Dream Big: Live Your Life Without Limits

The basic rule for success is for you to continue to remind yourself that you are where you are, and what you are because of yourself. You are in your current situation because you have decided to be there. You have made the individual choices and decisions that have gotten you to your current place in life. If you want to go somewhere else or be someone else, it is totally up to you to make the choices and decisions today that will eventually get you there. And there are no limits.
Positive Thinking Will Change Your Life

Here is another rule: “If you want your life to get better, you have to get better.” This simply means that your outer world will be a reflection of your inner world. If you want your outer world to improve, you must go to work on improving your inner world.



If you want to have better customers and more sales, you must become a better and more personable salesperson. If you want to have better employees, you must become a better manager. If you want to have better children, you must become a better parent. And if you want to have better relationships, you must become a better person. The great tragedy is that the world is full of people who are trying to change the outside world without going to work on the one thing that they can control, their own thinking!
Change Your Thinking

Here is another rule: “If you change the quality of your thinking, you change the quality of your life.” And since you can change the quality of your thinking almost infinitely, there are no limits on how you can change and improve every part of your life, in any direction you want to go.

There is a lot of talk today about “positive thinking,” and I think that positive thinking is very important. It is much better for you to think positively about yourself and your possibilities than for you to think negatively. But the danger is that positive thinking can quickly turn into positive wishing and hoping. Positive wishing and hoping can turn a person into a very optimistic and happy failure. Abraham Mallow said that the story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short, and settling for far less than that for which they are capable. Don’t let this happen to you.
The Power Of Positive Knowing

What is better than positive thinking is “positive knowing.” This is where you take the steps and do the things that bring you to the point where you absolutely know, with complete certainty, that you can achieve your goals and be the kind of success that it is possible for you to be. When you reach the point of positive knowing, no matter what happens in the outside world, even if you lose everything you have acquired, you will make it all back again, and more, because you know how to do it in the first place.

I want to share some ideas with you that have been very helpful to me and to many thousands of other highly successful men and women. These are all ways of thinking and looking at your world that will enable you to become a far more optimistic, confident, and creative individual in everything you do. These are simple, powerful, proven techniques that you can use to throw off your self-imposed limits and begin moving toward the realization of your full potential.
Dream Big, You Have No Limits

The starting point of great success and achievement has always been the same. It is for you to, “dream big dreams.” There is nothing more important, and nothing that works faster than for you to cast off your own limitations and begin dreaming and fantasizing about the wonderful things that you can become and have and do.

A wise man once said, ” You must dream big dreams for only big dreams have the power to move the minds of men.” When you begin to dream big dreams, your level of self-esteem and self-confidence will increase immediately. Your self-image improves. You feel more positivel about yourself and your ability to deal with whatever happens to you. The reason so many people accomplish so little is because they never allow themselves to let go and just imagine the kind of life that is possible for them.

Thank you for reading this article about positive thinking and how to dream big and create success in your life. Please share and comment below!

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Transform Your Life With The Power Of Positive Thinking

Can you guess what the most successful and happy people think about all day long?

The answer is quite simple…

Healthy, happy people think about what they want, and how to get it, most of the time. Developing a positive attitude can truly change your entire life.

When you think and talk about what you want and how to get it, you feel happier and in greater control of your life. When you think about something that makes you happy, your brain actually releases endorphins, which give you a generalized feeling of well-being.

As a result, you develop a positive attitude.

The Most Important Quality

Based on many psychological tests, happy people seem to have a special quality that enables them to live a better life than the average.

Can you guess what it is?

It’s the quality of optimism!

The best news about optimism is that it is a learnable quality.

By the law of cause and effect, if you do and say what other healthy, happy people do and say, you will soon feel the same way, get the same results, and enjoy the same positive attitude and experiences that they do.
Happy People Find Good In The World

Optimists seem to have different ways of dealing with the world that set them apart from the average.
First, they keep their minds on what they want, and keep looking for ways to get it. They are clear about goals and they are confident that they will accomplish them, sooner or later.
Second, optimists look for the good in every problem or difficulty. When things go wrong, as they often do, they say, “That’s good!” And then set about finding something positive about the situation.

What we know is that, if you are looking for something good or beneficial in a person or situation, you will always find it. And while you are looking, you will be a more positive and cheerful person.



