Evening Rituals Archives | Daily Rituals of Success

My Day Begins With My Evening Rituals

What? My day begins with my evening rituals? Really? How does that work?

During your evening rituals, you focus on preparing for the next day and reflecting back on the current day to learn how you can perform even better tomorrow. You also focus on those behaviors that will enable you to enjoy a good night’s sleep.

Preparation for tomorrow

One ritual that you clearly need to take each evening is setting out your priorities for the next day. If you don’t establish ahead of time what they are, you are likely to get distracted by email or by other people’s priorities.

So each night, ask yourself:

What do I need to get done tomorrow?
What are my highest priorities?
How and when will I get these done?
What obstacles might I encounter and how will I overcome them?

Keep in mind that you are not just creating a to-do list. Rather, you are following a process of mentally working through your priorities, how you will you accomplish them, and how will you will overcome the obstacles that are almost sure to pop-up during the day.

Reflection

In addition to preparing for the new day, the evening is a great time to reflect back on the day just past and learn as much as you can from the day’s events, so that tomorrow will be even better.

What did you accomplish today?
What worked?
What didn’t work so well?
What did you learn from the experience?
How can you perform even better tomorrow?

Preparation for Sleep

During the final hours of your day, there are additional rituals that you can undertake that will help you get a good night’s sleep. Here we are talking about things like turning off electronic devices which emit blue light several hours before bedtime (unless you wear blue blocker glasses) . Read a book. Avoiding caffeine, etc.

Next Steps

If you enjoyed this post, make sure that you check out some of our other posts on this website. Here are some posts that may be of interest.

Comment, Share & Subscribe

Also, be sure to let us know what you think. We really do care. Let us know what topics you would like us to address.

Comment below and please share this post with others.

There is plenty more to come. If you want to be sure not miss any of these posts be sure to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Using Gratitude To Improve Your Life

Using gratitude to improve your life? Is it possible? Yes, it’s true.

Gratitude changes your brain and it really can improve your life? Each time you pause and feel grateful, your brain changes in a number of ways: your self-esteem increases, your stress level drops, and you increase your lifespan each time you savor the little joys in life.

Stop right now, take a moment and savor the Earth. Breathe in the beauty of the sky. Feel the softness of the ground beneath your feet. And listen to all the sounds that fill this wonderful world – birdsongs, heartbeats, a child’s laughter – as you bring more serenity into your life. That is the power of gratitude, one of the most powerful ways to strengthen the social-awareness circuits in your brain!

What are you grateful for? Your health? Friends? Freedom? Loved ones? How about the planet on which you live?

Savor the feeling.

NeuroTip:

Write down 3 things you feel grateful for at the end of the day (yes, you have to write it down to get the full neural benefits!). Do it for 7 days and the research shows your self-esteem will continue to INCREASE FOR 3 MONTHS.

Additional Resources

Here are additional posts on gratitude:

Gratitude Rituals

Your Day begins with your evening rituals

Comment, Share & Subscribe

If you enjoyed this post, make sure that you check out some of our other posts on this website. Also, be sure to let us know what you think. We really do care. Let us know what topics you would like us to address.

Comment below and please share with others.

There is plenty more to come. If you want to be sure not miss any of these posts be sure to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

The Importance of Our Self-Talk

Much of what we feel, understand and accomplish every single day happens as a result of our self-talk. Our ability to work, solve problems and respond to our environment is controlled by this self-talk and the questions we ask ourselves consciously and unconsciously. It is critically important that we understand the importance of our self-talk.

Importance of Self-Talk

The basic purpose of our brain is to help us make decisions which keep us alive and self-talk plays a major role in this.

When you ask yourself a question, your brain searches until it finds answers that are acceptable to your conscious mind. What is acceptable is determined by what you have been conditioned to through language patterns, experiences and repetition over time. You can ask yourself any question and your brain will automatically find an answer.

How Questions Work

Questions, according to Tony Robbins in his quintessential book, Awaken The Giant Within, accomplish three things:

They immediately change what we’re focusing on and therefore how we feel.
Questions change what we delete. Often, we feel bad because we delete all the reasons we could be feeling good.
They also change the resources available to us.

Questions can be Empowering or Dis-empowering

The questions we ask ourselves can either be empowering or disempowering. You can ask disempowering questions that make you think about things that make you feel bad and block you from taking action. Or you can ask empowering questions that make you feel good and motivate you towards achieving your goals.

For example, what is more empowering? Asking what will happen if I fail or what will happen when I succeed? Pretty obvious isn’t it.

