Think about this for a moment. What are five things that you can do every day that, if you were to do them, would move you closer toward your envisioned lifestyle?
Having trouble answering this question? No wonder. To be able to answer this question, you have to first answer another one:
What are the things that really matter to me?
You have to first clarify what your vision for your life is.
What life do you want to create?
What kind of person do you want to be?
The thing is, you have to get clear on these fundamental questions first before you can start to think about what you can do to make this real. But when you get to a place where you know what areas in your life are fundamental and how you can nurture and develop them daily, you are onto the gold.
This clarity will allow you to reverse engineer the road toward your end goal and figure out what daily habits you could develop to get there. Because if you take a tiny step every day, you will have made a journey in a decade. There is a famous Chinese proverb that says, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
Let's look at some of my daily five to illustrate the above.
Bringing the Daily Five alive with a real-life example
First, we are going to look at my daily five and my reasons for incorporating these into my daily life. This will help make the Daily Five concept less abstract and bring it to life for you.
Next, we will zoom out and tie them into my bigger picture, my vision for my life, and how these habits help me achieve this.
Lastly, it is time for you to determine your daily five.
Are you ready?!
Let's go.
My Daily Dive
At this moment, my Daily Five are the following.
I move
I want to stay as young, have amazing energy, and stay clear in my head for as long as I can, so I exercise every day. I say "move" instead of "exercise" because this can include:
A HIIT workout 💪
A morning walk in the forest 🌳
A yoga session in the evening 🧘♀️
A long bike ride through the country 🚴♀️.
In other words, movement is much broader and allows for a more holistic view and approach.
I meditate
I want to get the best out of my life, cultivate mindfulness, focus, and structural balance, and manage stress by meditating twice a day.
I meditate for a number of reasons. The first is that it helps me build in moments where I can become aware of what I feel, think, and experience in my body. This cultivates awareness, which allows for continuous personal growth.
Secondly, many forms of meditation are like focus training. You lock onto one thing, be it a sensation, your breath, a mantra, or a sound, and stay with that. This is essentially training or re-training your brain to stay with one thing for a period of time. In this day and age, the ability to be able to focus is immensely valuable, and you have to protect and cultivate this actively.
Lastly, many forms of meditation activate your parasympathetic nervous system, in other words, they help you wind down, relax, and get your body and your mind into a restorative state. The more you practice meditation, the easier it becomes to destress and relax when you need to, and you will carry this over to your daily life as well. Not a bad thing, right?
I learn
I learn and study every day. This keeps me inspired and helps me continuously evolve and grow, and this is one of the things that fulfill me the most.
Every day, I start with something that inspires me by exposing myself to a YouTube clip, a podcast, reading a book, or an article.
Every day, I get curious about something and read about it on Google or, these days, ask ChatGPT.
I am just very curious and inquisitive, and according to my aunt, I have been so since I was a teeny tiny little kid.
Staying curious not only keeps your mind open and young, but it also keeps you excited and interested in the world. There is so much you don't know! Doesn't that excite you?
But for me, the main reason to learn is to grow. To grow as a person and become better at living this thing called life. To grow and discover new sides of myself. To grow as an entrepreneur and enable me to do even more cool stuff. My one thing in life that fuels me like no other is this one. My goal is to get to the end of my life and be able to say, "Wow, I would have never thought I had all of this in me!"
I write
am a content creator and a thought leader at heart, and I have a lot to share. It has to be let out, haha. Actually, the things I share are just a fraction of the things I create. To keep this flow active, I write something every day, like this article right here.
I help someone
One of my rules to live by is to help, inspire, or motivate someone every day. This has always kind of been something I just did naturally. To me, this is just common sense. If you can help someone, you should, right?
Lately, though, I have become more and more aware of the power of these habits. It can literally change somebody's life, and I am not talking hyperbolically. Sometimes, somebody just needs faith in themselves, a new direction or line of thought, someone who shows belief in them, or a nugget of inspiration to fuel their motivation. Honestly, just sincerely sharing your belief in somebody's potential, skills, or innate ability can lift somebody to a whole new level.
Although this is not a habit that I consciously check off every day because it just comes naturally to me when it comes, I did want to include it in the list because I think it is a very powerful habit to have that will not only benefit you but also people around you. And it is fun!
It doesn't have to be big, though. For me, sometimes this is an inspiring post on LinkedIn, sometimes it is a well-meant compliment, and sometimes it is a reading tip or some other advice or tip. It doesn't matter. If you feel you can help someone, do so.
These are my daily five. Now let's look at how they tie into my bigger picture.
How they tie into my bigger picture
As I mentioned in the beginning, determining your daily five means reverse engineering from your bigger picture, your vision for your life, and figuring out the five habits you can do daily that will move you towards your goals.
As a thought exercise, let's look at how they tie into mine.
Movement:
This ties into my desire for optimal mental, physical, and emotional health. For me, the foundation of my success, my happiness, and my fulfillment is my mental and emotional health, and my physical health plays a big part in both. Furthermore, I want to feel young, fresh, creative, vibrant, and alive for as long as I can, so I take good care of all aspects of my health.
To conclude, this ties into my vision of myself in terms of health and lifestyle: staying in optimal health across the board.
Meditating:
This ties into the latter as well. First of all, it keeps me healthy in my mind, body, and heart. It helps me check in emotionally and makes me aware of choices I need to make in terms of emotional health. It allows my brain to rest and regenerate, fuels my health, and stimulates my creativity and productivity. To conclude, this ties into my vision of myself in terms of personal growth, creativity, and health. I want to evolve constantly, I want to be able to use my brain fully for creativity, and I want to stay in optimal health.
Learning:
This ties into my personal desire for never-ending growth and full potential living. One of my most important motivators is to constantly grow as a person, as an entrepreneur, and as a business. This is the way. To conclude, I want to get the best out of myself, I want to use all the potential that I have. That is my vision for my life in terms of personal and professional growth, and this ties into that goal.
Writing:
I want to inspire millions, and the way to do this is to continuously create content and share it with the world. Not only will this help me develop myself and my skills, but it will also hopefully reach the right people and inspire them. So, this ties into my bigger mission of helping as many people discover, uncover, and live their true potential and create awesome lives that fulfill them and make an impact in their worlds.
Helping:
My mission is to inspire, motivate, and help people get the best out of themselves and live the life they really want. And I can live this mission every day by doing something small (or big) that inspires, motivates, or helps someone. In short, this ties into the same vision that I mentioned in the previous point. It helps me become the motivational influencer and thought leader I want to be.
Now it is your time!
So now you know, these are my Big Five. But now it is your time. Did this spark some inspiration in you? Are you ready to start uncovering your own Daily Five?
Let's quickly look at the steps to take:
Step 1: It starts with figuring out what your bigger vision for your life and for yourself is. Find out what your most important values are and what kind of life you want to create.
Step 2: Reverse engineer by thinking about what you could do daily that would, in time, add up to the results you want in the long run.
Step 3: Break these down into daily tiny habits that contribute to these intentions.
Step 4: Figure out how you are going to actively incorporate them into your life.
Ready to commit?
As renowned performance coach Tony Robbins would say: “Never leave the scene of a decision without first taking action.
So, are you deciding to put this exercise into practice?
Then commit and share your Daily Dive below in the comments.!
👇Respond in the comments with your Daily Five.💬