The Power Of Positive Thinking

Optimists seek the valuable lesson in every setback or reversal. Rather than getting upset and blaming someone else for what has happened, they take control over their emotions by saying, “What can I learn from this experience?”

Resolve today to develop a positive attitude toward yourself, the people around you and your life.
Decide To Be Happy

Resolve from now to see your glass of life as half full rather than half empty. Happy people give thanks for the many blessings in life rather than worrying or complaining about the things they do not have.

Assume the best of intentions on the part of everyone around you. Most people are pretty decent, honest and are trying to do the very best they know how to. When you look for something good in their words and actions, you will almost always find something.

Finally, resolve to be cheerful, no matter what happens.

Looking on the bright side is most important when things go wrong.
Your Positive Attitude In Action

It is easy to to be cheerful when everything is going according to plan. But, it is when you encounter unexpected setbacks and difficulties that you demonstrate to yourself, and the world around you, what kind of an attitude you really have.

Make sure that it is a positive one!

Thank you for reading my blog about the power of positive thinking and developing a positive attitude. I hope it will inspire you to see the good in others and help you to improve your life.

Plus-You Can Now Join Our FREE Mastering Success Facebook Community at www.masteringsuccess.group

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3 Underrated Tips To Achieve Work-Life Balance

Is finding a work-life balance something that you struggle with?

The first thing to understand about work-life balance is that most people have the wrong idea of what that actually means. They think that their whole life should be balanced. That they should have a little bit of work and a little bit of play and a little bit of time on the weekends, in order to improve their quality of life.

When thinking about your quality of life, you have to ask yourself:

What do you really want to do with your life?

If the answer is that you want to be really successful in your career, you have to start a little earlier, you have to work a little harder, and you have to work a little later.
How Do You Manage Your Time?

Here’s an interesting discovery:

Almost all successful people work 6 days a week. Average people work 40, maybe even 30 hours a week. Now aside from actual time spent at work, the real problem comes down to what you accomplish while you’re at work.

Most people spend 50% of their time doing non-work related activities while they’re in the office.

Browsing social media, checking email, taking long lunch breaks, and chatting with co-workers are all examples of time-wasting behaviors. When these activities turn into habits, it becomes harder to get all of your work done in order to focus on other aspects of your life.

Here’s the key to achieving work-life balance: Choose to manage your time.

Choosing to manage your time effectively is the starting point of overcoming previous programming and eliminating mental blocks to time management. You must decide, right here and now, to become an expert in time-management in order to improve your quality of life.
Work-Life Balance Tips

Your aim should be to manage your time so well, that people admire you and look to you as a role model for their own work habits.

Here are three tips for time management that will help you achieve a work-life balance and improve your quality of life:

1) Use The Power Of Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations, or positive self-talk, are commands that you pass from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind, that you either say out loud or to yourself, with emotion and enthusiasm to drive the words into your subconscious mind.

Sort of like instructing yourself to follow new operating instructions.

Begin by repeating positive affirmations over and over to yourself, “I am excellent at time management! I am excellent at time management!” Or “I have a work-life balance!”

My favorite time management affirmation is, “I use my time well. I use my time well. I use my time well.”

When you repeat positive affirmations over and over, they are eventually accepted by your subconscious mind and you will find that your external behaviors will start to reflect your internal programming.

2) Visualize Your Time Management Skills

Mental pictures almost immediately influence your subconscious mind. Begin to see yourself as well organized, efficient, and effective in time management.

Recall and recreate memories and pictures of yourself when you were performing at your best and getting through enormous amounts of work.

Through positive affirmations, you can create a picture of the coming event and see it unfolding perfectly in every respect. See yourself as calm, positive, happy and in complete control. See the other people doing and saying exactly what you would want them to do if the situation was perfect.

Play this picture of yourself over and over again on the screen of your mind.

3) Take Action Based On Your Visualizations
Now that you have visualized and concentrated on what your day and your future will look like with proper time management, it’s time to put it into action.

Do this by working the entire time you’re at work. When you walk into the office, you should work the entire time you’re there. Be pleasant and friendly to your co-workers, but get to work right away and work until you are finished.

