86,400 Ticks of The clock

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In his book, The Five Major Pieces to The Life Puzzle Jim Rohn says:

“Today brings to each of us 1,440 minutes; 86,400 ticks of the clock. Both the poor and the wealthy have the same 24 hours of opportunity. Time favors no one. Today merely says, ‘Here I am. What are you going to do with me?’ How well we use each day is largely a function of attitude. With the right attitude we can seize the day and make it a point of new beginning. Today does not care about yesterday’s failures or tomorrow’s regrets. It merely offers the same precious gift—another 24 hours—and hopes that we will use it wisely.”

Every day that the clock strikes midnight is a lot like hitting the reset button on a video game—you get another chance to try again…

Another chance to beat the bad guy.

Another chance to win the day. To smile. To apologize. To give it another go.

Another chance to to call an old friend. To send a sweet message. To call home and say “I love you.”

Another chance to re-evalute your goals. To come up with new ideas. To think of a better way to build your business.

Another chance to consider forging a new career path. To start living your most meaningful life—one that’s bursting with passion and purpose; potential and power.

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Every single day, we’re all presented with a fresh new opportunity to make the best of ourselves within the 24 hours that we’ve been given. To become a little better. A little stronger. A little more insightful than we were the day before…

24 hours.

1,440 minutes.

86,400 ticks on that clock called LIFE.

People often waste away these precious ticks, minutes, and hours of the day doing things that don’t move them closer to the life they deserve and desire.

How are you doing with your minutes and moments?

Are you using them to design the life you’ve always wanted?—To take small steps toward the success you’ve envisioned? Or are you using them to:

• worry yourself sick about why your facebook friends are doing so much better than you,
• get down on yourself about what you don’t have
• get up and run the same rat race every morning
• binge-watch 10 back-to-back hours of Netflix

If you’re wasting time doing stuff that doesn’t matter—then why not decide to make a change; right here, right now?

• why not go from facebook—to real book?
• why not go from thinking about what you don’t have—to what you WILL have?
• why not go from the doing the work you hate—to doing the work you’ve always dreamt of?

Am I saying you need to stop using facebook? Course not! I think facebook’s great. But I choose to check it once or twice a day rather 100–200 times a day.

Am I saying you need to stop feeling bad? Course not! Feeling bad is part of human nature. But what if you took those feelings and used them to fuel the fire within you, rather than allowing them to let your dreams burn out?

Am I saying you need to quit your job tomorrow morning because it’s not meaningful enough? Course not! But what if you started looking for more fulfilling career opportunities? What if you started working your survival job by day, and working on your side-business by night? Even a couple hours a day can compound into something BIG by the end of the year.

Will it be hard? Sure. But that’s why you were built to…

Succeed in spite of adversity.

As Jim Rohn tells us in The Seasons of Life,

“life is designed to be a story of achievement in spite of adversity, not in the absence of adversity, for without adversity achievement could not exist.”

“The world will willingly stand by and let you feel sorry for yourself—until you finally die broke and alone—if that’s what you want. It will also stand aside for you once you firmly decide that your present situation is only temporary, and that you will get back up and go on to make your mark. The world doesn’t really have time to care which choice you make, so for yourself at least, give a run at adventure, with your eyes firmly set on achievement, not merely existence and self-pity.”

I’ve got an exercise I want to challenge you to try right now:

• Grab something to write with and take a seat.
• Open up to a fresh, blank page in your journal and draw a big line straight down the middle of the page.
• At the top of the left side, write “STUFF TO STOP.”—These are things/habits that aren’t conducive to helping you become the type of person you want to being.
• At the top of the right side, write “STUFF TO START/SUSTAIN.”—These are the habits that help you make the most out of your 86,400 seconds a day. They’re the actions you should “start” doing, or actions you should “sustain”—continue doing if you’re already doing them.
• Now start listing things out in their appropriate place. Go crazy with it for as long as you want.
• The only rule is this: when you’re done with your list, put it somewhere you know you’ll see it every single day to help you break bad habits and develop empowering ones to replace them with.