The 365 Commitment

Blog 175 – Mental Hacks That Work

First Saturday of July and early this morning I added one more sprint to my regimen for a total of nine.  My first few sprints were more in my mind than my body.  My body was stiff and slow. Probably from the fried foods, hot dogs, and other unhealthy fare I ate on the 4th of July.  Still I managed to run up that hill and just focus on the moment.  Maintaining form, breathing, and paying attention to the sprint I am doing, not how many more I still have to do.

The mental hack, or habit, of totally focusing on what I am doing in this moment, and not worrying about anything in the  future or past is one thing that seems to really help, it’s something that does bring a kind of relief and power to the moment.  I’m better at it because of practice  during the 365 Commitment process.

The concept of being just a little bit better than I was yesterday also helps.  This is also a mental hack.  Improvement on any dimension seems to work to build motivation and a bit of satisfaction.  I did nine sprints!  Yay.  Woo Hoo!   That’s one more than I did last week.  So it’s something. It’s an incremental improvement and naturally generates some positive emotion – which is good.

I have had better sprint sessions where I was much faster and felt much better overall, however, I have never done nine.  So, I can hang my hat that one dimension of quantity today.  In other words I don’t have to be better in the totality of my being to enjoy an incremental improvement. Incremental improvement does not mean that everything in my life got better.  No, just one thing, one improvement on some dimension is enough to get a mental lift.

So, focusing on what is immediately in front of me and finding some dimension of incremental improvement are two mental hacks that helped me already this morning to launch into a productive and positive day.  Give both of these a try!

Ben Wagner (182)

Member The 365 Commitment

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