New Year’s Resolutions made practical: Back to basics.

In this blog post you will:

• Discover the principle of basic daily practices.

• Two basic practices that will transform your life.
  

In this our second week of our series on New Year’s Resolutions, we are getting back to basics. In our last blog post, we spoke about being as specific as possible with the outcome of resolutions to get ready to set goals that will keep us focused, we also looked at discovering the core motivator to determine our starting point, another critical step in creating goals. This week we are looking at the basic practices and habits that will support your efforts to stay focused and on point to making your resolutions a reality.

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by anything sports. I love, yes love not like, the smell of freshly cut grass on a sports pitch, the thundering sound of the crowd when there is a breakthrough for one of the teams, especially if you are the one with ball in hand. Now, if you are not a sports enthusiast like me, let me give you one phrase that you can memorise that will resonate with any sports enthusiast,

“they just need to stick to the basics.”

Sports, like most things in life, are not hard, especially if you can do the basics better than your opponent your chances of winning shoot through the roof. The funny thing in life is that we are our worst opponents, not other people. Procrastination, insecurities, lack of motivation, undisciplined, and unfocused are all internal opponents that keep us from living fulfilled lives and, for this conversation, making new year’s resolutions a reality.

John Wooden, Hall of Fame basketball player and coach puts it like this

“Champions are brilliant at the basics.”

Wooden was a highly successful basketball coach that led his teams to multiple championship victories based on this principle of focusing on the basics to be successful. Golfing legend Gary Player was once asked what attributed to the so-called luck he had on the golf course. In reply Player said,

“The more I practise the luckier I get.”

Below is a list of two of my ‘basics’ that I have found in my own life but also seen in the lives of other people who has shown success over prolonged periods of time.

1.      Get the reps in:

“Get the reps in” is a phrase I got from James Clear, who in his book Atomic Habits, referred to the practise of repetition, not perfect execution as a method to build a habit. From my personal experience this is an absolute must for anyone who wants to get something done or build habits. I have applied this practice countless times when I don’t “feel” like working out, or when I wanted to start journalling, I still remember one night having nothing to write in my journal, I wrote one line, ‘get the reps in’.

This practice is not rocket-science, it’s all about doing the single smallest action within a habit that you want to learn or maintain.

Repetition is key, because it builds muscle memory and gets you unstuck.

2.      Daily Devotion.

Being a Christian, this is one of the essential “basics” that I cannot stress enough. In fact, I wrote a whole blog post about it. I heard this story while I was studying, one day a Bible College student rushed into class. After he sat down, the professor asked him if he ate that morning. Apologetically, the student spoke about how he ran late and did not get to eat his usual breakfast which was cereal. The professor asked him again by adding to his original statement, “did you eat from the Word of God this morning?” The student now surprised, acknowledged that he did not. The professor politely replied, “well a man cannot function properly on an empty stomach, please go and eat first and then come back to class.”  Matthew 4:4 puts it like this

“Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

To be honest, too many of us rely on occasional devotion time with Jesus and then expect to live fulfilled and successful lives.

A tip with daily devotions is time, space and accessibility. Have a set time every day to do your devotions, find a space where you can focus on Jesus, make your bible accessible to you.

Coach U

• Where in your life can you implement the “Get the reps in” basic principle?

• Rediscover the power of daily devotions by challenging yourself to have a daily devotion every day for 30 days. During that time, write one sentence every day of what was significant about the passage you read that day.

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