Results of asking better questions?

As you get used to asking yourself better questions, doing so will become more and more automatic. You will begin to ask yourself better questions, even without knowing it.

When you learn you to ask yourself better questions, gradually over time, you will find that you are making better decisions. Additionally, you will feel more positive, motivated, and confident.

Empowering Questions that Tony Robbins Asks Each Morning

Some of this self-talk can be routinized and given structure. Here is a list of questions that Tony Robbins asks himself each morning:

What am I most happy about in my life now?
What am I most excited about in my life now?
What am I most proud about in my life now?
What am I most grateful about in my life now?
Who do I love? Who loves me?

Problem-Solving Questions

Here are some additional questions that Tony Robbins recommends for dealing with problems that arise throughout the day.

What is great about this problem?
What is not perfect yet?
What am I willing to do to make it the way I want it?
What am I willing to do no longer do in order to make it the way I want it?
How can I enjoy the process while I do what is necessary to make it the way I want it?

What new empowering questions are you going to ask yourself? Let us know in the comments below.

Don’t Go to Bed Without A Plan For Tomorrow

One daily ritual that you clearly want to adopt is setting your priorities for the next day before you go to bed.

If you don’t establish ahead of time what your priorities are, you are likely to get distracted early in the day by things such as email or by other people’s priorities (not yours).

So each night, ask yourself:

What do I need to get done tomorrow?
What are my highest priorities?
How and when will I get these done?
What obstacles might I encounter and how will I overcome them?

Keep in mind that you are not just creating a to-do list. Rather, it is a process of mentally working through how you will accomplish your priorities and how you will overcome obstacles that are almost certain to occur during the day.

Since we seldom are able to do everything that we add to our to do list, it’s essential that we work on our most important priorities as early as possible during the day. Our most important activities are our highest impact and highest income producing activities. Make sure that you schedule these on your calendar for early in the day. Don’t attempt them mid afternoon when your energy is waning.

Plan tasks that are easy to accomplish and don’t require a lot of mental energy for later in the day.

PLAN YOUR DAY. WORK YOUR PLAN.

Preparing for a Good Night’s Sleep

Everyone agrees that a good night’s sleep is essential. Well almost everyone.

Here are a number of daily rituals that a person can do to help ensure a good nights sleep.

Get lots of light during the day—particularly in the morning before noon. Shoot for at least 15 minutes of bright light first thing each day. This may seem like an unusual request, but your sleep is controlled by your circadian rhythm and sunlight triggers this cycle.

Lower your lights a few hours before bedtime and turn down the thermostat. This helps convince your brain that it’s night and bedtime is near.

Avoid watching TV or using your computer or smartphone within two hours of bedtime unless wearing blue blocker glasses. TV screens, computer screens and even cellphone screens produce blue light which mimics the sun and tricks our circadian rhythm into believing it’s still day time. Block the blue light and your body will begin to prepare for sleep. Hint: If you don’t want to wear the weird colored glasses, your smartphone has settings which will reduce blue light.

Make your bedroom as dark as possible. You want to sleep in complete darkness. Unless there was a full moon, our ancestors experienced total darkness at night. We should as well.

Prepare for the next day. Think through what you have to do tomorrow and get it down on paper so it won’t ruminate in your head. Get your clothes laid out and if you have to, make meals for yourself and your kids. Knowing that these tasks are done will help you to relax.

Create a night time wind down ritual to allow your mind to relax. During the last hour or two of your day, start to wind down and relax. Read a book, meditate, journal, do visualization, practice gratitude or something else that wont stimulate your mind. If you don’t do this, you are likely to have a much more difficult time falling asleep, you will have more intense dreams and have more night time awakenings.

Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day. Consistency is sleep schedule leads to better sleep.

Sweet Dreams!

Incorporate this daily ritual into your evening

incorporate this daily ritual into your evening.

What daily ritual is that? Self reflection or a daily review.

How do you do this? Simple, each night before bed, review the day just past. Learn as much as you can from it. Do this and tomorrow will be even better.

During this daily review, ask yourself:

What did I accomplish today?
What worked and what didn’t?
How can I learn from the experience?
How can I perform even better tomorrow?

When going through this exercise, be especially sure to write down all of the pleasures and successes you’ve had during the day and meditate on this list. You’ll feel a deep sense of accomplishment and you’ll sleep better.

If you do this exercise for a week, the research shows that your self-esteem will grow over the next 3 months. Can you imagine what would happen if you did it for a week? How about if you did it every day?

incorporate this daily ritual into your evening