The Charged Life

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SUMMARY:

When things fall apart and you’re having a bad day, do this:

1. Plan your productivity. Your day often gets derailed because you didn’t start on the right track.  At the beginning of the day, plan the projects you want to move forward, the people you need to reach out to, and the main things you must complete. Get focused. When you do this, it’s easier to stay on the path of purpose, to brush off the distractions and dramas that don’t fit the day’s agenda, and to proactively contribute at high performance levels.

2. Take a reset break. If you find your day completely derailed, immediately stop everything and do one of two things: Either listen to your favorite music playlist and go for a 20 minute walk while breathing deeply…or… meditate with The Release Meditation Technique for 20 minutes. Then, sit with your journal and answer these questions: “What am I grateful for? What three things must I accomplish today? What is my reward if I accomplish those three things?” This will help you reset.

3. Get out of yourself and into service. Instead of obsessing about yourself, ask: “What could I do right now to give surprise, attention, gratitude, or appreciation to somebody around me?” Whether it’s writing a random thank you email, calling someone to say you love them, or joking around with a friend, getting outside yourself and in service to someone else helps you reboot the day.

4. Activate simple self-talk. When your day gets thrown off, sometimes the best thing you can do is close your eyes and say this to yourself: “Be patient. I’m okay. I have faith. I’m here to serve. Here we go.” You can repeat this until you feel calm.Life can get challenging, but just know: This too shall pass. You will get through it just as you have before. No matter what happens, you are still here, you can learn to reset your day and you can experience what we call The Charged Life!

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Hey everyone, it’s Brendon. 

Have you ever got in the middle of your day and things just fell apart and you’re just like, “I need a restart”?

You just want to start the whole day over. You were thinking, “Things were kind of going good and now I’m derailed. I got distracted. I stopped doing whatever I was supposed to be doing. I had a bad interaction with somebody or a conflict and now I feel bad about myself or about the day.”

And you just overall were frustrated with where you were at and you were struggling to restart. A lot of people don’t have the resiliency to restart in the middle of the day and so they lose those last couple of hours or the rest of the entire day

• To a bad mood,
  
• To bad energy,
  
• To bad productivity,
  
• To being ineffective.
  

And because of that it’s costing us great amounts of progress in our own personal lives and frankly as a country, a nation, an economy we struggle with it a lot. People have need to become more resilient. So, what can you do?

I got four ideas for you that might help today:

1. The first one is, if you find yourself getting derailed a lot in the middle of the day, we got to back up to beginning of the day and ask an essential question.

Did you know what you were really supposed to do today?

Because a lot of people don’t. They just go to work and they check their inbox to see what the heck’s going on in the world and then they start reacting, reacting, reacting, reacting, reacting.

• All day it’s reacting to other people’s texts.
  
• All day reacting to other people’s needs.
  
• All day reacting to other people’s emails.
  

And they get in this reactive mode and all of a sudden, either

(A) they’re done with that. They don’t know what to do with themselves because they’ve trained themselves only to react. They can’t be proactive, they can’t be strategic. They don’t even know how to think that way. So, they’re just like, “Uhh, I don’t know what to do with myself.”

Or (B) they get in a situation where there is a lot more coming out of them and they get completely overwhelmed by it and they have no agenda. So there’s nothing to be returning to. There’s nothing to get a footing back on because they haven’t lost their way, they just never had a way.

So, at the beginning of the day, the best way not to lose your way during the day is to know at the outs of the day

• What are my key projects, my key priorities that I must work on today, must accomplish today?
  
• Who are the key people I need to reach out to or I’m waiting on?
  
• Who I can interact with or socialize with or collaborate or create with to move those projects and priorities forward?
  

So that no matter what; you know where you’re going during the day. Not knowing your direction in the day and not knowing the main projects you’re working towards in your life is what happens, what causes so much distraction in our life and drama.

Because you know, people who are on the path of purpose, they don’t have time for drama or distraction. 

That stuff gets pushed to the side because they’re busy crushing it every day. They’re high performers. They’re at that level. 

They just like, they’ve gotten past the drama, the distractions in life and:

• They’re contributing.
  
• They’re creating.
  
• They’re being proactive.
  
• They’re becoming the leaders, the artists, the people who are the influencers and the thought leaders of the day because they got over that other stuff.
  

