Want to feel wealthy? Keep those small winnings grow!

Pat Flynn and Tim Ferriss is among of my fave productive people out there. They’re smart and productive. It made me think how high achieving individuals like them keeping everything productive and hit their goals every year.

What is actually they do differently from rest of us? What’s the most essential and practical thing they do that keeping their momentum up?

— They journal, daily.

Reflect on the wins

The first thing to keep feel fulfilled is to have a routine to record your little winnings every day. You’d finished summarising that 20 pages long research paper? Record that. You completed 5 miles jog today? Make it into an accomplished list. Small winnings psychologically keep you happy. It is also the act of gratitude. Tony Robbins call this as the magic moments. Journalling helps to capture accomplishments and magic moments.

At the end of the year, you could reflect on what you have done and accomplish from the past, that usually we might be forgotten what we have done in the past. Journal is a practical tool to reconnect to the right track if found yourself lousy and lost. Many high achievers that I knew recommends doing this. It is an efficient system to help them to track accomplishments. This small hack helps to be more appreciative of what you have done.

Keep small winnings recorded also helps you to consistently stick with big goals. Many times, I found keeping to one goal is very hard to do. I regularly change my goal frequently once my priority or schedule change. #IFailed

Why? I easily excited (distracted) whenever I saw bright objects. This bright object syndrome happens all the time because I failed to track my own goal and stick to it. I easily lost focuses on what I should do, rather than I want to do. I also found that I didn’t appreciate little things even though I knew that one way to feel wealthy is enjoy small things around you logically, emotionally and spiritually. This need has daily deposit that means, you need a ritual or time to make this happen and reflect.

The fix

Though I’ve been making my list, still failed and undoubtedly unfound. Why? Because I don’t have one particular place that collects all those. It was because the chain is broken. Usually, I excited about one thing, and it won’t last as it should be. Now, I’ve started to record what I have done into a list using an app called iDoneThis as part to help my five minutes daily ritual. It’s still not perfect, but at least this is one channel that helps me to overview by accomplishments.
High achievers keep tracks almost everything to maintain the goal accountable.

High achiever like Jeff Walker told he does this by “reviewing all the wins for the prior year. Too often we don’t recognise all the progress we have made and all the great stuff we have to accomplish”. By focusing on the wins, it puts us in a positive state of mine forward and plans next year.

Schedule the year ahead

Seeing the big picture in advance allow work with more purpose throughout the year. A year worth of plan. Last year, one important lesson that I’ve learnt was that; to counter the fear of imperfection. At this stage, we shouldn’t worry about perfection. At least, I know where I am going/need to do. The plan always changing along the progress making process. That’s normal. Planning ahead will spare me time on the things I should spending/focusing with.

Failed to plan is plan to fail.

I learnt from the past. I’d be on many, many projects before. However, the number of done are lesser than the number of completion. I couldn’t hit my bigger goals as I planned because of the bright light syndrome. I failed to meet my datelines because of endless of new things coming.

The fix

Limit only three big goals per year. Break it down into four quarter goals – which are good-sized wins on their own! And break it down into monthly goals. This enables me to focus on the long-term goals, while at the same time enjoying being in the moment of achieving my short term, monthly goals.

Translating goal in reversal is practical. Map out of the entire year and work backwards from the end goal. Let’s be backwards, asks this question: what do the most I want to be thankful for one year from now? Pen that down and it becomes a focus for at the new year.

While reverse-engineering end goals is a very practical and tactical advice; another reasonable goal has to be a specific and measurable goal. The XPrize founder, Peter Diamandis echoed, “you can’t improve anything if unmeasurable”. This will help to begin the year with purpose and clear direction by providing specific outcomes and timeline to achieve it. Outlines those what that means on a quarterly basis, monthly basis and weekly basis.

Trim that fat!

I need to refrain myself from getting into the new project. Starting new projects is fun, but could poisonous to productivity. I need to eliminate the excess, so could focus the things that give the bigger turnaround, and better in beneficial. Maybe shortly, I should start a “no-list” for 2017. I need to block out calendar time for my most important outcomes; e.g. vacations, fun and time of major business and creative projects.

So the game for this year is to record and track. I will start fresh – to journal my progress. This is the way that would help me to have the sense of fulfilling even more in the shorter term, in which, contribute to pushing to longer term goals. This journalling practice brings positivity to what I do and elevates the stamina and momentum to keep going. Journaling allows me to express gratitude and being thankful.

Let’s hope this is not the outcome