The Daily Do

It seems you can’t click a link or open a magazine without hearing of the importance of a morning routine, it’s quite rightly the unpacking of the best of your day but of just as much impact is how you pack it away. An evening routine is more planning than peace but it’s the peace that this gives you that will help you to sleep. Then with deep sleep you rise to the best start to your day, a clean slate, a fresh start, that you planned yesterday.

Your best CV is how YOU are around those that you meet, the sure foot of your focused best will land you on your feet. In our daily actions we can pull doors open and let opportunity walk in, we don’t always have to push for new chapters to begin. If you’re optimitistic, helpful, kind and know your thing, you’ll attract the right opportunities, just from what you’re doing.

It’s great to be aware of how you want to grow but don’t be fooled into putting all your happiness on hold. Live for today, with half an eye on tomorrow.  It’s the simple pleasures on the way that make happiness a journey, not the destination we arrive at once we finish all this learning. Happiness is not to aim for but to encounter along the way, it’s in the cup that’s in your hands, in the small things that make our day.

When you set about your week your dreams can seem way down the line, but select the actions that take you there, broken down into chunks of time. Break down your dreams into realtime goals and then goals into a plan, 52 weeks can change you from ‘I want to be’ to ‘I am’. No matter what your dreams, they’re only dreams without a plan, so chart your course in one week slots, seven days of ‘Yes I can!’.

The suffocating suit of self pity, waiting for the world to change or help you out, crushes your control and is the opposite of empowered. Feeling sorry for yourself quickly twists into resentment, anger and jealousy which are all ultimately fear; fear that life is passing by when you know you could be happier. But arrest this fearful self sabotage with the shock of “It’s all on me! I can change this, I’ll move on, I’ll make my happy!”

Confidence is not unfeeling arrogance or the absence of your fear but mastery of it with courage, to be you in the spotlight’s glare. To be who you know you already are because you’ve proven it to yourself; confidence is learnt, not ingrained or given by someone else. It’s fear that’s stopping you from being yourself in the wider world and that's damaging over time, but stand front and centre, look down life’s lens, be yourself and you’ll be fine.

A random act of kindness can change the journey of your day, and no matter what has come and gone we don’t know what is on it’s way. Aesop said, “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” In little gestures of compassion we open up the best of us, we define our life’s direction, and for today, that is enough.

The trite advice to smile is too sweet to swallow whole, but that the world is just a mirror maybe makes you see smiling’s role. It’s the smile when you don’t feel like smiling that brightens someone’s day, the choice in that split second is positive over negativity. There’s no greater sign of happiness, contentment or the willingness for good than a smile upon your face that opens positive to you. I know this all sounds cheesy, but the science backs it up; smile more and your spirits rise, up and up and up.

Does the clutter in your mind make it hard to know what’s wrong? Something's really bothering you but it’s hard to lay hands on. This state of anxious overload can really bring us to a halt, but in fact it’s often just too much on your mind, not something wrong that’s all your fault. Write it all on paper, clear the decks inside your head, then choose three things and get them done, and now your mind’s reset.

Your idea of normal is completely weird to someone else, so don’t strive to be your normal, just relax and be yourself. We can really hurt ourselves with ideas that we just don’t quite fit in, but talk to those who you think really do and you’ll find they feel the same. Be extraordinary, extra to the ordinary way; who wants to fit a glove that you wouldn’t wear anyway?