By doing this, you’ll get on top of your work and will walk away feeling accomplished at the end of your day. When you don’t have lingering tasks to worry about, since you’ll have worked as hard as you could have during your time in the office, you’ll be left with plenty of quality time to spend with your friends and family after work.

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5 Successful Ways to Stand Out Among Your Competitors

If you are a business owner then you must be well aware of how difficult it is to start a business and how difficult is to manage it and keep it going. The latest statistics show that only 50% of the businesses survive for more than 5 years while only 1/3rd of them pass the 10-year mark.


While counting the reasons of business failure, there are many that lack proper knowledge, absence of proper strategies, incapable staff, lack of mentors and support networks, and many others. Among all these reasons, the major one that contributes towards the failure of a business is the lack of uniqueness and differentiation.

As consumers have plenty of choices, you need to provide them a reason for buying your services or products. As they would be spending their hard earned money, they would definitely try to find something different or something extra. So, try to differentiate yourself from others and give the customers a chance to trust you.
Here are 5 ways you can stand out among your competitors:

1. Deliver something extraordinary
What most of the businesses claim is they offer different services from their competitors. Always remember that saying it is not enough; you need to prove it by delivering something that your competitors are not providing.

You can offer them customized service plans so that they can choose the service as per their requirements, make their purchase trouble-free, provide them the lifetime warranty for your products and on-going management (for some extra period if not for far long) for your services. You just need to deliver something extra they are not getting and it depends on your business that what you can provide to them.


“Always deliver more than expected.” – Larry Page

2. Address customers pain points

Most businesses fail due to lack of the right goals and right plans for achieving them. If you have set your goals to sell products or services worth the particular amount of money then you have set them wrong. These goals will let you focus on the things you want to achieve.

But, if you want to be successful in your business then you need to work according to the needs of your customers. Along with examining their requirements, you need to address their issues. There are some common problems that customers face for a particular service or product; what you need to do is offer them solutions to their problems through your business.

In short, rather than focusing on your earnings first, you should focus on the pain points of the customers as it will let you win their trust and retain them for longer.

3. Focus on the quality

Once an entrepreneur remains successful in having a perfect start of his business, he thinks of expanding his niche rather than first excelling more in what he is already offering. This is the biggest mistake he makes. It distracts his attention from the main services and puts effort into promoting the new one. As a result of which, he does not excel in any.

A good idea is to do a few things in an excellent way rather than doing a multitude of things in a poor way. When you excel in a particular thing, people are more likely to believe in your specialization.

4. Have your own personality

Knowledge and focus are the two main aspects of every business, so try to have them. As a startup, you would be looking at the experts of your industries and then doing

 the same things and the same way they have done. No doubt you need to learn from them but always remember that you should not copy them otherwise, you will not be able to be different.

Therefore, have your own personality; learn from successful professionals of your industry and then think about the ways you can implement those things in your own way. This will not only help you to do something different but will also let you show your unique personality.


“Don’t be afraid to assert yourself, have confidence in your abilities and don’t let others get you down.” – Michael Bloomberg

5. Always be there for your customers

Your relationship with the client does not end once he has completed his purchase. You need to be present for him even after that as he can face some problems with your products or services. So, always ensure good customer support. It will let you show your credibility, win his trust, develop good relationships with him and retain him for the future. Hence, customer support is the main aspect you would be focusing on.

Consider these tips while creating a strategy for your business and stick to that strategy. Along with that, always try to deliver the best to your clients, if you want to be the best for them.
From your experience, how have you been able to stand out from your competitors? Leave your thoughts below!

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Transform Your Life With The Power Of Positive Thinking

Can you guess what the most successful and happy people think about all day long?
The answer is quite simple…

Healthy, happy people think about what they want, and how to get it, most of the time. Developing a positive attitude can truly change your entire life.

When you think and talk about what you want and how to get it, you feel happier and in greater control of your life. When you think about something that makes you happy, your brain actually releases endorphins, which give you a generalized feeling of well-being.

As a result, you develop a positive attitude.

The Most Important Quality

Based on many psychological tests, happy people seem to have a special quality that enables them to live a better life than the average.

Can you guess what it is?

It’s the quality of optimism!

The best news about optimism is that it is a learnable quality.

