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It’s that time again when it becomes commonplace to subscribe to one of two extreme approaches to see out the year.

First up there’s:

The Coaster.

They’re already checked out and cruising. So far as work, health and goals that is.

Likely not so far as partying. This is party season!

The Coaster sashays from sexy new dress shopping to hair to nails to cocktail this and end of year that.  

Next up there’s:

The Make-The-Moster.

Ok, it might not be a real term however you know what I mean. There’s a pressure… often self imposed to jam it ALL in before the end of the year. Business goals. Health goals. Even catch ups with friends.

The Make-The-Moster is fuelled by an ever expanding urgency compelling her to make it all happen… now.

Can you relate to one or the other?

Or perhaps like me, you’re tempted to Coast yet also feel obliged to Make The Most?

There’s no doubt the more attractive approach is to throw your goals to the side and declare you’ll pick them up again… next year!

The more beneficial approach is likely a combination of both.

In todays show on:

Design Your Own Daily Inspiration Practice 

I’m going to unite coast and make the most with the intention of successfully negotiating a fine line I’ve been finding myself thinking a lot about recently. That is: the fine line between a genuine gratitude and appreciation for right now AND a passionate focus that drives you to relentlessly keep pursuing your goals.

 Let’s power on with, 3 steps to Design Your Own Daily Inspiration Practice.

Step One: Win Your Mornings.

This is about being in the right state to recognize and act on inspiration. Inspiration can be in everything or in nothing.

Some Win Your Morning practices might be:

• Meditation.
• Food and Exercise.
• Podcast / Reading / Journaling.

=> To get actionable (a little earlier than usual in todays show) the first action step is to design your winning morning routine.

That routine that starts your day off as you mean to continue. Now your routine may not look like mine. I’ve just included a few points to get the ball rolling. Another way to approach your winning morning routine is to reverse engineer how you want your day to be and what that would take. What states / emotions do you want to experience?

Perhaps you want to start the day calm and effective. This might mean getting up a little earlier to fit in meditation – let’s say as opposed to hitting the snooze button repeatedly and starting the day running late.

Maybe it’s important to give your body a nutritious breakfast that will make it efficient in both work and exercise and make those sugary treats you’ll encounter at some point today so much easier to decline.

Possibly you want to spend time with someone who inspires you. To learn and grow. If that’s the case, you have access to unlimited mentors now via podcasts or blogs or books.

Step Two: Ward Off Inspiration Leeches.

The focus here is to be proactive rather than reactive. In fact, to be brutal with your zero tolerance for anything (or anyone!) that sucks the inspiration out of you.

Some Ward Off Inspiration Leeches practices might be:

• Task batching (phone and text / email / social media). Those tasks that may seem urgent yet are often not important and generally both detract from your most important task and also leave you feeling, well: Blah. Like you’re prioritizing other people priorities rather than your own. Like you’re getting sucked into the manufactured highlight wheels of other peoples lives rather than living your own!
• Minimize unsupportive interactions.Spend as little time and have as minimal buy in with people who play the victim / whinge / gossip / blame as possible.
• Eliminate detrimental habits. Reality T.V. Mindless internet surfing. Playing comparison games with those people you encounter in your mindless internet surfing.

=> The next action step is to decide on your strategy to ward off each type of inspiration leech. These are the strategies that keep your day running with your priorities as the focus not anyone else’s. Perhaps consider your most recent least inspired day and come up with strategies to counter what went wrong. Conversely analyze a recent highly inspired day and design strategies to replicate what went right. 

Perhaps you jumped straight into your number one most important task before checking email / phone / social media.

Maybe you politely changed the subject at work. Screened that certain phone call (having a mobile does not mean you MUST always drop everything to answer it!). Or kept your headphones on at the gym to avoid unwanted interactions with inspiration leeches. 

Potentially you ditched the dodgy T.V. and rabbit hole internet in favour of reading an old school paper (!) book before bed. Or, as I just did when I had mobile in hand ready to tap that little Instagram app and farewell my focus instead hit play on your most inspirational song and fuel your focus! 

Three: Welcome In Your Ideal Sleep. 

In doing so, you give yourself every chance for an ideal tomorrow. A rubbish nights sleep sets you up to struggle tomorrow. So far as energy, discipline and focus. It’s equally tough to feel gratitude for this moment or any drive to relentlessly pursue your goals. In fact, when you’re sleep deprived your main drive may well be to slurp coffee after delicious coffee and to get lost in the land of Instagram drooling over ALL of the food you’d love to devour!

Some Welcome In Your Ideal Sleep practices are:

• Plan your day to come. The benefits here are 2-fold. Once you’re got tomorrows tasks on paper by order of priority they can stop floating annoyingly in your head. Equally, when you wake up tomorrow you know exactly what to prioritize first.
• Gratitudes / Reference Points For Success / Visualizing Your Ideal Tomorrow. The reason this point makes so many podcast appearances is I find it hugely beneficial. If what you focus on expands – and it does – then these are absolutely the things I want my mind to be focusing on as I drift off to sleep.
• Step away from the devices and perhaps pick up a real book.You’ll enjoy 2-fold benefits here too. For a start you stop the unfiltered  flow of non-ideal information and have the chance to replace it with quality information of your choosing (perhaps the autobiography of someone you respect). In addition you allow your body to naturally produce the sleep enhancing hormone melatonin that the light emitted from devices inhibits.

To make todays show on how to Design Your Own Daily Inspiration Practice super implementable I want to break it down a little further.

=> Specifically I’d love you to choose 3 points for each step we’ve covered today so you’ll end up for a 9 point Daily Inspiration Practice. To recaps those steps:

One: Win Your Mornings.

Two: Ward Off Inspiration Leeches.

Three: Welcome In Your Ideal Sleep. 

If you liked Design Your Own Daily Inspiration Practice, you’ll also like: How To Model Your Own Success.

If you’re yet to share the Healthification love – just click here to zip over to iTunes and leave an honest rating and review. It’d help me out big time. With gratitude, Kate.