My Daily Habits
A super tactical habit and happiness practice to live your legacy magic.
When it to comes to habits, sweat the small stuff! Cultivating clarity, joy, and excellence takes work.
Habits are a core tenet of the EQ of Wealth. James Clear, maestro of all things habits (highly recommend his book Atomic Habits) distills it down to this — It’s the micro moments that matter most, which is also true for relationships.
James Clear is the maestro of all things happens and I highly recommend his book Atomic Habits, which basically comes down to the philosophy of sweat the small stuff. It’s the micro moments that matter most, which is also true for relationships.
With an EQ of Wealth lens, everything in our lives compounds (not just money) — we change our lives, our relationships, our health, and our wealth in the smallest of moments and reap rewards that compound over time. The small moments that make up the skill of happiness happen when no one is looking, so finding a personal recipe of joy can be so grounding and effective.
Here is my recipe for happiness. It’s what I do every day to keep myself fresh and motivated to keep moving my mission and company forward. It’s how I build on my skill at being happy! I’m sharing it with you so maybe you can adopt some of these ideas as well. So much of the game of legacy magic (a framework to discover how to leave your mark) is sticking with it and putting in the time, so we need to make sure each of us has the mental and physical fortitude to keep going.
Before, I break down the habits I follow, I think it’s very important to say that I’m an outlier in amount of habits I follow — in the same way that there are people who run on occasion and then those that train for marathons. I’m in the marathon category! Not only is running a business like training for a marathon, but also my life situation requires a strong sense of consistency (therefore MANY rituals and habits) in order to feel centered.
My Life Situation
1- The quality of my work is dependent entirely upon the quality of my mind and body: I run my own business and am a party of 1 (by choice) with several awesome strategic partnerships, which makes me feel like I have a team of 20, but me, myself, am a team of 1. If I’m not A+ or healthy, there’s no one I can delegate to.
2- I chose a lifestyle with inherent and large amounts of uncertainty: I don’t have a traditional 9 to 5 with set hours, a set office, and a set schedule, so I have to create it myself. I’m an entrepreneur, which is only more stable than my original chosen profession in college — actor. :)
3- I own my time and don’t have children: At the moment, I don’t have dependents that require me for their survival and I’m the final decisionmaker of my time. I fully realize the latter is an utmost privilege that allows for flexibility that most people don’t have.
My Disposition
So much of habit creation is balancing out your natural tendencies. For example, I’m a optimistic, which the Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman says is the best thing to wish for your child, but optimism needs guard rails. I have a tendency to be too rosy about the future, which means I take larger risks than I probably should (please see #2 above). Basically I’m more likely to be gung ho to jump out of the plane, but less likely to check twice to see if the parachute is actually working.
Discover your Disposition!
If you want to know what is your personality’s “nature.” I find Arthur Brooks’s quiz on your happiness blend to be very helpful. You’re either a Cheerleader, Poet, Mad Scientist, or Judge. Neither are good nor bad — it’s merely about understanding the right mix for you.
My Daily Habits/Personal Recipe for Joy
Please note, I actually didn’t write everything down to not entirely overwhelm you. :)
Morning
In Bed
20-minute mantra based meditation
10-minute loving kindness meditation
Look at vision boards on Pinterst
Get out of bed
Put on my Morning playlist to dance, which always brings me joy!
Make my bed
Get dressed
In the kitchen
Listen to NPR News Now (Recently added “le brief éco”) while making my breakfast. I also eat the same thing everyday — coffee with nova on toast.
At the table
I have 2 journals — one journal is for intention setting and notes for work, and the other is literally just a journal of all the ways I notice that good things happen to me that day. The whole point of the second journal is to reprogram my brain so that I my first instinct is trust and abundance instead of anxiety. Because once again…please see #2 above.
1 Journal - Intentions:
Write down the intention for the day
Write down the 3 top things to get done and 3 sub-items to get done: Everything else is secondary and by the way, the things that are always on my list are “self-care” and “body care” so I’m always prioritizing my well-being to prevent burnout and maximize impactful and positive outcomes.
Journal on — “I’m so grateful for the love and abundance all around me…” and free write for a couple of sentences. This one came through my work with Nyla Rodgers at a time when I felt fearful of my future. I will say that after 1.5 years of following these habits, my life has dramatically transformed for the better!
I write down 3 things in the form of gratitude as if they’ve already happened. For example, I tend to write down, “I’m so grateful that my day unfolded perfectly.”
2 Journal - Good things happening:
Write down 10 good things that happened thus far, which could be anything from “full night’s rest” to “waking up to a loving text from a friend.”
I write down what I would do with $2M to prepare myself mentally and physically for an influx of money, so when it does happen, it feels normal for my nervous system.
Afternoon (2pm - 4pm)
Our bodies have a dip in energy in the afteroon due to our natural circadium rhythm, which is why my original meditation teacher Charlie Knoles (and most meditation teachers) suggest meditating 2x per day — right when you wake up and mid-late afternoon.
20-30 minute visualization or meditation of some kind
Review vision boards
Evening (in-bed)
Read
Review my journaling from the beginning of the day and reflect to see how I did
Play a meditation that’s soothing to listen to, as I go to sleep
Courage like love is actually a verb. It’s a word of action and a daily commitment.
It’s time to get committed to all you want to create.
You’re legacy and impact will astound you once you do.
