Here are what I believe to be the 7 essential pillars of success and self improvement. When all these 7 pillars are present in your life simultaneously- the progress you will make can be scary! Try to make a conscious effort to get all 7 into your day in some amount, you won’t regret it. ————————— Pillar #1: DAILY MOVEMENT No matter how big or small, the benefits of some form of daily movement really shouldn’t be understated. The positive effects on your mental health alone are astounding. Moving daily will keep you focused, alert, motivated, happy and will allow you to sleep better. Keeping your mind and body in peak form is one of the most important foundations when trying to self improve. It doesn’t have to be a marathon or getting a bench press PB every day. Just be consistent. Aim for a minimum of 10,000 steps and then at least 30 minutes of more intense exercise. A gym session, a run, tennis, football- make it what you want and remember to MIX IT UP. Variation is best. ————————— Pillar #2: SLEEP Perhaps the most important on the list for me, yet often forgotten about. It has become encouraged in recent years to “grind” instead of sleeping, but this way of thinking is more damaging than you could possibly imagine. You should view sleep as the absolute foundation that allows all areas of your life to thrive. Without proper sleep, you may be able to ‘wing it’ for a bit. But it will ALWAYS catch up with you in some way, shape or form. Aim for 7-8 hours MINIMUM. Ditch your phone 1 hour before sleep, pick up a book and read instead. Trust me on this, if you get 7-8 hours every night for a fortnight- you will feel like a different person! Your focus increases. Your energy increases. Your mood gets better. Your LIFE gets better! Make this priority number 1. ————————— Pillar #3: HEALTHY HABITS/ROUTINES Think of these as the daily actions you take to get where you want to be. If your daily habits don’t align with your goals, then it is going to be very hard to progress to where you want to get.

Life on this world is precious, and short-lived. I don’t want to sound morbid, but that’s the truth. The ONLY thing we can do whilst we’re here is make the most of our opportunities and live a life without regrets. You don’t want to be on your deathbed wishing you had done things a little differently. Here are 25 things you can do to ensure that doesn’t happen: 1. Never be too proud or ashamed to ask for help. Proud people fall behind. 2. Don’t rush to do what everyone else around you is going. 3. Follow your heart, even if it surprises people. 4. Take advice from people who have been there and done it themselves. 5. Always work on something on the side from your job or school. 6. Realise that it’s not about the journey OR the destination, it’s about who you become on the journey. 7. Show gratitude regularly to those around you who help you and who you care about. 8. Always help those who are a few steps behind you, if you can. 9. When you’re doing something, go ALL IN on it. Don’t half ass things. 10. Do something every single day to care for your mind and body. They are your BEST assets. 11. Realise that the only belief you need in life is that from yourself. 12. Unapologetically be yourself. Even if others make fun of it. 13. Be nice to others, until they give you a reason not to be. 14. Always work towards something, no matter how small it may be. 15. Recognise what distracts you from your goals, separate yourself from these things. 16. Be proud of yourself and celebrate small wins. 17. Be kind to yourself. You only make progress in life by feeling GOOD. 18. Don’t tell everyone about your plans before you have acted. Let the results will do the talking. 19. Give good sleep a high priority. It will change your life. 20. Invest in yourself before investing in material things. 21. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. There is someone who would kill to be in your position. 22. Learn to live in the moment and appreciate everything. You will blink and be 80 wishing you had this time back. 23. Spend at least 30 minutes out in nature a day, uninhibited by technology. 24. Take notes of all the good advice you hear. 25. Combine what you love doing with what the world needs. You’ll never ‘work’ a day in your life.