By the law of cause and effect, if you do and say what other healthy, happy people do and say, you will soon feel the same way, get the same results, and enjoy the same positive attitude and experiences that they do.
Happy People Find Good In The World

Optimists seem to have different ways of dealing with the world that set them apart from the average.
First, they keep their minds on what they want, and keep looking for ways to get it. They are clear about goals and they are confident that they will accomplish them, sooner or later.
Second, optimists look for the good in every problem or difficulty. When things go wrong, as they often do, they say, “That’s good!” And then set about finding something positive about the situation.

What we know is that, if you are looking for something good or beneficial in a person or situation, you will always find it. And while you are looking, you will be a more positive and cheerful person.



The Power Of Positive Thinking

Optimists seek the valuable lesson in every setback or reversal. Rather than getting upset and blaming someone else for what has happened, they take control over their emotions by saying, “What can I learn from this experience?”

Resolve today to develop a positive attitude toward yourself, the people around you and your life.
Decide To Be Happy

Resolve from now to see your glass of life as half full rather than half empty. Happy people give thanks for the many blessings in life rather than worrying or complaining about the things they do not have.

Assume the best of intentions on the part of everyone around you. Most people are pretty decent, honest and are trying to do the very best they know how to. When you look for something good in their words and actions, you will almost always find something.

Finally, resolve to be cheerful, no matter what happens.

Looking on the bright side is most important when things go wrong.
Your Positive Attitude In Action

It is easy to to be cheerful when everything is going according to plan. But, it is when you encounter unexpected setbacks and difficulties that you demonstrate to yourself, and the world around you, what kind of an attitude you really have.

Make sure that it is a positive one!

Thank you for reading my blog about the power of positive thinking and developing a positive attitude. I hope it will inspire you to see the good in others and help you to improve your life.

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7 Small Habits to Help You Handle The Overwhelm of Working and Living in the Digital World

“If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.”
George F. Burns

“Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.”
Jim Rohn

Life today is quite different compared to when I was a kid in the 80’s and early 90’s. Back then I had a TV with just a few channels and later on a Nintendo videogame. That was it.

Today many of us have smartphones that we use to browse the internet, to work and to play games. We spend a many hours in front of computers and a part of our day is often spent online.

There is so much information these days. So many potential distractions and sources that seem to have made people more stressed, overwhelmed and unhappy than they were in the past.

Working and living in this age isn’t always easy.

So this week I’d like to share 7 habits that help me to keep my attention on what truly matters – both at work and in my private life – and at the same time minimize stress and overwhelm.

1. Shut off notifications.

To find focus the first simple thing to do is to shut off notifications in:
Your email client.
Messaging programs.
Social media and gaming apps.

Then get back to what truly matters without those pings hanging over you and distracting you.

2. Keep your smart phone far away for quality time/work.

The simplest way to not be distracted all the time by your smartphone is to put up small obstacles so you don’t have that easy and tempting access.

Here’s, for instance, what I do when I work:
I put the phone in silent mode.
I put it in another room at the other end of our home.
Then I check it a few times a day for calls and text messages.

We often do the same thing during the evenings and weekends to make sure that the time we spend together is quality time and not time spent being distracted.

3. Unplug or use an app to keep your focus on what matters.

When I write a new article or work on a course then I usually do that disconnected from the internet.

If that’s not possible for you then try a program or browser addon like for example StayFocusd or Cold Turkey Pro to temporarily block the sites where you know you tend to procrastinate and waste too much time.

4. Disconnect over the weekend.

Stay away from work and offline over the weekend. Leave your work phone at your job.

If that’s not possible keep things to a minimum:
Leave that work phone in silent mode and check it just every 24 hours over the weekend.
Do a quick 2 min check of email once a weekend (that’s what I do).
Reply only to the calls, texts and emails that are very important.Otherwise, let them wait until Monday.

5. Focus your information inflow.

Ask yourself:
What email newsletters in my inbox have I actually read and gotten something good out of in the past 30 days?
What podcasts I have listened to that have given me value in the past month?

You can ask yourself the same questions for magazines, blogs and forums and so on. Then take 5-15 minutes to unsubscribe to the ones that just clutter up your inbox, smart phone, bookmark list and shelves.

Time is limited. So is your attention.

So use both of them in a way that enriches your life and that focuses on only the best information sources. This very simple exercise can be surprisingly effective to get rid of mental clutter too and think more clearly again.

6. Stop comparing your life to someone’s high-light reel.

When you start comparing yourself and your life to what old classmates, friends and celebrities share on Instagram or Facebook and you each day see how perfect and wonderful their homes, kids, work and lives are then that can create a lot of stress and erode your self-esteem.

So what can you do if you get stuck in this habit?
Remember that what they share is usually just the high-light reel of their lives, the most positive moments. The other stuff that is a part of life happens too, you just don’t see it.
Focus on comparing yourself to yourself instead. See how far you have come, what you have learned and what you have overcome.

7. Remember the 5 little words for sanity: One thing at a time.

When you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the tabs open in your browser or missed messages, when you’re distracted by something while trying to have quality time with your loved ones and when the stress is starting to build up remember those 5 little words.

Breathe and let them help you to connect with this moment and with simplifying things. Use them to slow down, to find clarity in what you need to do and to resharpen your focus and attention once again.

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Why Taking A Day Off Can Transform Your Life

Entrepreneurs are passionate, driven, and hardworking folks. We love to grind. We love to go hard. “I’m building my future”, is what we all say. No more 9-5!

The problem with this attitude is that it can lead to burn out – that state where youKNOW you should be doing something productive, but you physically and/or mentally can’t.

All you can do is sleep, watch YouTube or Netflix, and deal with the guilt and shame that comes with that. You can hardly get out of bed. It’s even hard to go to social things with friends because you are so zapped of energy.

The stress behind this will kill you. Seriously.

So you keep promising yourself things will be different. “I’ll take it easier next week! I’ll take some time to myself!”, but you know it’s probably not going to happen.

You over-complicate things unnecessarily stressing yourself out even more. So, you hope the burn out guilt and shame kicks you in the ass tomorrow to get going for being so unproductive today.

But for now, you just feel like you’re wasting time as you mope and watch The Walking Dead.


I’m going to discuss why taking a day off every week has helped me and many other workaholics, counter-intuitively, do better work. Here’s what I’ll be going through:
I’ll start by talking about you shouldn’t work continuously everyday and where this all comes from.
What’s the idea behind taking a day off per week.
I’ll get into some science and the psychology behind it all (decision fatigue and ego depletion), as to how all humans were built for cycles of energy and productively, and how you CANNOT work continuously.
I’ll wrap it up connecting the ideas with the science so you have proof that not only should you take time off, but YOU NEED TO.

By the end of reading this you should be convinced (even if your mind says you should be working CONSTANTLY on your business) that time off and a day off are both necessary.


Who Else Feels Like They Should Be Working 13-16 Hour Days?

Many entrepreneur gurus and acolytes promote the working 13 hours a day getting a business started thing, especially in the early years. Personally coming from an engineering background in University, I know I can do this. My life was spent going from class to class, then burning oil on my homework.

But you know what? I missed out on eons of socializing, connecting with people, and growth.

I get the whole work hard now, enjoy the fruits later thing… But I don’t see the reason why we can’t have a balance. After all, a human can only output 6 hours of productive work a day. The rest will be sub-par, or downright crappy.

Would you like to make decisions with a brain that’s tired, that could potentially cost you thousands?


Amount of hours working per day is an easily quantifiable metric.


Quality of work is not. Doing the right things to really push your business forward is not.

I’m not saying that this is an excuse to slack off and do one hour of work per day or that you shouldn’t work hard, but there needs to be a balance with friends, hobbies, and so on. These things re-charge you so that you can do BETTER work.

We were not made to run at full on productivity all day, everyday. We need re-charge cycles. This applies to at the end of the work day (not doing work at night and going to the gym), during the work day (only working in 1.5 hour spurts with breaks in between), and all throughout your life (vacations).

For a step-by-step breakdown of turning this into an entire productivity system and organising your day to get the most done, check this out.

Sure, there are certain times you’re going to grind. You’re going to have to. For my new book, Mastery Of The Mind, I grinded out 13 hour days for a week and it was worth it because it sold far past my expectations and became a #1 bestseller… but then I took a few days off and went back to a normal work schedule.

It’s better to work at your maximum productivity level, stop, re-charge, and then begin over again, compared to burning oil and doing crappy work.

So how can we apply this to output better work week after week?



