Now I’m sleeping far better at night knowing that I’m facing them head-on!
When you go to bed, do you have this inner dialog of all the things you could have done today, but didn’t?
That used to be me pretty much every night.
I still stay up pretty late — later than I should — but at least when I go to bed now, I can usually go to sleep pretty quickly.
I credit these three practices to this, which took me far too long to realize. I hope they help you!
1. Setting up a work environment that’s conducive to — you know — work!
To be fair this is kind of an ongoing struggle for me. Took me a few nights to clear off my desk! But now that it’s clear I find fewer distractions to getting things done.
One way to keep things organized is what my wife calls “puttering” and what I’ve called nano-actions. For my office, it could be as simple as sticking a pen back in the pen container. Or putting my empty coffee cup into a bus tray.
The times I’ve had a ton of clutter in my work area, it pulls me down, and I just stare at my computer screen to avoid looking around at the mess.
2. Developing and cultivating a bias toward action
Simply put this means choosing to do something over choosing not to do something.
If I’m left to my own devices I tend to just think and not do. Getting out of the thinking mode requires active effort on my part. Otherwise, nights would go by and I wouldn’t have accomplished a darn thing.
But the more I’ve actively decided to just start something, the easier it’s become.
Recently the biggest thing that’s helped me to develop and bias toward action is publicly stating what I’m going to do in the coming week. I’ll do this in my weekly newsletter and anyone who cares to read it can hold me accountable if they want to.
3. Surrounding myself with positive things and positive people
Sometimes it may be unrealistic to have positive influences around us all the time.
But we can tip the balance to more positive vibes one decision at a time.
This could mean excusing ourselves from meetings and committees that don’t bring us joy anymore, or not spending time with people who complain and play the victim.
We can also take steps to increase the frequency of these positive influences, like joining a mastermind group of like-minded individuals, or energizing our work environment to make it a happy place.
Work on yourself every day with your choices.
Choices like these:
- Choosing to keep peace instead of choosing violence
- Saying “no” when it’s not a “heck yeah!”
- Picking bold statements over weasel words
- Letting someone else eat the empty calories
- Etc.
You don’t need to hit a home run every day.
You’ll sleep better at night just knowing that you got up to bat.
Thanks for reading!
Hi, I’m John and I encourage people to work for themselves, and on themselves, every day to sleep better at night.
Join hundreds of savvy people with my Solid Cash Tips newsletter for regular insights on side hustling and saving money, with a generous portion of productivity, habit-building, and working smarter!
Or check out Side Hustler’s Progress to learn from my successes and failures in building my side hustles!