Dear Sunday Sparker,
How do you know that you have had a successful day?
What are successful days?
I define a successful day as when you put your head on the pillow at night knowing that you did what you wanted to do that day, not just what you had to do.
How can we increase the want-tos to outweigh the have-tos?
The easy first thing to do is to play with language; switch your “I have to” into “I want to,” “I choose to,” “it’s my role to…,” “it’s my job to…”
This shift in language doesn’t change what you’re doing, but it changes how much ownership and control you feel over it. And those feel good!
The second thing you can try is planning your day.
When you add an activity to your plan, you are choosing that activity. You are selecting it among a myriad of activities you could have chosen, and when you do this, you are practicing what scientists deem significant to your sense of well-being: self-efficacy.
Self-efficacy is, according to the dictionary, a person’s belief in their own ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task.
Having a sense of control over our lives feels empowering. We want more of that. We want to see how we can influence our time, even a few hours a week, and accomplish our intended plans.
Mind your language and plan more. That’s today’s recipe for successful days. I hope you try it.
An important reminder: You can have a successful day even if you do half of what you planned. It will still feel good, I promise you, because you need to compare it to the alternative you would have had: Zero. It will also help you improve your time-estimation skills for next tim
