8 things every person should do before 8 am to be successful

8 things every person should do before 8 am to be successful8 things every person should do before 8 am to be successfulWe would rather be ruined than changedWe would rather die in our dreadThan climb the cross of the momentAnd let our illusions die. - W. H. AudenMost peoples lives are a reflection of their past, rather than their future.For most people, today will look quite similar to tomorrow. 2019 will look similar to 2018.Most peoples lives are highly predictable. And theres a very good reason.Your brain is quite literally a prediction machinedesigned to keep you from situations and scenarios filled with uncertainty and possibility of failure.FollowLadders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard coveringHappiness,Productivity,Job Satisfaction,Neuroscience, andmoraAccording to several psychologists,the foundation of all fears is the unknown.We want our lives to be predictable. We dont want to deal with the intense emotions involved in doing something new and different. Trying something new and attempting to change your life will, without a doubt, cause anxiety. But according to the philosopher, Sren Kierkegaard,To venture causes anxiety, but notlage to venture is to lose ones self. Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.In order to move forward in your life, youll need to embrace difficulty and uncertainty - or what you might typically consider anxiety which Kierkegaard called the dizziness of freedom.Embracing a bigger future is how you change. And according to Albert Einstein,The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.The only way to change is to stop explaining your life by your past and to start explaining your life based on your future.You get to design your life and your future. But in order to do so, you must stop living from your past.Today cant be the saatkorn as what happened yesterday.The food you ate today, if you really want to get healthy, probably cant be what you ate yesterday.Stop repeating the past.Rather than repeating t he behavior of your past, you need to act today based on the life you want to have tomorrow.If youwait for tomorrowto start acting how you should today, then you really are just repeating yesterday. As Professor Harold Hill has said - You pile up enough tomorrows, and youll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays.Developing Confidence And Changing Your LifeYou cannot have confidence in your life without positively moving forward toward a bigger and better future.If youre days, weeks, and years are a repeating of the past, then youre not confident.Living a comfortable and predictable life is actually a clear reflection of your lack of confidence.You can only have confidence after youve begun living a better life - and then, that confidence allows you to think bigger about what is possible.Confidence is the byproduct of prior success. This is one of the reasons it is completely essential that you begin your morning with a routine.The purpose of a morning routine is to get yourself moving toward your grand and exciting future. If you dont have an exciting future that youre working toward, then you are literally stuck in the past. And when stuck in the past, you cannot change your life, but only repeat the patterns that got you here.When you repeat the patterns that got you here, youll have a lot of empty yesterdays.When you start the day in a higher and mora powerful way, youll immediately begin turning your future a different direction from your past.With this short morning routine, your life will quickly change.It may seem like a long list. But in short, its really quite simpleWake upGet confidence and motivationGet inspired and connectedGet perspectiveGet movingAct courageouslyMove powerfully toward your dreamsPut the right food in your bodyLets begin1. Get A Healthy 7+ Hours of SleepThe National Sleep Foundation (NSF) conducted surveys revealing that at least 40 1000000 Americans suffer from over 70 different sleep disorders. Not only t hat, 60 percent of adults, and 69 percent of children, experience one or more sleep problems a few nights or more during a week.In addition, more than 40 percent of adults experience daytime sleepiness severe enough to interfere with their daily activities at least a few days each month - with 20 percent reporting problem sleepiness a few days a week or more.On the flip side, getting a healthy amount of sleep is linked toIncreased memoryLonger lifeDecreased inflammationIncreased creativityIncreased attention and focusDecreased fat and increased muscle mass with exerciseLower stressDecreased dependence on stimulants like caffeineDecreased risk of getting into accidentsDecreased risk of depressionAnd tons more google it.The very act of waking up earlier will create an enormous sense of motivation in your life.Like confidence, motivation is the byproduct of action. You cant be motivated without taking positive steps forward toward a desired future.As Harvard psychologist, Jerome Brune r said, Youre more likely to act yourself into feeling than feeling yourself into action.Waking up early has the power of making you psychologically bulletproof.If you wake up early and - rather than getting sucked into the distraction of your smartphone or the addiction to stimulants - you start vividly imagining your desired future and boldly acting toward that future.Motivation is something you must create every day. You can only be motivated if youre moving forward.2. Prayer and Meditation to Facilitate Clarity and AbundanceWhen you change the way you see things, the things you see change. - Dr. Wayne DyerAfter waking from a healthy and restful sleep session, prayer and meditation are crucial for orienting yourself toward the positive. What you focus on expands.Prayer and meditation facilitate intense gratitude for all that you have. Gratitude is having an abundance mindset. When you think abundantly, the world is your oyster. There is limitless opportunity and a possibility for you.People are magnets. When youre grateful for what you have, you will attract more of the positive and good. Gratitude is contagious.Gratitude may be the most important key to success. It has been called the mother of all virtues.If you start every morning putting yourself in a space of gratitude and clarity, you will attract the best the world has to offer, and not get distracted.3. Write In Your Journal For 515 MinutesWhen you write down your dreams in vivid detail, you begin to engage both your conscious and subconscious minds. Drawing out your dreams in the form of a mind-map is also very powerful for engaging both sides of your brain.Writing down your dreams and deeply visualizing them will make them more emotional for you. Until your dreams become emotional, they wont be powerful enough. You need to reconstruct your identity and memory by developing a new and emotionally-driven