Starting Your Day in a New Way
SUMMARY
Hey, it’s David Bayer. I want to thank you so much for being here today, and today I want to talk about starting your day in a new way. You know, for so many years of my life, I really rushed into my day. I’d wake up. I’d oversleep. I’d hit the snooze button a couple of times. I’d have a couple of cups of coffee before I even started thinking about my day, and I would rush into work and just go into the day head on. And, ultimately, what happened is I would just roll one day into the next. I’d find a little bit of break on the weekend. I’d try to recharge. And I see so many people still doing that today, so I wanted to speak to that because, ultimately, you know, living life, enjoying life, and bringing our best into the world is about reconnecting with ourselves and most of us don’t take the time to do that. So, I want to share with you the practice that I’ve developed and it’s a practice that I picked up on from some of the most powerful, inspiring, and creative people in the world. It’s more of an inside out game. So, it’s about working our psychology in the morning so that we’re not bringing our stress, and our worries, and our anxieties from the day before into today.
And, so, the routine is very simple. I wake up about an hour earlier than I used to and I spend some time meditating. So, what’s meditation? Well, a lot of people think that meditation is going into a quiet room, and closing your eyes, and sitting cross legged, and putting on some incense, and zen-ing out. And, at some level, it is. But, really, meditation is something that we want to carry into our entire day. So, it’s about being present and noticing the thoughts as they occur for us and not necessarily acting out our thoughts, but being an independent observer of our mind, and then choosing to be inspired and empowered in the action that we take. But, most of our days, we live very unconsciously. We just start to play out the limiting beliefs, and the stories, and the thoughts that we’re having, and we show up in life that way. So, meditation is a practice where you start to train yourself to become mindful. So, it’s a very simple practice. I take about 10 to 20 minutes in the morning and I focus on my breathing. I relax. I close my eyes. And I just notice. I just notice when I think and I just focus on my breathing. And, when I find myself automatically thinking about my thoughts, that’s fine. I just notice that and I bring myself right back to my breathing again. I do that for about 10 to 20 minutes. Initially, it was a little bit uncomfortable. It’s not the way that the brain is designed to operate. It’s a system that’s supposed to constantly be looking out for problems and help you survive. So, to get it to really slow down Starting Your Day in a New Way and just to observe your thoughts can be challenging. But, over the course of about 30 days, it could become a very, very easy practice for you and it’s been transformative in my life.
The second thing that I do is I stretch my imagination. You know, so often, we kind of give up on our imagination. It becomes an atrophied muscle. We start to live life the way that we’ve always lived life. A lot of the people I work with describe it as Ground Hog’s Day, that famous movie with Bill Murray. But, stretching our imagination is about creating a different future for ourselves. And a lot of people don’t realize that imagination is about creating something in yourmind that never existed before. It’s about a new mental image. You know, Walt Disney was such an extraordinary example of imagination because he created such amazing mental images that ultimately he brought into the world through the Disney theme parks, and Mickey Mouse, and all the different characters. So, imagination is key to creating a different life for yourself. In fact, I believe it’s key to creating an extraordinary life and a life that you love. So, my practice for imagination is, in the morning right after my meditation, I write down 10 to 15 things that I’ve never really thought about before, things that I may want in my life. Recently, I imagined opening up an orphanage. I also imagined flying private jet charter, not just once, but all of the time. And, so, imagination is about putting down something that’s new that you want in your life and don’t get caught up in the way that your mind will work. You don’t have to worry about the how, or the what, or the who, or the when, or where is this going to happen, or why hasn’t it happened yet, or is it really possible. You just jot it down. The amazing thing that I found in my life is, one, it feels good. I love just writing down all these different ideas and starting to play with life again. It brings me back to my adolescence, really having curiosity around what’s possible. But, the other thing is that these things that I write down, they tend to start showing up in my life or I start to notice opportunities to bring those things into my life, but I’m now present to it. It’s in my conscious mind. And, so, that’s how you create an expansive life for yourself moving forward. It’s how you expand your consciousness by expanding your imagination.