If you understand this principle and use it wisely, you can transform your life with ease. You can stop wasting time on the stuff that doesn’t matter and start to make crazy progress on the stuff that does. The Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) is the idea that 80% of the results are caused by only 20% the action. This principle can be applied to many different areas of life, and the outcome remains the same. For example, often 80% of a businesses profits will be raised by 20% of their customers. 20% of drivers on the road cause 80% of accidents. Of course, the numbers aren’t always exactly 80/20. It might be 79/21, 68/32 or 90/10. But the principle shows us how a small percentage of the causes are responsible for a large percentage of the outcome. ———————— FIND YOUR 20%: When I used this rule and applied it to my life, I was shocked at some of the things that I found out. For example, I found that I was spending 80% of my free time watching YouTube, movies and playing games. This was only giving me 20% of my total satisfaction. When I honed in on the things that gave me real satisfaction like working on my business and helping others, my total satisfaction skyrocketed. Furthermore, when working on my business I also realised that only 20% of my work was actually bringing in 80% of revenue. I was wasting time making the perfect logo, tag lines, domain name etc. and not focusing on the 20% activities such as marketing, outreach and making new connections that was bringing in that 80% of revenue. In your life, think about what you really want to improve in. Do you want more energy? Want to build a business? Want to get ripped? Then think about the 20% of activities that you do that are going to result in 80% of the outcome. Do more of those, and cut down on things that don’t matter as much. For example, if you want bigger arms but only do one arm workout a week, you need to be doing MORE of these and cut back on other exercises. If you find that sleep is the biggest factor that determines whether you’re tired or not- focus on getting MORE rather than worrying about religiously drinking that coffee each morning or trying to get 20,000 steps in.

I started my self improvement journey nearly 8 years ago now. In that time I’ve made just about every mistake you can make- including these ones. Along the way, I’ve also seen these mistakes be repeated time and time again by others on a similar journey. Try to avoid these 5 mistakes, and you will make 10 times more progress- I promise you! —————————— COMMON MISTAKE #1: Trying to run before you can walk. Usually, when we start our self improvement journeys we want to see the results INSTANTLY. The deep ocean that is online self improvement content tells us that we HAVE to be masculine, strong, fit, productive, attractive, focused, energised, healthy, hardworking and MUCH more. So naturally it makes you want to change EVERYTHING in your life as it makes you feel worthless and not enough. However, this method almost never works. At least not for long anyway. In response to this feeling of inadequacy comes an urgency to change. As a result, people will then start to make drastic life changes like extreme diets, fitness plans or unrealistic daily routines. Whilst these may work for a week or two when motivation is high, as soon as they have the first blip in motivation or have a setback, they are RIGHT back to square one again. The reason for this is usually because the FUNDAMENTALS aren’t right. And trying some crash diet/fitness plan for example is simply papering over cracks. Let’s say that you did stick to this and lost a tonne of weight or got absolutely shredded in a few months. What’s the plan for after this? Return back to the old habits? The ones that made you unhappy and want to change in the first place? _______ SOLUTION: Instead of rushing into self improvement and trying to run before you can walk- focus on improving the fundamentals. I’m talking about sleep, exercise, hydration, nutrition, learning, relationships etc. Look at your daily habits and whether they are contributing to the person you want to become or not. If you want to build a business and become wealthy but are running off 5 hours sleep every night, how much harder is that going to be?

Let me guess… …you start something new self improvement related like a workout plan, diet, meditation, yoga, cold showers, journalling etc. You stick to it for maybe a week or two but then it slowly drops off and before you know it you’re just back to square one! The problem is your discipline- or more accurately, your LACK of discipline. I know this because I have been there MYSELF! The thing that got me out of this vicious cycle and enabled me to become like a machine with my discipline was to follow these THREE steps below: —————————- 1))) GET CLEAR ON THE ‘WHY’. If you’re on a self improvement journey and trying to better yourself, there’s obviously a REASON why you want to change. You need to become crystal clear on this so that this is always present in the back of your mind. The reason for this is so that when times get tough and you really DON’T want to do something (a new habit for example), you can remember your ‘why’ and your pain points and this will spur you on to keep going. To find your ‘why’ and pain points, try this exercise using the picture attached. Write down some things that you do that you wish you didn’t. For example, ‘skipping my workout’, ‘eating junk food’ and ‘never finishing anything’. Then, for each one write the Immediate, Knock-on and Hidden effects of continually doing this. For example, skipping a workout my result in you feeling ashamed and down immediately. But then the knock on effect could be that you never gain muscle or are happy with your body. Lastly, the hidden long term effect could be that you never get a girlfriend, become sad all the time and regret your actions years before. Seems harsh right? Well in order for you to become disciplined you may need to get as harsh as possible with this exercise! The more harsh you are, the more you can see what will happen years down the line if you don’t become disciplined NOW! Try this exercise now. —————————- 2))) BECOME A MASTER OF THE MORNINGS. At the end of the day, you are most likely to have a lapse in discipline of there is an absence of these two things: