Win the day

Origin story

If there is one thing I have learned in my short time on this earth, it is that I can do miracles ✨ if I engage one day at a time.

There'd been times when I stressed about things I considered humongous; they seemed out of reach for me. I would stress anytime I thought about them.

Why do I feel stressed?

I have come to learn that stress is the result of inaction. Whenever I feel stressed, it is an indicator that I had the chance to take action, but I didn't. Now I feel stress because the time to take the action has passed, now I have to borrow future time to deal with it; and this upsets my entire system.

But this is nothing new. This is ancient wisdom. Sages have spoken of this.

By mere continuous flow, the gentle stream cuts through the rocks
(source: unsure, but this is my own version)

What has worked

Having used this method a few times already, and I know it works, I have decided to build a pattern around it, and just continue to tune it.

Focus

You'll always have many ideas, projects, begging for your attention at any time. But you won't succeed if you tried to do all at once. I have had multiple attempts at overplanning 😄.
Focus asks the question:
what is the 1 area of my life that if I choose to improve would yield the most impact in say 6 months?

Let's say your answer is your health. To lose x kg by the end of the year.
It's easy to feel the stress by just thinking about this 😤. You generally shouldn't have more than 1-2 areas of focus at a time.

Flow

Let's take a different area of focus. Say I wanted to finish a book with 300 pages by the end of the month.
what can I do today that would count towards this goal?
Now, we're asking the right questions. The answer could be as simple as: read 5 pages a day. This is a very small action, that could take as little as 15 minutes daily.

Yes, reading 5 pages daily won't get me done in 1 month, but I sure will make progress and finish it ~2 months. The idea is to make measurable progress.

Accountability

What has worked for me is to first be accountable to myself. I encourage to keep a journal of what you did in the day. I also do a summary at the end of the week on Friday. If you have a buddy who is on a similar journey as you, you can share with them. Weekly is better to avoid creating a distubance. Even if you missed a day or two, it's fine. Still share it. Before you know it, your stress will be gone, and you will get into a flow state, and smash your goals.

To summarise, pick a goal or two, create a routine to do a repeat task each day for your goal (preferrably, same time each day), create a cadence of accountability with an accountability partner.

Go win the day 🎉