State Your Principles
Tomorrow is a big day!
We are starting something new and exciting.
Have you decided if you want to play along?
If you aren't sure, I have an idea to share with you.
There is a small but growing group of us that are all going to do the same thing.
Well, the same general thing...
We're going to start our day really well.
Starting your day well is the single most impactful thing you can do if you want to craft a better life.
Your momentum starts fresh each day, and being intentional with what you do in your first 25 minutes after waking up can change the course of your entire day.
In other words...
The first 25 minutes of your day are the most important 25 minutes of the day.
If you direct your attention towards positive thought patterns and energy-generating activities, you increase the odds of feeling good for every moment that follows.
The worst thing you could do in that first 25 minutes is check your phone or the TV.
Every moment that you let slip by without getting to a place of feeling good is a moment wasted.
A group of us sat down to brainstorm what the best activities to fill this time are.
The list we came up with is simple.
If we only had 25 minutes (that's a whole different discussion), there are three things we would do every single day if the goal was to start every day feeling as good as possible:
- Choose what time you want to get up, get up right away, go to the bathroom, and drink a glass of water.
- Write in a journal.
- Listen to music while getting ready.
The journal step is critical in my experience. I'm not sure if I have talked about this before, but the writing I do in the morning has had a bigger influence on my happiness and effectiveness than anything else I do.
I've journaled off and on for my entire life, but usually it wasn't very productive. For a long time, I used my journal to vent. A lot of people would tell you this is exactly what you should do in a morning page style journal.
Sit down and let it all out.
Here's the problem with that. If you are letting out negative thought patterns, you are reinforcing those thought patterns.
That is the exact opposite of what you want to do.
I used to go and write about the mistakes I made the day before. I did this in order to think about what I'd do differently, never realizing that I was directing my attention towards things that didn't make me feel good.
The end result was that my journaling was self defeating. I would come up with plan after plan for how to overcome my mistakes and bad habits, but the whole time all I was actually doing was reinforcing the negative thought patterns.
Here's the change I made.
Instead of brain dumping first thing, I start with stating my principles.
I remind myself about all that I believe is good and true. I remind myself what I want from my day.
During our meeting, there was some discussion about what a "principle" is. We decided to check in with ChatGTP for this, and we got a great response.
I write something different every day. I follow a similar script, but I do not aim to write the same words. I just write about what I believe to be true. What I believe I must do to be the best and happiest version of myself.
I am writing a personal mission statement every day of my life.
Of all my habits, I believe that this may be my best. The process of restating my principles every morning initiates all the thought patterns that I most want to run throughout the day.
Every day that I do this, I am far more likely to respond to the challenges of the day with enthusiasm and good energy.
The days I skip this exercise (few as they may be) are much more likely to be filled with frustration and negative energy.
I reflect on a wide range of things in this space, including what I believe I must do to be happy, what I must do to be effective, and what I value most.
After "stating my principles", I move on to writing about things I am grateful for. In practice, this means writing out at least 10 specific things that I'm grateful for.
Once I finish these two exercises, I move on to reflecting on thoughts and feelings and planning out my day.
The basic idea is to "boot up" your program for better living, get into a state of feeling grateful, and then attack the day.
Simple yet powerful.
For me at least.
I can't think of a single habit of mine that is more productive. This activity makes every moment that follows better. This habit gets me to the best version of myself first thing in the morning.
I can't tell you how many times I've woken up after a bad day, still a bit peeved about something, and then had all the negative energy evaporate by the end of this process.
The best part is that this is easy. You don't need anything but a pen and paper. You don't need to know what you are going to write.
You just sit down and write what you believe to be true. Write things that make you feel good.
Day 1 will be hard. Throughout the day, you will think of things that you might want to add. Day 2 will be a little easier.
At some point, it will become something that you look forward to.
I do, at least.
So here's the deal.
If you have no idea what to do for this challenge, this is an invitation to commit at least the first 25 minutes of your day to getting yourself into a peak state.
The group version of this particular task has three rules.
- No outside inputs. No phone, no internet, no tv, no newspaper, no email, no texts. We will not engage with the world until we feel good and are ready to make good decisions.
- We will state our principles.
- We will get ready for the day in whatever way we like to get ready. Get showered, get dressed, have a cup of coffee. Take a second and imagine how you act on mornings when you are really excited about the day ahead. Do those things every day.
If you already have something else you are excited to do, stick with that thing. You are welcome to do both as well.
So now let's get to the forum.
The best piece of feedback I got on this idea was this:
I don't have a strong opinion but it occurs to me that the more chat like something is the more attention steal notifications there are. With a forum you log on maybe once a day to give it focus. Seems slower and more healthy.
I agree. Thanks Triana.
There are so many decisions to make beyond this though. What tool should we use? What shoud we name the community?
I've reviewed all the main tools people suggested, which includes Mighty, Flarum, Discourse, and Discord.
I've decided to move forward with Discourse. The name will have to evolve with use.
If you are interested in why I made this decision, we can discuss it in detail in the new forum. The short version is that it was the cleanest and simplest to use (I tested the main competitors before picking one).
Discourse also has a very clear mission: civilized discourse.
The forum is officially live, and I need your help filling it with exciting topics and good discussion.
Right now, its just a shell. There is nothing there yet.
I have some ideas for what we can do there.
As a starting point, I am going to create a daily thread where we discuss principles, habits, and how to structure your day well.
I have brought up exercises that are meant to help with direction and vision, this is where that is going to happen. A new thread every day for the next 28 days.
Second, I think that it would be cool to have at least some people do a personal thread about what they are working on. A daily check in. Maybe we should even play don't break the chain with this. Maybe this is the chain. You have to do the thing AND post that you did it in your forum thread.
Ooh I like this. A public chain. That will keep you honest. We can discuss this too.
In general, the whole thing is going to be a 28 day experiment in building a good community.
On the path we are going down, we are going to need good community organizing tools.
There are a million and one ways to do this, and we could spend the rest of forever trying to figure out the best.
I say we engage the process and dive in.
I need your help.
I need you to at least try to use this thing, even though it is going to be clunky and confusing at first.
I don't need everyone, I just need people who are willing to actually commit to using it every day.
There are mystery prizes for the first 5 people to sign up.
Life is good!