The following is an excerpt from 'Becoming A Lion Among Sheep' a course designed to eradicate your negative, limiting habits and replace them with habits designed to forge a lean, muscular body, financial independence and a network of successful people.
Now that you’ve decided on your habits and grouped similar ones together (I’d recommend starting off with two to three groups of habits to start with), it’s time to decide on a trigger. Throughout the day, there are many events we can use as triggers… here’s a few examples:
Upon waking
First thing in the morning is the ideal time to get in your nutrients, read, stretch and exercise while your competition is still sleeping. Ensure you perform your morning routine before getting distracted with email or the like.
Getting in your car on the way to work
With Bluetooth on your phone, why not implement a few successful habits on your daily commutes? Listen to a relevant audiobook or podcast, call your mastermind group or accountability buddy, or you can even record a memo of your to-do list.
Arriving at the gym in the morning or evening
Foam rolling, stretching and elevating your feet above your head can all be done before or after your gym or home workout. As opposed to spacing these out throughout the day, I find it more efficient to stack these together – foam rolling prior to exercises like squats will also increase your mobility throughout the range of motion.
Before dinner
The time between getting home from work or study and settling in for the evening can be spent reviewing the successes and failures of the day and planning for the following day.
Before bed
Before bed, relaxing habits such as meditation, reading and avoiding the emissions of blue light will ensure you fall asleep with ease and wake up ready to dominate your day.
I’m sure you can think of other triggers that are more relevant to your life too, all you need is a time and location.
(Trigger = time + location).
The first several attempts are going to require your conscious effort and dedication. However, after you’ve begun to associate an event (your trigger) with a routine (your set of habits), you’re on your way to living a successful life.
Those habits we grouped in the previous chapter can now actively be triggered by an event.
Here’s an example:
Habits:
Drink Green Tea
Power Poses
Cold Shower
These habits can now form your ‘morning routine’ and can be triggered upon waking.
When you wake up in the morning, the first three things you will do include drinking a cup of green tea (providing your body with a plethora of antioxidants and assisting with fat loss) before performing your power poses (increases confidence and raises testosterone) followed by a cold shower (assisting muscular recovery, improving skin and hair condition, and raising testosterone).
The beauty of it is these three habits are quick and easy to follow. Each one should take roughly five minutes.
After your 15 minute morning routine, you’ll be feeling energized and unstoppable.
Check out 'Becoming A Lion Among Sheep' and discover the 56 habits I attribute to my success here.