2. I would say the second thing that we need to learn to do is a True Reset.

If you find yourself at 2 o'clock, the day is just completely derailed. You need to take time to give yourself a break and reset. And here’s my favorite ways to do that.

If I need to reset, I realize the day’s all gone to crap. I will immediately stop everything. If the day is gone to crap, don’t stay in your inbox. Don’t keep doing the same thing you’re doing. Take a step away from it. Literally go outside, take a walk.

My favorite resets, I have two of them.

1) I go outside. 

I take my phone. I put on my favorite playlist of music and I don’t think about anything at all. I just listen to the music and I walk for 20 minutes. When I come back to my desk, or I come back to the house or I come back to wherever I was, I sit down. I bust out my journal and I write three things.

Number one, I start writing everything I’m grateful for because I’m trying to take my mind off for the day.

So, that’s why I listen to the music with no thoughts, just listen to the lyrics in the music. Breathing as I’m walking. Sit down. What am I grateful for?

Second, what three things must be accomplished today? Write those down.

Third, what’s my reward if I accomplish those three things?

And for me, my reward is social so I say, “If I finish these three, as soon as I finish these three things, I get to call my best friend from school who I haven’t seen in years. If I finish these three things, I get to call my lady. If I finish these three things, I get to get up, I get to go have some green tea and some chocolate.”

Whatever it is for you, you need to have that reward. I write those down and it:

• Re-engages me with the blessings of life,
  
• Re-engages me with what I need to accomplish, and
  
• Re-engages me with a simple reward.
  

That’s my first favorite way to reset.

My second favorite way to reset is Meditation. 

To just stop everything, close my eyes. Do the Release Meditation Technique. If you haven’t learned that before, you can learn it from me in YouTube. Just type in my name and release meditation technique. And I do that for 20 minutes.

When I open up my eyes, I stand, I stretch, I get some water, I come back and again I write those three things.

• What I’m grateful for?
  
• What three things must be accomplished today?
  
• And ultimately, what’s my reward for doing this?
  

That’s a great way to reset.

3. I would say another one is to get outside of your head to stop thinking it all has to be you accomplishing everything for you and another great reset is to ask the simple question, “What can I do right now to give a surprise, some attention or some gratitude and appreciation to somebody around me?”

• Could I go thank the receptionist, someone who I haven’t talked to for a while?
  
• Can I go pull a prank on a friend over here?
  
• Can I call somebody and prank them and make a joke with them?
  
• Can I call somebody randomly and say, “Thank you”?
  
• Can I sit down, just write a random thank you email to somebody I haven’t talked to for a while?
  
• Can I shoot an iPhone video, sending love to a family or friend?
  

Get outside of myself and in service or surprise to somebody else helps me reboot the day because it gives me a social enthusiasm to engage with the day.

4. And I would say then the last thing is to activate some just simple self-talk.

I know that sounds very, sort of Personal Growth 101 but if the day is just gone all to hell, sometimes the best thing you can do is close your eyes and literally just talk to yourself.

I have this phrase I like to say. I like to close my eyes and say, “Be patient. I’m okay. I have faith. I’m here to serve. Here we go.”

Just say that, over and over. “Be patient. I’m okay. I have faith. I’m here to serve. Here we go.”

And I’ll just repeat that, several times. I mean ten, fifteen, twenty times until I feel a calmness come over me, put myself back in a place of service, open my eyes and say, “Alright here we go.” And I will get back at the day. 

Sometimes, you should simple self talk to reset yourself.

I hope these ideas serve you because I know how challenging life can get and as it does, just know this too shall pass. 

You’ll get through it just like you’ve gotten through it before. I hope these strategies help you get through it in a more resilient, strong, productive, enthusiastic, grateful way because this day, no matter what, no matter what happens when the stuff hits the fan, when all goes to hell, you know what, you are still here.

• You are still blessed with breath.
  
• You are still blessed with this choice about what to make these next few moments.
  

It’s a blessing. This life we have, this energy, this ability to live what we call The Charged Life. So, take it seriously. Find faith in it. Find joy in it. Reset that day because you can. And the more you learn to reset that day, the more you learn to experience what we call, The Charged Life.

Like this? Please share it with your friends so that your loved ones can reset their bad days with ease starting now. - Brendon