, productivity also increases. Working out or at home, try to change your normal tasks with things that rest your eyes and energize your body.

Go get a coffee, walk around the room, chat with someone at lunchtime, get out of your building and take a walk around the block – even stopping and looking at the window gives me a little sigh of rest.

Doing physical activity also helps, such as washing dishes, climbing stairs or playing with a pet. The idea is for you to “flush” your energy and focus a few times a day.

Spend some time in nature

Being in touch with nature speaks directly to our energy. Going to the beach, taking a walk or even strolling in a garden: all this helps our personal growth and self-improvement a lot because, somehow, we breathe better and calm down in natural settings.

Take a day of the week to take a nature walk and find different ways to insert some of that contact into your weekly routine. It will clear your mind and recharge your battery for sure.

6 concepts and 9 exercises to decide what to do in your life

6 concepts and 9 exercises to decide what to do in your life

I am an eternal dissatisfied and I say this with the clear intention that the Universe interprets this phrase with the best of connotations.

I barely finish a project (a course, a text, a reading) and I want to start doing version 2.0 or 3.0. This does not mean, on the one hand, that I do not appreciate the small victories of life or that I do not give myself enough merit and acceptance for my achievements.

I give myself-or at least I try hard enough. But, there are so many opportunities we have to improve, optimize and increase our capabilities. How not to want to enjoy them all?

The Concepts

Is there a right way?

Life has no meaning but that it is not forbidden to assign it one. Fantastic, right? I want you to begin this journey with two very important things in mind.

The first thing: you are, yes, responsible for your life. At least to some extent. You will need to take deliberate action and run after your dreams yes – no one else will do it for you.

The second thing: your ways are always open. Wrong options do not exist. You will always have choices and life itself will present you with an infinite range of options. Which one are you going to play? Which one else resonates with your will? Where is your gut telling you to go?

Nothing is going to be wasted

That phrase is written by the American writer Cheryl Strayed and it defines very well another essential idea that I want to pass to you: every day useless will give in something.

Before we start talking about goals and detailed planning, I want you to accept it. I want you to welcome yourself and allow yourself to have useless days – or even useless weeks and months.

Knowing how to make room for chaos, the unpredictable and the unexpected is always a little scary. It seems that we are not doing anything that lends. But as according to Cheryl, useless days do not exist.

They all result in a particular, precious and exotic combination. Exactly the way you are today, treading exactly where you’re treading now. No one can leave Amsterdam to London if they do not accept the fact that their starting point is Amsterdam. No goal will work if you – the only person who can do anything by your trajectory – do not accept the place you are.

The life of your dreams exists, yes

It probably will not be the same as you always imagined, of course. Destiny itself always adds a pinch or two of something that was totally out of our plans. And as incredible as your future is, you will always have to make sacrifices and tackle difficult challenges.

I am not here to put warm clothes and tell you that the path to happiness is covered with flowers, unicorns and sunny days. Sometimes, it will be prickly. But what I want to tell you is that you have the right amount of free will to build the future you want.

No matter how much external influences affect you, you have the incredible and devastating power to choose your actions. Have you stopped to think about the true power of it? Of course, the limitations exist, but I’m giving you permission to dream as much as you want. Chances are always in our favor.

The power of simplicity

We often underestimate and devalue that which is very simple. Fact! Finding complex excuses, giving deep detailed rational explanations, and using super difficult solutions to get away from what we are afraid to do are arts that we master very well, thank you.

The simple option is not always the easiest, by the way. Simplicity and ease are ideas that look alike but can be (and often are) quite different. The simplest option is one that requires almost nothing from you to give you a result in return. You feel and see the consequences of simple actions almost immediately. It is the lowest fruit on the tree, the one closest to your hand.

The easiest option, on the other hand, is the one you’re most accustomed to doing. And often, believe it or not, we use the “hard stuff” to get away from putting your hand in the dough. So I’ll tell you right away: you’ll need to get out of your comfort zone, yes. The initial steps of your journey will not necessarily be easy, but they should always be as simple as possible.

