Quick Tips For A Better Lifestyle
Here are ten quick tips on achieving a better Lifestyle. These are easy to apply and enable fast and in often cases immediate Lifestyle benefits.
Tip #1: Accountability
Making yourself accountable to another person or a group is a very powerful way to ensure you do what you intend to do, and don’t do what you know you are not supposed to do.
Let me give you a couple of examples:
At the beginning of 2009 in my trading business, I had a list of money management (risk) rules. However when a market looked especially attractive, I would deliberately break these risk rules I had set for myself. After a situation when this backfired badly I thought to myself “This is ridiculous. I have written down risk rules, and I don’t follow them!”
So I emailed two people David and David who I have a huge amount of respect for and told them I needed two people I would be accountable to. I sent them my risk rules in full and committed to keeping to them. It has worked brilliantly.
The second example relates to this book. You need a lot of discipline to research, write, edit, rewrite, and format a book. It was taking me a long time to do everything, and some days I wouldn’t get a chance to write. I decided to commit to my accountability group that I would write for at least an hour and a half every weekday. Of course my days are filled with my trading business, the work I do for charities, exercise, family, seminars etc. But after I made this commitment, my writing became a priority. On a number of nights I had to stay up late to make sure I kept to my commitment, but it worked really well, and I made much more progress than before.
Action Step 20:
If you have areas of your life you need to change or improve, find one or two people you have huge respect for, and would never like to let down and make a commitment to them. Remember they don’t need to do anything except read your email. It is you who register in your mind that you have made a commitment, and you dare not break that commitment.
Also you can make a commitment to me! Yes, I am willing to keep you accountable. Here is how.
Make your commitment on the following webpage: www.LifestyleBook.com/my-commitment
This is a confidential commitment between you and me. Your commitment must include a date. I will email you on your commitment date to confirm.
Please note: This is a real commitment. By committing, you are giving me permission to kick your butt if you do not follow through. Please do not commit unless you are willing to put everything else aside to make your commitment come to pass.
Tip #2: Stay in Motion
When I was a teenager, I heard a great analogy that has stayed with me. If you try to move a stationary car it is very difficult. You would need at least ten people to lift it up and move it. However if the car is already in motion, you only need to apply a small amount of turning pressure with one finger to the steering wheel and the car will move where you want it to go.
Human beings are just the same. If you are standing still, not going anywhere, in a rut, not making real progress it is very difficult for you to move or be moved towards something better. But if you are doing lots of productive things, always moving and always progressing, you will find that doors open for you, and you will begin to gravitate towards what really inspires you and really excites you.
I heard a good saying recently, “If you are going through hell don’t make camp there, keep moving!”
Tip #3: Incremental Change
You do not have to make huge upheavals in your life in order to effect change. Let me give you an example from geometry. Say you need to travel 1,000 miles (or kilometers) in a straight line towards a city where there is a fantastic treasure. Either side of your destination is an alligator infested swamp. If your compass is out by just one degree (one three hundred and sixtieth of a full circle), do you know how many miles (kilometers) you would be away from the treasure once you had travelled the 1,000 miles (kilometers)? Over seventeen miles (kilometers). Plenty enough for you to be eaten by hungry alligators! Just by making a tiny incremental change (1/360th) you can radically change your destination.
The good news is that in your life you can start making incremental changes that will have hugely positive changes in your final destination. Simple examples include watching less TV, reading more, exercising more, eating healthier.
Action Step 21:
Commit to making just one incremental change in your life each month for the next three months.
Tip #4: Never be Late
Do you know the one reason people arrive late? They leave late. What I mean is; it is not the traffic, it is not the directions, it is not the last minute phone call, it is simply that they left late. In my experience most people arrive for business appointments late. In my industry (financial markets and fund management) we have a number of people visit for business meetings. Often they come with proposals or to ask us for to invest with them. It amazes me how many of them are late.
Being late tells me a few things about people: They don’t respect my time;
They are disorganized;
They are not someone I can rely on to keep a commitment.
Is this how you come across? If so, let it be the “you” of the past.
I have a strategy for never being late for a business appointment. I always allow a lot more time than I need and I always arrive early. I will often arrive 20 minutes early so I can find exactly where the meeting is, what floor it is on, etc. Then I will read a book or have a walk around the area. Remember a business meeting is a commitment. Never be late.
Tip #5: Buy Quality not Quantity
Always buy quality. This is even more important if you are on a budget. Quality feels great and looks great, and it lasts. A good example is clothing. Let’s say you have a $400 budget for business shirts. It is far better to buy two $200 shirts than six $70 shirts. You will feel terrific, you will look amazing. You will notice, and others will notice. This principle is especially important if the expenses are related to your appearance, or the appearance of your business (business cards, stationery, website). But it is a principle that should extend to every area of your life.
Tip #6: Surround Yourself
Surround yourself with the best mentors, leaders, successes and minds in the world. You may not be able to meet them all personally, but you can get their books, listen to their speeches, watch their videos, or attend their seminars.
Tip #7: You Can’t Manufacture Time
You can always make more money, but you can never make more time. Time is the most precious asset you have. Too many people trade their valuable time for a bit more money. That is a mistake. Enjoy what you have and enjoy it with those you love. Once this hour, this day, this week, this month is gone, it is gone forever.
Tip #8: Time Tips
As you can imagine, I am very conscious of preserving my most important asset. Here are some practical tips:
Sometimes I get to take my kids to a kid’s movie. That’s great but it is not a good use of my time. So I take a good book and sit right outside the cinema while they watch the movie. I just gained two hours.
I always have a motivational or instructional audio-book in my car. While I drive I am learning.
If I know I might have to wait somewhere I always take a book with me – dentist, doctor, bus stop etc.
Unless I particularly want to have a one on one catch up, I try to organize ways in which I can catch up with a number of friends or business contacts at one time for example at a breakfast. This enables me to keep important friendships and contacts, but not spend hours and hours doing so.
I often just say no. I evaluate invitations and opportunities. If they are not a really good use of my time, I politely decline.
I put some things off until they need to be done. This might sound like procrastination but it really isn’t. If I have a tax return due in on Friday, I will put it off until Friday. Then I really have to do it and I have to do it fast. If I start it on Tuesday I know I can take my time on it.
For tasks that I know are going to require serious concentration, I ensure I do them in the most productive time in the day for me (mornings). That way I get them done fast.
When I am really tired and don’t feel like doing much at all, I find a really simple task that needs to be done but doesn’t need much brain power (for example getting a haircut).
Tip #9: Look Ahead
The faster you go, the further ahead you have to look. When you are walking slowly you can afford to look just in front of you. If you are running you have to look further ahead. If you are galloping on a horse you have to look further again. If you are in a racing car you have to look a long way forward. If you are in a jet aircraft you have to look many miles (or kilometres) ahead.
Your life is just the same. If you are slowly drifting along you don’t have to look far ahead. But if you are speeding along achieving and growing at a fast rate, you have to look a long way ahead. You have to set goals and plan months and years in advance. Once you start speeding up your rate of change, remember to look up and look ahead.
Tip #10: Identify Key Areas of Your Life
We all have areas of our lives that are not satisfactory. You need to identify the main issues, isolate them and do something about them. Being decisive in this will have a huge positive impact in your life. To begin with just pick the biggest one or two issues and deal with them fast and clinically.