Today’s post is a continuation of “My Journey Towards Self-Mastery Part 2”, in which I talked about mindfulness. I will cover the final parts of my daily routine.

Visualisation

Visualisation is a fascinating practice that has both myth and legend attached to it. There are stories of POWs spending years visualising their golf stroke and, upon returning home, having a fantastic golf game.

Now, I am not suggesting you sit and contemplate your tennis stroke or chess strategy ad nauseam, but I can speak to the benefits of focusing on an outcome to help you positively proceed on your path.

I have used this in particular with my public speaking aspirations. Like many people, public speaking, especially as a teenager in high school, was akin to the horror I felt when I was on my way to the dentist. The problem was the fear was still there. It wasn’t until I realised that if I was passionate about what I was talking about, that made all the difference.

I have used visualisation to “see” a successful outcome for a talk, how the audience will receive it, their positive reactions etc. This practice has given me a lot more confidence over the years.

One of my life goals is to talk at TED. So I spend just one to two minutes visualising what might look like, each day filling in more and more detail. You could almost say I am manifesting the future that I want to happen, the “if you think it, it will come” type of idea.

Positive Reinforcement/Affirmations

With all the negativity globally, it is crucial to ensure you are getting your fill of positive energy. This practice forms the last part of my reflection journal, which I talked about in Part 1.

I use this part of my practice for two different outcomes.

The first is, I talk about how I want to be, be it a great musician, presenter, father, husband etc. I also speak to the attributes I want to portray in my day to day life. I want to be compassionate, humble, generous, empathetic etc.

The second use of this is around setting goals. As mentioned above, I have aspirations of talking about TED. I want to become an expert in chess and play table tennis at a state level etc.

I find this practice particularly powerful because it helps me figure out what NOT to do each day. If I am not putting my energy into these “being” things or mastery of one of my goals, I question why I am doing it.

Practice/Learning/Growth

This practice forms the more significant part of the time and is the section that, over time, grows to be as large as you want it to be.

With the goals outlined in my affirmations, I decide where to spend time growing and learning. Whether practising the guitar or going over a performance set or putting time into my writing or content creation, or researching something I am working on is where I do it.

Something that I have found very useful over the years is finding a way to track where I am putting my time. I find the Pomodoro technique very useful and use an app on my computer and phone to track my “slots” of focus in each of these areas. Using this, I can then reflect each week/month on where I am spending my time and adjust as my priorities change.

In Summary

As I mentioned in Part 1, there is no right way to build a routine, which is just how I have found works for me.

It doesn’t matter how you do it, and the key is to create focus and consistency on what your learnings need to be to get you to where you are going.

I will continue developing and refining my process over time, and I would love to hear what you use to help you grow.

Yours in learning, Justin