Your biggest ally, time

The only great and powerful force that will help you achieve your goals of the year is time. Remember when I told you that you can have the life of your dreams? I said this because I know that the human being is capable of very incredible and wonderful things.

We all have bills to pay, roles to play, and responsibilities that we do not want to have thrown over our shoulders. But you know what else we have? Time. And free will. Of course, time will not do the work alone. You need to help. You need to give life the right stuff so it can help you get where you want to go. It is as Jeff Olson says:

The secret of time is just this: time is the force that transforms the small, almost imperceptible and seemingly insignificant things you do every day into something titanic and invincible.

1% every day

This is where the magic really happens. As I always say: magic is in the details. Great changes do not draw attention while they are happening. No one changes from water to wine, from day to night.

The invisible, slow, and absurdly overwhelming force that is acting upon these great changes is time. And it is very clever. It acts in the thicket, away from the eyes of the world and the flashes of photographers.

Of course, I’m going to teach you, more ahead, how important it is to choose goals with immediate positive results – the kind you feel right on the skin, you know? But before that, I warn you of the following: your great goals will take time to happen. And that’s fine. How can you advance 1% toward your goals today? What is the marginal, tiny, almost laughable improvement?

Decide that you will improve your routine or your attitudes by at least 1% every day – rain or shine, be super excited or deep down – it’s your right.

The Exercises

Recognize your strengths

The only person you can really count on is you. I know this sounds a bit antisocial, but I need to make that clear. Realigning your goals and directing your life to where you want to go is a solitary and autonomous act.

The people around you will always help you, support you and be on your side, but who needs to supply the fuel for that rocket is you – and no one else. The following questions have been asked so that the roots of your self-confidence get even deeper and for you to recognize the good things you have achieved to date.

If you do not offer hospitality to yourself and do not celebrate your victories, do not put that expectation on top of others. This is your job.

Answer two questions below and give yourself enough time and peace to answer them:

  • What are the things I do naturally well? What are my greatest abilities?
  • What were my top ten hits to date? What achievements make me proud?

The seven areas of your life

Self-knowledge is a very important part of life planning and organization. If we do not stop to get to know ourselves better, evaluate what we are doing and identify patterns that live appearing in our lives, no one else will.

It’s like that map metaphor: if you do not know where you are, how will you find out where you need to go?

Opening your eyes and accepting with open arms your current reality is a prerequisite. This exercise is for you to understand better the areas of life and recognize what is your way of dealing with them.

For each of the seven areas, answer these questions: How do I treat this part of my life? What is the biggest difficulty I have here today? What is the greatest strength I bring to this aspect of my life? The seven areas are these:

  1. Family, friends, and affections
  2. Health and wellness
  3. Leisure and social life
  4. Work and professional life
  5. Spirituality
  6. Personal development
  7. Financial life

What have you done so far?

The next few questions will help you to list, in a very practical way, what has happened in your life this year. From the beginning of January to the present day, how did your financial life unfold?

What opportunities have arisen for you professionally? Have you spent any time or invested in your personal development in any way? Did you take care of your health or did you leave it a little aside?

Did you make new friends, go to different places or did you travel?

This is the time to understand the steps – conscious or not, voluntary or not – that made you come here today. Make a description and answer some of these questions for each of the seven areas of your life.

How are you today?

Going back to the present now is the time to think about your current situation. How is your financial life? Are you in debt? How are your relationships? Have you been in touch with your friends and colleagues?

Are you out to have fun? What about your sex life? Have you been exercising? Did you go to the doctor to do a routine examination or to treat a disease? How is your food? Have you eaten the first thing you see in the refrigerator or have you taken the time to learn new recipes and use fresh food in your meals?

How is your leisure? Have you done things that please you? Have you practiced your favorite hobbies or discovered new hobbies? And your connection to the immaterial and divine part of life, as you walk? It is not necessary to write anything, just clarify where you are now.

Are you satisfied with this?

