asceticism, and much more into the daily routine. These practices do not contradict the principle of «here and now» in any way, but on the contrary – they add zest to the every day lived. As a result, each new day becomes intense, resourceful, and productive.
A ritual is any practice that
you perform regularly at a set time and
that you fill with your personal magical meaning
1. Planning
Surely, it is no secret that all successful people schedule their day and their lives. Brian Tracy, world-famous Canadian-American motivational speaker and self-development coach, the author of over eighty books, talks about this in his books and video training.
For half a year, I have been following his recommendations. I started a notebook and every morning, from day to day, I write goals for the year on a new sheet – from 10 to 15 goals, no more. The next day I write again, without looking at the previous entries. Thus, only true goals remain, and the brain finds ways to achieve them independently.
For many years, I have been using the My Time app on my mobile with a simple and user-friendly interface: I write the name of the task, select the time and date, save – and that is it. In the evening, I write tasks for the next day. During the day, when the task is completed, I mark it. Here, I write my daily rituals such as meditation, sports, etc. Below is a screenshot of my application.
Why am I doing this? It saves me time, makes me more disciplined and productive, and reduces my stress levels by making me calm and feeling in control. As a nice bonus, completing tasks activates the production of the «happiness hormones» dopamine and serotonin in my brain.
2. Daily rituals
A ritual is any practice that you perform regularly at a set time and that you fill with your personal magical meaning. Rituals help develop discipline and good habits. However, the main task of the ritual is to fill oneself with love, plunge into a special state of balance and goodness in order to experience this state all day and radiate confidence and love.
I am sure that if you perform the ritual regularly, for 30—90 days, the result will inspire you to go on with this throughout all your life. For example, my morning and evening rituals are meditation, gratitude practice, writing goals for the year, etc. Just imagine how the quality of your life changes if you are in a resourceful state every day. You will attract people as they feel the energy coming from you as a source of light.
In modern world, with its rhythm of life, we are exposed to stress every day, and after the morning rituals, you create an invisible protective aura around you.
In the endless space of the Internet, it is completely useless to try to be better than someone is, it is impossible to be more beautiful or smarter than everyone – there will always be a person smarter and more successful. The only thing we can do is to become the best version of ourselves. Every day we should strive to be better than we were yesterday.
3. Asceticism
Asceticism is a deliberate voluntary deprivation from harmful or unprofitable habits or actions. Even though you feel discomfort, and it is something you resent, but you do it anyway in order for your life to get better, internal energy to accumulate, for the sake of your personal growth, spiritual development, and self-improvement. Nowadays, your attention is the most valuable resource, and everyone wants to get hold of it. Where your attention is, there is your energy and your desires, and where your desires are, there is your money. Asceticism drives you to abstain from unnecessary things and to develop your inner strength.
Inner strength enables you to do something worthwhile. It makes you able to generate ideas, launch them into life and get feedback. This energy fills you and pushes you towards realizing your dreams. It seems that you receive it simply «from nowhere» – only thanks to your inner fire. Otherwise, apathy, laziness, ignorance of what to do next, how to live and in which direction to go, awaits you. Inner strength brings clarity and confidence. It fills with joy and desire to live, you want to move, you want to create and realize yourself.
With asceticism, you generate and accumulate this inner fire you were not aware even. When you abstain, your psyche hardens; when you fast, you burn up future unfavorable events, clean your bad karma. According to the teachings of Ayurveda, asceticism burns away bad karma, and you become the master of your destiny – no more and no less.
An example of austerity: refusal from sugar and white flour, from smoking, fast food, foul language, and television.
I recommend you starting the next month by setting goals
for the month, establishing asceticism practices for yourself,
doing morning rituals, choosing a challenge and
practicing them the best you can for the next 30 days.
4. Challenge
Challenge is a self-provocation to achieve a result or goal. Let us just say it is the opposite of asceticism, the point here is to do and not refrain from doing. It is better to limit the challenge in time so that you calculate the amount of energy required to achieve the goal, make a plan and set a course for the result. If there is no set period, there will always be a reason to start tomorrow, not today.
From the archive of my challenges: I cycled 2018 km in 2018 (it took me 4 months, the video is on my Facebook page), went hungry for 14 and 28 days, took an AFF course and received a skydiver certificate, listened to two courses of English and many more.
The path to the goal is of the most importance here, as it is, in fact, full of colors, overcomes and drive, and the moment of achievement is just a very quick flash of delight, after which you may have a minute of regret that it is an end. Have you ever felt this?
I had training in Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), and even there, goal setting and rigorous measures are included in the curriculum because it strengthens neural circuits, increases our capabilities, resulting in Universe giving us the resources we want.
I recommend you starting the next month by setting goals for the month, establishing asceticism practices for yourself, doing morning rituals, choosing a challenge, and practicing them the best you can for the next 30 days.
And most importantly – do it with pleasure, enjoy the process!
Practical Advice
Planning
First, install the time-management app on your smartphone; there are a lot of them – for example, My time, Motivateo, Evernote. You can use the paper version. I really love beautiful creative notebooks for planning or teaching.
Every evening, I schedule plans for the next day: appointments, events, doctor visits, important events, and friends’ birthdays. During the day, I add new plan items, if any. It is very convenient: as it takes only a couple of minutes a day, but calms the brain.
The secret of success is to declare your
goal to a large audience, make a bet,