The third thing that I would encourage you to do is to visualize. Visualize your goals. If you don’t have goals, right, 90-day goals, one-year goals, five-year goals, ten-year goals, if you haven’t started to think about charting out the course of your life, I encourage you to do that because you certainly aren’t going to get to a destination that you desire if you haven’t charted a course. And that’s not to say that you don’t allow life to take you through its twists and turns and experience life as a journey, but have an idea of where you want to go. And, then, really get into the feeling of experiencing it now. One of the keys to attracting these things into our life and to being motivated to take the appropriate action to create the things that we want in our life is to experience what it would feel like now. A lot of us want to have the experience so that we can have the emotions. The key is to generate the emotions from within and the experience will come later on. So, visualize. You know, what would it look like to have that dream job, or take that dream vacation, or to have that certain amount of money in your bank account, or being in that extraordinary relationship, or to be in that type of physical fitness that you envision for yourself? Get into how it would feel, what it would sound like, what it would smell like, what it would taste like, what you would see. All of the sensory data around it, experience it now and enjoy that just for the sake of enjoying it, and you will see that the manifestation must occur later on in your life.
The fourth thing is gratitude. Gratitude is the royal road to happiness. So many people I talk to, they want to get from where they are to a different place, like where they want to be. But, what they don’t understand is that, to unlock them from where they are, they have to appreciate where they are now. You know, when you really appreciate the job that you have, even though you know it’s not your dream job, or you appreciate all the things about the relationship, even though you know this isn’t your soulmate, you unlock the possibility of moving to a new place. But, if you’re constantly focused on why isn’t it happening, when is it going to happen for me, how did I get here, how come it’s happening for other people, it’s going to keep you stuck. So, what I like to do is I like to have gratitude. I come up with 15 to 20 different gratitudes. Sometimes, I do the same gratitude every day. I’m always grateful for the relationship I’m in. I’m always grateful for my dog. I’m grateful for the place that I live. But, notice the other things that came up in the last 24 hours for you to be grateful for, the little synchronicities, the experiences in life, the little gifts that life has given you and have gratitude for them.
And the fifth thing is to really take care of your body in the morning, right? To take care of your body – not only what you put in, but what you put out. So, you know, I cut caffeine. I like to hydrate early on in the morning. I do a lot of alkalizing and green drink because what that ultimately does is it calms down my system. It allows me to be more mindful. It allows me to have access to more imagination. And it allows me to be more present for my visualization and my gratitude. All of this is a system that feeds back into itself. If you have a very hyperactive, over-caffeinated, acidic body, it’s going to be very hard for your mind to be operating the way that you want it to operate in the way that I just described. So, watch what you put in and then what you put out. Exercise in the morning. Produce the chemicals and the hormones that are going to allow you to feel good and, again, strengthen those other four areas.
So, this is my Five to Thrive. It’s my Hour of Power. It’s what I do in the morning. You know, I don’t always enjoy getting up an hour earlier than what I used to do, but that’s what I do now and it’s really transformed my life. And, again, when you go and you look at the most successful, powerful, creative, and inspired people in the world, in one way, shape, or form, they all have these daily rituals that they practice.
So, I would encourage you to start this tomorrow. Get up 20 minutes earlier, 30 minutes earlier. Incorporate a little bit of meditation, and visualization, gratitude. Just incorporate a little bit of what I’ve talked about, and do a little bit every day, and it will build on itself because you’ll enjoy the process so much. And, if you do it for 30 days, you’ll develop a new habit out of it. And, if you take care of the morning, the morning will take care of the rest of your day. It’s very, very critical. So, that way, you have a little bit of connection with yourself, a little bit of the quiet stillness of spending time in your mind really getting to know your authentic self, to connect with your spirituality. It’ll be all the difference. It’ll re-energize you, not just physically, but emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually as well.
So, I hope that’s helpful. I encourage you to try that. It’s been transformative for my life. Many, many blessings. It’s great to speak to you, as always, and I will see you soon.
