Make your bed and don’t sleep in it.

Most of my downtime is spent learning things on youtube. One of those mind altering moments in life came to me recently from watching the brain mentor that is Jim Kwik. He explains on his channel how making your bed every morning sets your mind into motion of achievement. When you do something so simple, like fix your bed in the morning it sets a tone for the day.

You got up and completed a task. This gets your brain in gear to move onto more tasks and more tasks.

Like in my last article, where I mentioned momentum, that a ship is hardest to steer when it is not moving, but it is really easy once it has got going; the same can be said for making tasks. Once you do one, the rest can follow, our brains love repetition and simple tasks like making your bed before going out in the morning will start fresh habits.

The opposite is also true, if you don't start the day making your bed, you've just started the day with an excuse. You'll then justify reasons to avoid anything after that. I’m not the best morning person, but recently I’ve been working on reconditioning my brain and habits to create new ones. I want to achieve a lot this year and I need more time to do this. The only place I know where I can get more out of my day is in the morning. So creating new habits will in turn replace the old.

A few weeks into starting my new improved version of bed making, my pastor shared this exact same message, but it was a navy seal on video saying the same thing. It confirmed what I had already started — that doing this would create successful habits for me, especially in the mornings.

Making your bed and heading off to work leaves you with a task completed. This will breed into other tasks completed, even if you have a stinker of a day. Coming back to a made bed reminds you that the day is not over and that you have completed a task. The added bonus for me, my wife notices that I do this and it has also added benefits (although it took her about 2 weeks to finally catch on it was me making it!).

The little things matter, if you can’t be trusted to be a good steward of your small things in life, how will you cope with the bigger things? This is bible principal 101 here, but it works in any area of life.

I’m challenged to read more and write more. I set out last year to write and publish my first novel, I’m almost half way there and it’s been from changing my habits and creating new conditions. My PC at home has never seen a game on it, I have set the tone in my home office that it is there for work, to create things and I’ve made sure to keep it that way. If I let it become a place of internet browsing, netflix watching or game playing, I would bet I'd be less likely to get on with work.

First you make your habits, then your habits make you.

If you fancy taking your mind on a new adventure. Click here to visit Jim's site. I think the stuff he shares is really helpful for anyone that has habits they want or want to quit.