DO THESE 3 THINGS EVERY DAY.

Successful people are simply those with successful habits.

— BRIAN TRACY

Reading time: 4 minutes

I have a simple daily routine that anyone can follow.

No magic, no getting up at 4 a.m. to run 10 km while a business podcast plays, then heading to yoga in the middle of an intermittent fast and still making the biohacking workshop at 11 a.m. on the dot.
Don’t get me wrong, those are all great things, if you can actually fit them together and stay with them long term.

But the truth is that many people never get that far, or they fail on their own out-of-proportion expectations.

So I want to talk about three simple things that give you a solid base to work up from. They don’t sound exciting, but they are one thing above all: sustainable in practice.

1. Make Your Bed

Getting out of bed is the first thing you do to start the day. And with it comes the first task: making your bed.

People ask how to get more disciplined. Start by making your bed.

It takes 15 seconds, you feel better, it looks better to you and to everyone else, and you get used to paying attention to small things like that.

And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made.

— WILLIAM H. MCRAVEN

2. Shave or Take Care of the Beard

There are plenty of things in life outside our control.

That is why it matters to focus on the things we can control. The daily shave is one of them.

Skipping the shave or the beard care has nothing to do with “treating yourself to a break” or “today is my day off”.

Even if you are not expecting anyone and have no plans to go out, that small piece of attention you pay yourself has a big effect on the whole day. It gets harder to drop back into bed and watch Netflix afterwards, because you have already been productive. If a buddy calls and asks whether you want to meet him at the bar for a few beers, you are ready and do not have to get cleaned up first.

And when was the last time you felt worse after a shave or a beard trim than you did before?

But even if you got nothing done all day, you at least thought yourself worth the effort of getting the best out of you. That is exactly the point.

3. Educate Yourself

For anyone with a goal in mind, educating yourself is absolutely essential.

It makes no difference whether you are a soldier or a civilian, or what position you serve in. The excuse “I just don’t have the time for that” does not count.

Those 15–30 minutes have to fit into your day. Every day.

You don’t have to read. A good podcast or an audiobook does the job too. What matters is that you really concentrate for that half hour, listen or read with genuine interest and process what you take in.

Our brain needs that daily challenge and that wider horizon. It wants to think along, to be creative and to be fed new information.

Final Word:

Make the bed, shave, read. Whatever you do after those three simple things, it will feel better, because you have already done something for yourself and shown discipline. Whatever is going on around you, you took control instead of taking the easy way.

You now have a solid base to build anything you want on. Have fun with it.

Good luck out there!

Shughart

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