Keeping in mind your answers from the previous section, give a grade – from 0 to 10 – to your level of satisfaction and happiness with the current situation of the seven areas of your life.

Before I tell you better how this evaluation works, I need to remind you that the only and absolute parameter you should use to do this exercise is yourself.

Forget what your family says you should do or what your co-workers consider to be legal. Forget what your classmates think of situation A or B, and forget the “socially accepted” answers.

Now it’s time to assess if you’re on the path you’d like to be. “But my son/my mother/my wife/my boss would hate if he/she knew that I did not like/liked the situation X.” And? Are they going to deal with the consequences of their actions? No! To be satisfied is to feel complete as if you had made a delicious meal – without overeating or anything.

  • From 0 to 3

These grades are given when we are really unhappy with the current situation in that area of ​​our life. We are reaping harms, paying ducks or suffering practical and daily consequences that hinder the progress of our projects. An area that receives any of these grades is real stone in the shoe for you at that moment.

  • From 4 to 6

These grades are given when we are relatively satisfied with the current conjuncture of that area of ​​our life. We were able to see what improvements could be made and that some limits could be exceeded. But overall, we still see the advantages and benefits of our current circumstances. An area that receives one of these grades is not the brightest part of your life right now, but it’s under control and yields some interesting profits.

  • From 7 to 10

These grades are given when we are happy and satisfied with how we are leading that area of ​​our life.

There are still improvements to be made, but we recognize that we are doing our best and using almost all of our potential to improve the circumstances of that area. An area that deserves one of these grades should bring you a lot of pride and self-confidence and that’s probably where you focused more intensely in the last few months.

What will be your focus?

The previous exercises served to bring awareness and clarity to your present moment. From now on, you’ll get your hands on the dough and get the heaviest work of that course: Decide what your focus will be. Your free will begins here. Use it well.

Regardless of how many areas you received low grades or high grades, it is important that you deliberately choose what the two or three areas will be. This will be in focus for the next few months. Without focus, we’re not going anywhere.

It’s like that old saying: you can do everything, but you cannot do everything at the same time. To conquer some things you must necessarily give up others. Where do you want to walk now? In what part of your life do you want to see progress happen? What aspects of your life do you want to change over the next few months?

A little more theory

Put your focus wherever you want

One of the most common misconceptions that I see people make, when they talk about the exercise of the wheel of life or teach it to others, is to think that our focus should always be on the areas with the lowest grades.

This makes perfect sense, obviously. If you said that the X, Y, or Z area deserves a grade 3, 2, or even 1, you’re likely to be crazy to reverse that and start making progress in that part of your life. If that’s the case, fine.

If you want to pay more attention to the areas that received the highest grades – those that are already great and you’d like them to bloom even more – that’s fine too. If you want to focus on the areas that received the middle marks, which are neither here nor there, neither too promising nor too chaotic – all good too.

You can put your attention wherever you want or depending on the circumstances, wherever you need it. If a current condition is forcing you to take care of your health or your family, this is fine. Accept this moment and know that this situation will pass. If you have the luxury of putting your resources wherever you want, throw your hands up to the sky and grab that chance tooth and nail.

Accept inactive areas

It is extremely important to limit our focus when we are talking about our year goals. Trying to do several things at the same time, all equally important, equally exciting, equally urgent – will leave you exhausted, broken, and poor.

The more focus you have, the better. Part of this process involves accepting that yes, you will not pay attention to various other things. Caring for health, for example, is a work that requires a lot of effort.

Taking care of health, doing three courses of personal development, being promoted at work and starting a specialization in your area is too much for a human being to handle. But you want to know? It’s all right. Your life, with all luck, will be longer.

Today is not the end of the world. Leaving an initiative for later does not mean giving it up forever. It only means that, at that moment, you value more other things. As you accept and understand this movement better, also accept that you will not always want to seek results in all areas of your life.

You may not be a religious person and you do not want to make progress in that area. It’s all right. After all, as you already know what I’m going to say, life is yours.