Welcome to the first entry of The Race Driver Coach series called Success Tip.
My profession and this website is all about one thing, to give you the best strategies that will make a positive impact on your life and will help you get what you want.
So to help me do this even more efficiently and effectively I have come up with Success Tip. This is a series of blog posts that will be short, straight to the point and ready for you to implement.
These tips will be as applicable for race drivers as they are for truck drivers, it is for anyone who wants to get more from themselves and their lives.
I will randomly slip these amongst the normal blog posts so keep your eyes out for them.
Here is the first Success Tip.
Success Tip #1
Set Things Up To Flow
This tip is for people who keep putting important things off.
You know that you ‘should’ go to the gym or you ‘should’ call that person or you ‘should’ do that tax return or you ‘should’ send that document but this is still not enough to get you to actually do it.
You end up justifying procrastination and come up with a whole host of bulls**t reasons for why you cannot do it right now or why this is not the absolute perfect time to do it.
You talk yourself out of doing it because you can’t be bothered to do it right now or do not see it as being of major importance.
We all do it, I am a sucker for doing this and that’s why I just had to implement this tactic that I’m sharing with you today.
It’s All Adding Up Right Now.
First remind yourself that the life you are living right now is the result of how you have operated in the past.
The way you use your minutes determine how you use your days, these have all added up to form your present, if you want to change your future then you must use your current minutes and days in a different way.
What have you done in the past 10 minutes that will help you get closer to your dreams?
Was it the maximum you could have done in those 10 minutes?
Could you have spent that time better to help the 'Future You' out a little more?
If so then wake up, your future self needs you to up your game before it’s too late.
As humans we tend to allow tasks that are annoying to do or require us to dedicate ourselves to fall by the wayside, we tell ourselves that we will do it later or tomorrow only to repeat the process again when that time arrives.
Let Water Be Your Metaphor.
For the purpose of this explanation I want you to see your life's path as an empty riverbed stretching into the distance, a dried out river just waiting for some water to run through it.
Then I want you to see yourself as the water that can fill that riverbed, you are the water.
It’s your job as the water to travel down that river as far as you can and to get to destinations that you dream for.
In order to do this you need to flow with as little resistance as possible, you need to build up a strong current and when you are really going for it you can even build yourself into a white water rapid. When in this mode there will be nothing to stop you and you will have a successful life.
But before you get to that stage we need to make sure that nothing is blocking your way, we need to make sure that your days all contribute to the momentum needed to get you where you want to be.
If you do this day after day you will be astonished at how far you can go and what you can carve into this planet during your time here.
See Your tasks In This Light.
The main obstacles that can slow your momentum and flow down are your lack of action and proactiveness.
Your water can quickly go stale and you can put up mental dams in your river to halt all progress if you are not taking the required steps and actions.
You can either attend to the tasks in hand and get them done efficiently and quickly so you can move on or you let them stop you in your tracks.
They can either let you continue with little time lost or they can block your way. It’s up to you to set things up so you can easily achieve the tasks that need to be done, not to put them off and have to drag them along with you and eventually stop your progress.
For example if you need to achieve a certain level of fitness but you cannot get yourself to go to the gym anywhere near enough then you simply won't get there. A dam will be created and you will never reach the destination of fitness you require.
If you need to gain sponsorship but you cannot get yourself to make at least 5 contacts per day (as an example) then you again will create a block in your way, your just will not get there. Period.
Your daily tasks and jobs can either be dams or they can be small pebbles.
You need to be able to flow into the daily jobs that will get you to where you want to get, do not make them hard to achieve or bigger than they actually are.
The ideal way is to set things up so you virtually fall into doing the required jobs so before you know it you are have already started them so you may as well follow through.
This is a skill, I will show you how I do this whilst writing a book.
Writing My Book
At the time of writing this post I am also in the middle of writing a new book and this is a painful process for me.
In the past I really struggled with getting myself in the correct rhythm and creative mind-set to consistently write at a certain level. Sometimes I would be in the flow but others I would just be staring at a document with nothing more than a title on it. Then I would put it off because I just couldn't get into it.
So I found out my own way of awakening my creative side, I then came up with a way of using it so every single day I could write freely and I managed to improve my writing time by 300%.
I wasn’t writing once or twice per week anymore, I was writing between 3 and 7 days per week. Such a difference and yes my days have become like white water rapids on that side.
My system is this:
At night time I write out my goal for the following day on a notepad
I leave that notepad by my bed overnight
In the morning I wake up and immediatly capture my thoughts, I write them down and they are usually based on that goal
I then go for my morning jog and mental kickstart routine
I come back, have a shower and get straight into the day of writing and for applying the thoughts I came up with when I first woke up. Up to now these days have always been a success.
Up to now whilst doing this routine I have always set my day up for success and felt fulfilled in doing so.
It keeps the momentum going strong and motivates me to do those jobs that I was previously avoiding.
I did it this morning, this blog post that you are reading didn’t even exist an hour ago, I didn’t even know what I was going to write about last night before bed, I just knew I had to get a blog post out today. The rest came naturally.
Fall into your jobs
Set it up so you literally fall into the tasks and jobs you need to do.
Make sure that you are fully aware of just how important they are and make them stupidly easy to instigate.
Again I have my writing pad by the bed and beside it I have my workout gear and no other clothes in that room, I simply wake up, scribble for a few minutes and get the hell out of there for my mental kickstart. Here is the photo from the side of my bed this morning:
How can you set things up so you are literally forced to follow through, where it becomes easier to do the job that you are putting off instead of side stepping it once again?
For example set up a meeting when you are in the mood so you are virtually forced to follow through, get someone to hold you accountable for completing a certain job, you need to create the urgency then make it easy to fulfil.
See how creative you can be and you just watch how good you feel once you get to lunch time, even if you only work from when you wake up till lunch time in this way then your day will be a success no matter how lazy you are in the afternoon.
So once again, simplify the job down, focus on why you must do it and make it easy to complete. Even allocate it for someone else to do if it can be, just get these jobs done and stop messing about.
Your future self and loved ones are depending on you so get on with it.