How To Feel Better And Re-vitalised For Work – Take A Day Off

While the energy cycle idea applies everyday – work to a certain point, then relax: be with friends, go to the gym, play a musical instrument, read, sleep, etc… It also applies to your entire week.

People SEVERELY under-estimate how much a day completely off from work can do for them. If your muscles need days off from the gym to grow and strengthen, why the hell shouldn’t your brain be any different? It needs dead time as well.

Back a few years ago during my stressful Master’s degree, a good friend of mine recommended I do this.

Initially, I resisted. But now while being busier than ever (working on two businesses of my own along with a full-time job working with for else’s business, gym, socialising, cooking, errands, having to deal with some family issues, trying to stay healthy emotionally, etc.etc.)… I refuse to give up this day off. I’d rather get less “stuff” done.

For one day (your choosing), you have a completely blank day.

There are no responsibilities. No set plans. You sleep in. No work. No e-mail.

Just laziness, relaxation, and fun.

Think I’m pulling your leg? Check this out. Here’s my current schedule as it is (yeah I’m a bit OCD with it but it really helps me XD):

You can see I’ve got writing, work for my blog, a company I work for, the gym all there, but Saturday… there’s nothing. Even when I look at that I just breath a sign of relief because I know I grind on all these great things during the weekdays but on Saturday… That’s time to do whatever I want.

Alright so this all SOUNDS good and you think taking a day off is great, but again, you keep telling yourself you should and it doesn’t happen and the shame/work cycle continues.

Let’s get into the science and psychology that will help convince you to take a day off:


Why You Make Bad Decisions – The Science Of Decision Fatigue And Ego Depletion

This has been an obsession of mine as of late, along with looking into outsourcing (I need to get on those virtual assistants!).

We’ve all felt it… At the end of the day we want to stick to our diet but we’re tired and we can’t fight our brain. We crack a beer and pig out on pizza and ice cream. “I deserve it”, you say. True, you might. But why couldn’t you hold back?

Decision fatigue, or ego depletion, refers to the phenomenon of how we only have so many “points” of making good decisions everyday. This is why many successful people advocate setting up habits, because then you don’t need to make decisions at all… The habits are nearly automatic for good but simple tasks (e.g., you usually don’t have to decide whether you brush your teeth or not).

The thinking is that for the really important decisions during the day where you need your “points”, such as in business mergers, software to use, choosing employees to hire and so on…

If you’ve used up your energy on way less meaningful decisions like what to eat for breakfast and because of that you get lazy and make rash decisions based on whom to hire… yeah, you’re going to run into issues.

It doesn’t matter the type of decision (what type of toothpaste to buy in the store vs. whether to accept a business proposition or not), it’s making decisions in general. Decision fatigue does not discriminate.

It’s also why many people have set rules for making decisions to make their lives easier and less stressful. For example, Tim Ferriss discusses in an article on simplifying life and decisions some things he does to make things easier. He suggests you:
Eat the same thing for breakfast everyday.
Limit your options in any one decision to 3-4 choices (e.g. at restaurants, for new hires, and so on). More options doesn’t mean you make a better decision. In fact according to Dan Ariely in Predictably Irrational, the more options we have, the more difficult it is to make a decision, and the less satisfied we are (because we always wonder “what if” about the options we didn’t choose).
Consider if a decision will only result in a potential loss of $100 (or whatever monetary amount you choose), you should let an assistant make the call.


How Can A Day Off Help Me Make Better Decisions?

You can read more about how decision fatigue works and you might be thinking “OK, this is interesting, but what’s the point? What does it have to do with taking a day off?”

Well after a long week of hard, regimented work, hopefully where you HAVE been taking breaks when you are done for the day… you’re still going to feel exhausted.

Having a set, strategic day where you can do whatever you want gives your body a HUGE re-set and lowers your stress. You’re giving yourself permission to not be productive, not follow through on any habits, and not do work for an entire day. Basically, here, you should give in to hedonism and be a kid and do whatever you want.

Follow the 80-20 rule: If 6 out of 7 days (86%) a week you are doing work and working towards your goals, don’t worry about one day off.

By giving yourself a day where you don’t need to do anything, you are strategically fighting decision fatigue for the next week and after a day off, you will feel re-charged and can get back to crushing it.