vision of your future.As you write your dreams down every single day, write down the ways in w hich you will actually achieve those dreams.As you write down your dreams and goals, the right people will start popping into your mind. A key part of your success will be learning how to position yourself such that you can connect and collaborate with the right WHOs.Youll need to first develop lots of personal capability yourself in order to be someone worth connecting and collaborating with. You need toMake a firm and committed decision about what you want to become a master ofEmbrace fully the process of developmentOnly care about what certain people think and ignore everyone elseBecome so good you cannot be ignoredHelp the right people further their goalsInvest in the right mentorshipsMake it about your mentors goalsBe a giverNever lose track of your WHYNever become complacent about the success you experienceMake huge requestsAsk to collaborate with your heroes once youve established credibility and helped them in incredible waysAll of this stuff can and should happen in your jo urnal long before it occurs in reality. You then act and continue acting in powerful ways and watch as your journal entries become more vivid and clear. Watch as your goals become realities quicker and quicker and quicker.4. Hard Physical ActivityDespite endless evidence of the need for exercise, only one-third of American men and women between the ages of 25 to 64 years engage in regular physical activity according to the Center for Disease Controls National Health Interview Survey.If you want to be among the healthy, happy, and productive people in the world, get in the habit of regular exercise. Many people go immediately to the gym to get their body moving. I have lately found that doing yard work in the wee hours of the morning generates an intense inflow of inspiration and clarity.Whatever your preference, get your body moving.Exercise has been found to decrease your gelegenheit of depression, anxiety, and stress. It is also related to higher success in your career.If you dont care about your body, every other aspect of your life will suffer. Humans are holistic beings.5. Act CourageouslyA persons success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. - Tim FerrissBut you dont have to constantly be battling your fears. Actually,Darren Hardyhas said that you can be a coward 99.9305556% of the time (to be exact). You only need to be courageous for 20 seconds at a time.Twenty seconds of fear is all you need. If you courageously confront fear for 20 seconds every single day, before you know it, youll be in a different socio-economic and social situation.Make that call.Ask that question.Pitch that idea.Post that video.Whatever it is you feel you want to dodo it. The anticipation of the event is far more painful than the event itself. So just do it and end the inner-conflict.In most cases, your fears are unfounded. AsSeth Godinhas explained, our comfort zone and our safety zone are not the same thing s. It is completely safe to make an uncomfortable phone call. You are not going to die. Dont equate the two. Recognize that most things outside your comfort zone are completely safe.You cant change your life without courage.If you start every morning by doing something courageous, then your life will quickly change.6. Listen to/Read Uplifting ContentOrdinary people seek entertainment. Extraordinary people seek education and learning. It is common for the worlds most successful people to read at least one book per week. They are constantly learning.I can easily get through one audiobook per week by just listening during my commute to school and while walking on campus.Taking even 1530 minutes every morning to read uplifting and instructive information changes you. It puts you in the zone to perform at your highest.Over a long enough period of time, you will have read hundreds of books. Youll be knowledgeable on several topics. Youll think and see the world differently. Youll be able to make more connections between different topics.7. Do At Least One Thing Towards Long-Term GoalsWillpower is like a muscle that depletes when it is exercised. Similarly, our ability to make high-quality decisions becomes fatigued over time. The more decisions you make, the lower quality they become - the weaker your willpower.Consequently, you need to do the hard stuff first thing in the morning. The important stuff.If you dont, it simply will not get done. By the end of your day, youll be exhausted. Youll be fried. There will be a million reasons to just start tomorrow. And you will start tomorrow - which is never.So your mantra becomesThe worst comes first.Do that thing youve been needing to do. Then do it again tomorrow.If you take just one step toward your big goals every day, youll realize those goals werent really far away.8. Invest In Your Key RelationshipsIn addition to moving your own life forward, youll want to deepen the connections with those you love.Your relationsh ips are a very clear indicator of your quality of life and character.Relationships should be viewed as an investment rather than a cost. When they are viewed as an investment, then you start putting more into them. You start seeing their potential for growth and development.When you invest in key relationships - both personal and professional - your life starts to change. According to Joe Polish, Life gives to the giver and takes from the taker.If during your mornings, you proactively do something kind, thoughtful, and useful to someone important in your life, youll feel far more joy. Youll also likely make huge progress toward your goals, because the more successful you become, the more your success depends on your relationships.ConclusionAfter youve done this, no matter what you have for the rest of your day, youll have done the important stuff first. Youll have put yourself in a place to succeed. Youll have inched toward your dreams.Because youll have done all these things, you ll show up better in life. Youll be better at your job. Youll be better in your relationships. Youll be happier. Youll be more confident. Youll be more bold and daring. Youll have more clarity and vision.Your life will shortly change.You cant have mornings like this consistently without waking up to all that is incongruent in your life. Those things you despise will meet their demise. Theyll disappear and never return.Youll quickly find youre doing the work youre passionate about.Your relationships will be passionate, meaningful, deep, and funYou will have freedom and abundance.The world, and the universe will respond to you in beautiful ways.Ready toUpgrade?Ive created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.Get the cheat sheet hereThis article was originally published on Medium.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the fi rst seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people