Day 2

I spent the first half of my life with almost zero resiliency. And I paid a high price for that. I had almost no ability to bounce back from setbacks or upsetting situations. According to Deepak, resiliency gives us energy and the ability to rebound mentally and physically with energy. Stress is a HUGE energy drainer. A simple practice of getting enough sleep can help in this area. I have always been an early riser. Always. Just naturally. My mistake was I was still going to bed at 10 or 11 and then getting up at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning. I didn’t feel that bad, but when I made the switch to a 9 or 9:30 bedtime, I felt amazing. I was getting enough sleep and being productive. I’m no longer willing to sacrifice my health and wellness for work, family or anything else. My health is first or everything else goes to crap. I saw it happen in my own house when I was not functional.

Deepak says we must “build a platform by making positive choices EVERYDAY”. Yes, every day is key. This is partly why I think people don’t find lasting change with things like, Dry January, or a Whole30. Even though I agree wholeheartedly that giving up alcohol and eating an anti-inflammatory diet are super important, doing it for a month isn’t setting yourself up for meaningful changes in your diet. It has to be a LIFESTYLE change. Same for meditation. Doing it once in a while is helpful, but having a regular practice is life changing. These are all the ways we can build our platform as Deepak says.

A couple ways I maintain these habits is to keep everything in my calendar. I’m a bit of a planner junkie and I have a couple systems in place to help with reminders. On my weekly page of my calendar I have a section I call My Morning Routine. In it I have my routine that begins at 4:30 or 5:00am every morning. They are:

Meditate for 15 minutes
Read
Visualization

This is how I start my days. I may meditate or read again later, but starting out his way guarantees it gets done. Another way I use my planner to build my platform is the Habits section. Here I list the five habits I want to maintain every day. Right now mine are as follows:

Hydrate (for my and my weight, that’s six glasses of water a day)
Read
Meals not snacks
Meditate

You can see some of these overlap with my morning routine. It’s just another way for me to stay on track.

How are you building your platform? This week think about where and how you can add habits to your life that would help build your platform of positive choices! I’d love to hear your comments. Thanks for being here!