The mind needs to be trained like a muscle, so you have to challenge it or else you will lose it. One great way to train the mind is to right down 10 new ideas every day. This will open you up to new opportunities but it will also give your brain the workout it needs to stay strong. Don't worry about how silly or bad the idea is, just think of ten new ideas. If you never take time to challenge your thoughts, what is going to happen to you in the future when you need to think? 

This is a great exercise by James Altucher and just write your ideas in a journal, on your note app, or on a white board, just make sure you do it. 

Journal Prompts

1. How can you incorporate writing down ten new ideas a day into your schedule?
2. What are the benefits of writing down new ideas every day? What are the downsides?

The world is a very complex place and since everything is connected to something else, you might only be seeing the tip of the iceberg when you make snap judgement. Sympathy is seeing somebody in a hole and saying sorry in the hole. Empathy is actually knowing what it feels like to be in the hole with the other person. There could be a lot of different reasons why a person got into that hole. First seek to understand why the person got in the hole before you judge a person and ask yourself would you have gotten into the same hole if you lived under the same circumstances. 

Everybody has their own problems and has a unique experience on how they got those problems, it's not helpful to judge without knowing the entire situation. So if you are going to judge, do you research first and if it's valid to give judgement, then go ahead, but it’s probably better to ask questions so that you understand first.

Journal Prompts

1. How can you ask questions so that you better understand a situation?
2. What happens when you judge a situation without fully understanding the situation?

Temptation bundling is when you pair an activity that you don't want to do but need to with something that you already enjoy. A good example of this is going to the gym and watching netflix while you do cardio. So if you're struggling to do something, find a reward that you can give yourself for doing that activity like your favorite drink or some music. 

It doesn't matter what the reward is, it is just something that is going to help you do that thing you don't want to do. If you have a hard time doing something, temptation bundling is the first thing you should do to help you get going. 

Journal Prompts

1. What are you struggling to do right now? Is there a reward that you can give yourself for completing that hard task?
2. What would happen to your life if you did all those things that you want to do but have been pushing off?

You have to realize that willpower is a diminishing resource. Every time you use it, you're depleting the tank. This is why when we say we're going to do something after work, we end up not doing it because we used up all our willpower for the day. 

So when this happens, set up your environment, where the hardest choice you have to do, is the easiest. This could mean selling your tv or hiding your phone so you can focus on your work. Or you do the hardest thing in the morning first and then you don't have to worry about it for the rest of the day. 

Realize that you only have a finite amount of energy for the day or week, and you should use it wisely.

Journal Prompts

1. How can your your energy for the day more efficiently so that you can get the most value?
2. Does pushing things off towards the end of the day usually work out for you? Why is this the case?

Everything can go well in life then all of sudden your world can be turned upside down. Your business could be in the dumps, your partner leaves you, and then you have a $4000 car repair bill all in a three month period. The key thing is that you need to be ready for moments like this by working on your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual self. If you don’t prepare for moments like these, then you might have a major mental breakdown. If you did prepare yourself for this situation, you will probably have a little breakdown, but you’ll be able to keep going.

Enjoy the day but work on yourself and gather resources to weather any storm that comes your way. When life does come at you, you’ll get past the storm and can start rebuilding. If you have the right skills and resources when you rebuild, you’ll come back even stronger.

Journal Prompts

1. Are you prepared for when life comes you fast? How can you be more prepared?
2. How can you rebuild back faster and stronger when you receive your next setback?

If you always do what is easy, it's like putting gasoline on a fire, you'll get a quick burst of energy but it will quickly fade away and you'll be cold again. If you do what is hard, it's kind of like lighting coals, it can take awhile to get heated up but once it's going, you can have heat for a long time. 

By doing the hard stuff in life, you're going to give yourself more coal to burn and will be able to keep warm in winter and cook your food. You can't do this with gasoline. Tell yourself that you have to do the hard stuff first because it will give you the future that you want instead of one that will be more difficult.

Journal Prompts

1. How can you focus on doing one hard thing a day? What will the reward be for doing it?
2. How can you avoid spending the majority of your day on the easy stuff? What will be the reward for doing them?

Whatever situation you're in, you're probably going to have to change who you are a little bit to fit into the situation. One of the best things you can understand is how to be a social chameleon that is able to change its color based on its surroundings. This will allow you to create better rapport with those who you're interacting with and make a more enjoyable environment. You're not being stiff with your personality and you’re giving others the opportunity to interact with you to pass you by. 

When it comes to your goals, sometimes you need to change who you are so you can step up to the challenge and become the person you need to become. The situation dictates who you need to become and you become more successful because it. This doesn't mean changing who you are, you still have your core values and principles and you won't sabotage those but you can change your message and actions based on the situation. So be like water and take the shape of the container you are in. Trying to force things is rarely a strategy that works in creating change and being successful.

Journal Prompts

1. How can you change your message and actions in a new environment so that they are more successfully executed?
2. How can you ensure that you don’t let your stubbornness from letting you be formless like water?

If you’re feeling stuck at work or some other thing, go for a walk to get yourself out of that funk. By going for a walk it gives you an opportunity to think things out. This then allows you to come up with possible solutions to your obstacles and then give you a new insight on which direction you should go in. Most of the time you just need to step away from things and just think. Don't worry about things not getting done because they'll be there and not much is going to change if you continue to work on them. 

Also when you go for a walk, you’ll be able to calm down and feel less stressed out. Then when you return to my work, you will be re-energized and ready to get back to work and give that task 100% effort instead of 50%. Make sure you go on at least one walk today and continue to keep this habit up. Taking breaks can lead you to your greatest breakthrough. 

Journal Prompts

1. How can you incorporate at least one 15 minute walking break a day into your schedule?
2. What good is pounding your head against the wall? Does this really change anything for the better?

Everything we do is connected to everything else in the world. Your breath is being somebody else's air and it was somebody else's before it got to you at one point. We have to realize that things don't live in a vacuum and our actions have an effect on others, (people, animals, plants, and our earth). So don't be too selfish with your actions or we could create a tragedy of commons situations where a billion small actions leaves the world depleted of its resources.

Think how your negative act towards a barista at the coffee shop could have a chain effect where the barista takes out their frustration on their family or their personal health. So when you act, try to think how your actions are affecting others and would you want to be treated the same way. 

Journal Prompts

1. How can you be more aware of your action towards others?
2. How can you ensure that you give more value than you take from this world?

In public health, they teach you to look up stream to find the source of a problem and they use this story: 

A man was fishing in the river when he noticed someone was drowning. He pulled them out and attempted to resuscitate them. Shortly afterwards, he noticed another person in the river and saved them too. He then noticed another, and another and another. Soon he was exhausted and realized he would not be able save all of the drowning people.

He went further upstream to find out why all these people were falling into the river. 

On arriving further upstream, he discovered a broken bridge was causing people to fall into the river and end up drowning where he had been fishing.  He decided he would fix the bridge to stop them falling in, instead of fishing them out after they were already drowning.

So whatever problem you're facing, there probably is something else that is causing the pain so look at different causes to see what is the source of the problem so you don't keep having the same problem over and over again. 

Journal Prompts

1. What is the source of the problem that you’re having now? What would looking upstream look like for this problem?
2. What is the thing you can do to fix that source problem?