Daily habit 1: Start your day with “blank slate” thinking

18Dec2008 Filed under: Creative Maverick habits, Have a better day, How to be happy, Play all day Author: John

Here is the first Creative Maverick daily habit for you to try:

At the beginning of the day when you first wake up, ask these 2 questions:

ONE: “If I was set for life, didn’t need the money and was not already committed, would I choose to do what I am about to do today?”

Write down your response.

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers says

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

TWO: “If I had a blank diary today and all the money I could want, what would I choose to do with this day”

Then ask “How can I give myself an experience of this today?” even though you may have commitments.

If the response is that you would actually the take day off and sit on a beach then ask how you can achieve some of that experience - can you take the day off? If not, can you find some space to do nothing? If you’re nowhere near a beach, can you go swimming and then sit by the pool reading a book? Do you need to make time to book your next holiday now?

For me, asking these 2 questions are the best way to achieve my wish to “play all day and get paid”. Because when your day is full of stuff you would do even if you didn’t need the money, then the boundary between work and play all but disappears.

Do this every morning with me. Let me know what you discover.

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4 Responses to “Daily habit 1: Start your day with “blank slate” thinking”

Judith Morgan
December 19th, 2008 at 10:36 am

A couple of great posts, John, reminding me to subscribe!
Rachel Turner, who was the business coach in The Money Gym before me asked three great questions of me when I was doing her module way back which are on topic here. If today were my last day on earth, what 3 things would I spend my day doing. At that time it was reading, writing and swimming (in the turquoise water ideally). Any day on which I do any combination of those now is a great day. It’s important to know what we love and do lots of it. I always suggest to my clients that they do what they love and I believe I started you off on this thinking… if money were no object? I am doing it right now with lots of my clients and business partners AND one of my best client success stories ever came from giving a client permission to do only what she loved. Fortunately it turned out not to just be a self-actualisation exercise as she loves walking and now her clients pay her to walk with them for fitness purposes or walk and coach them.
Yours is going to be a great 2009 and so will mine if I follow my own advice, reiterated here by you and the two Steves - Jobs and Pavlina, a couple of role models if ever we needed them!
Rock on.
J
John
December 19th, 2008 at 10:44 am

Thanks Judith - indeed, you inspired the very first post “Let’s take a year off”. I need constant reminding myself to focus on what I really want and not be constrained by what I have previously done.
Judith Morgan
December 19th, 2008 at 10:52 am

I am also, by the way, as you will have noticed, deeply anti-goals!
J
Jacqueline Burns
January 8th, 2009 at 11:19 am

Love the blog! I agree wholeheartedly about anti-goalism.
Goals are too often about having, not being. And they can conceal
what’s really not working in our lives.

You’ve inspired me to get one of my many unfinished book projects ‘out from under the bed’ and make regular time for it. Every day I urge my clients to make regular time to write; in 2009 I will coach and advise myself in the same way.

Along with a single-glass of wine a day for the month of January - sigh -
I am going to work a four hour day, using the focussed time slots you suggest, + 30 minutes on my book. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Thanks John

about this blog

Screw work, let's play! Join my mission to play all day and get paid - to do whatever creative, fun stuff we feel like doing and make a good living out of it.

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