Here’s the thing I’ve learned about my life – Whenever I spend the first 30minutes to 1 hour not mentally making myself stronger, checking my phone, dealing with other peoples needs or avoid doing difficult things that are good for me… the rest of the day is really hard to get through.
This is because my energy, like a cup being filled, is not being filled and at worst is being drained in the first hour.
So what I want to talk to you about are three tips in order to make your life easier. The first being super important is don’t check your phone in the first 15 to 30 minutes of your time.
For me, with an ADHD brain, dopamine is such a big thing. The neurotransmitter is the reward center, it’s that cheat meal after 6 days of dieting. I used to wake up in the morning and the first thing would be checking my phone, sealing peoples messages, questions etc…The problem is, I’m answering other people’s needs and I’m dealing with other people’s fires. I’m saying to myself, unconsciously, my things aren’t that important. My organization and my care are not that important because I got up first to take care of others. It’s so hard to separate from my phone like there is an invisible umbilical cord connected to this phone and it’s hard to break this off.
Don’t check your phone in the first 15 to 30 minutes. Start to take care of yourself. Start to fill up your cup so that it’s full and even some days maybe overflowing so you can offer more and give your best to others. Because if you wake up and you didn’t get enough sleep, you’re frustrated, you haven’t had food or you haven’t worked out, whatever you do, what kind of energy are you going to either way be capable of sending to other people? There is no emergency that you have to check your phone within the first 30 minutes so avoid it. You can put it on a “do not disturb” mode, flip it upside down, or put it in another room. It doesn’t matter how you do to avoid it, that’s the first tip.
The second tip is cold showers. I know it’s freezing but I’m telling you right now it’s the best! I hated the idea but here’s my biggest fear – I’m worried that if I get too comfortable and when I need courage or when I need strength or when a great opportunity comes my way, I’m just going to be too much in my comfort zone to be able to take a chance.
I think of courage as a muscle. When you exercise daily and by doing uncomfortable things especially in the morning, you would teach yourself that you’re the type of person that is not scared of uncomfortable things. When the time comes that you need to take the courage to change jobs, to start a new relationship, to work on a project, you think you’re not good enough you’re going to be able to tap into. So not only a ton of physical benefits to doing a cold shower, even a cold run, it’s even turning on the tap and just splashing yourself 5 to 10 times with cold water. It teaches you in the morning that you do uncomfortable and difficult things and when the rest of those inconvenient things come your way, you’re ready for them because you can tap into it!
The third thing that I do that really fills my cup is watching something positive. I have a ton of role models like Kevin Hart, Brene Brown, Maya Angelou. I have so many role models who have done a lot and they’re not in my immediate life. I watch their videos and I listened to their inspirational messages and reminders. Some days I need to feel like I belong and some days I need to kick my own butt so I watch David Goggins and his intensity about stop making excuses and go grind it out fires me up.
See, it’s so hard to offer a lot to others when our cup isn’t full. We need to go to others as well to fill up our own cups. I watched these people 5 to 10 minutes every day just to fill my cup with their energy and whatever source of power I need that day. Definitely, it makes it easier for me to stay focused on my goals and it makes it easier for me to offer more love, care, attention, affection, whatever the people need in my life because I fill my cup up.
So the third thing is, watch something inspirational, read something incredible, listen to podcasts if you’re on audio, or even do yoga. It doesn’t matter how you do it to fill your cup with energy.
So the three tips are – we got the physical, we got the avoidance of the phone and giving yourself that 5 to 10 minutes to remind and teach yourself that your needs are important. We have to admit this, that when our own needs are met, it’s so much easier to offer other people what they need.
If you have a comment or a question you want me to answer, please send us an email. I’d love to hear from you.
