In 2015, I underwent personal three-month coaching with Ekaterina Gromakovskaya, and this was an invaluable contribution to my self-development. I have learned how to plan the day, set goals for the year and for life, as well as how to introduce daily rituals, challenges, 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 3090 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
The secret of success is to declare your
goal to a large audience, make a bet, make a plan and add friends support.
Rituals
Everyone is unique and has his\her own preferences and anchors. I know a woman who treats a cup of coffee early in the morning, while the children and husband are sleeping, as a special ritual of unity with herself and her soul. For others, it may be running, yoga, dancing, meditation, walking the dog, reading whatever gives YOU pleasure, because this is your time for yourself and your desires only.
Your rituals can replace each other over time, and some will stay with you for life.
No time?
Eliminate temptations these are parasites that steal your time: TV, advertising, «only 10 minutes» in social media, meaningless chat on the phone, talking to unnecessary people, smoking, coffee breaks you can spend this time on things that are more valuable.
I have seen mothers and fathers in the park doing long jogging with a stroller. Women who used their child as additional weight when doing squats or push-ups.
There is always a solution for any task.
Challenge.
How to motivate yourself and keep it up until the end?
It all depends on your goal, how much it ignites you. However, support is also important. The goal should be only yours, and not imposed by someone, this is important.
Example: «I want to lose 10 kg before the New Year.» It is obvious, boring, and therefore, not motivating. To make it better you can paraphrase, for example, «I want to run a 42 km marathon.» I assure you will definitely lose weight while preparing, and even more you will improve your health, and get a medal.
In June 2018, I was coaching with Ekaterina Gromakovskaya, and one day we had a Skype call and she gave me the task to go live and record a short video. I really was not into it, I tried to come up with excuses, but after the «magic push», I got on my bike and went for a drive. It was 67 a.m., and it was a workday. I chose a location with a beautiful view of the city, turned on the camera and went live on Facebook. I said «Good morning, friends!», I did not know what else could I share, and then it broke out by itself: «I decided to ride 2018 km by the end of the year on a bicycle». After that, I quickly drove back, took a shower and went to work.
By this time, my colleagues had already watched my broadcast, and one of them said that 2018 km is too much, and I will not succeed. This made me angry, as I am not one of those people who uses the word lightly. Therefore, we made a bet with Andrey Balitsky: if I win, he pays for dinner at any restaurant of my choice, if not, I will be the one who pays.
Of course, I wanted to win and prove that it is possible. I did it thanks to a systematic approach and friends support. In order to accomplish it, I drove 10 km every day, having upgraded it to 100 km with time. I used the Strava app to measure the distance, and I had a schedule for 4 months fixing the minimum daily distance.
When I achieved the goal and posted the results on Facebook, my colleagues prepared a present for me my photo with a bicycle in a beautiful frame and with a creative wording. It was unexpected and, therefore, even more pleasant. I won a bet and we had dinner with Andrey Balitsky at the Guramma restaurant, as their beautiful observation deck was near the place my challenge started.
The secret of success is to declare your goal to a large audience, make a bet, make a plan and add friends support.