An example of where a strategic “day off” produces better results: diets. Wonder why some diets don’t work or people have a hard time sticking to them, yet something like Ferriss’ slow carb diet seems very successful?

One main reason is Ferriss’ inclusion of a strategic cheat day where people can eat whatever they want – Not only does their willpower get re-charged, but I can tell you from having a day where you eat pizza and ice cream… you get pretty amped to just get back to healthy eating (and swear you won’t eat crappy food… until the week ends again and the cycle repeats *sigh*).


4 Other Reasons Why Taking A Day Off Can Help You

It injects play and fun into your life for a whole day, which gives you inspiration to work harder.
It allows you to catch up on lost sleep (slept debt).
It allows you to catch up with friends, socialize, etc., which entrepreneurs typically neglect.
The time off actually allows your mind to subconsciously work on new ideas you wouldn’t get if you constantly churned and burned with no breaks.


“I Don’t Feel Like I Can Stop”

Stop making excuses. I’m a workaholic and I do it too, all entrepreneurs do. I know how hard it is, but trust me, you will feel better because of it. If you don’t feel like you can take an entire day off, just try taking half a day and see how you feel and continuously bump it up.

As Tim Ferriss says, work will always be there tomorrow, but your life is passing you by. It’s up to you to prioritize what’s important, because work expands to fill the available time you give it.

Don’t just work, that’s not what makes life – Working on your passion will make you happy for sure, but so will relationships, trips, exploring new places, and travelling – even if it’s just an hour away.

Rules: No work. Go have fun. Play. Get outside. Spend time doing something you love. No e-mail. Cutting off tech completely can be a good idea (unless you are trying to arrange when to meet up with friends).

Laugh. Nap. No responsibilities. Make “bad” (i.e. non-productive) choices. Eat chocolate cake and ice cream. Drink some good wine.

Your body, mind, and work will thank you when you get that next project done feeling refreshed, rejuvenated, and inspired.

Good luck, enjoy your life, and I’ll see you when I get out of bed at… I dunno, maybe 2PM?


Further reading:
Most links go back to Tim Ferriss’ site. Tim has written extensively on escaping technology and work to enjoy life, and I’ve found that he is one of the best resources on the topic.

• How 1 Day Off Can Help Your Career at The Muse – Dr. Matthew Sleeth worked constantly in emergency medicine with little breaks. Learn about his book (advocating the 24/6 work week) and how he and many others started taking a full day off, feeling renewed enthusiasm for work. If you take one day off and live to 70, that means you’ve spent roughly 10 years relaxing, having fun, and being with family.

• Preventing Burnout: A Cautionary Tale at The Four Hour Work Week Blog – Charlie Hoehn, who used to be Tim Ferriss’ assistant and go-to helper for publishing The Four Hour Body, talks about his reliance on work to be thought of as “good”. Also: how he burnt out many times with associated panic attacks, uncontrollable shaking, crying, and feeling like he was about to die.

• How to Cure Anxiety – One Workaholic’s Story, Six Techniques That Work at The Four Hour Work Week Blog – Charlie talks about 6 simple things he started doing that helped alleviate his stress and anxiety. No, they weren’t meditation, yoga, or therapy (though he tried all of them). Almost everything was FREE or if not, extremely cheap.

• The Choice-Minimal Lifestyle: 6 Formulas for More Output and Less Overwhelm at The Four Hour Work Week Blog – Tim’s article on the 6 rules/guidelines he uses for decision making and greatly reducing his stress, so he can save his energy for the more important things.

• Understanding the Dangers of “Ego-Depletion” at The Four Hour Work Week Blog – Dan Ariely, Professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, talks all about knowing ego depletion and what it can do to you. Also: some experiments that have been done to examine decision making. Surprisingly, using brain power to make a silly decision before another more important decision makes it easier for us to give in to the bad option in the important decision.

• How to be More Productive by Not Being Productive at Crew – I re-read this article every few weeks. It talks about how the best people (e.g. star athletes and musicians) only output 4.5 hours of work a day, and how humans can do a maximum of 6 hours of productive work in one day (think about THAT when you’re trying to burn for 10-12 hours).



Also a reminder – why are you trying to be productive? What’s the real reason behind getting things done faster? Is it so you can do more work, or so that you can go live your life?

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