Depending on where you live, winter can be a difficult time to stay energetic and motivated. Cloudy days and cold temperatures can leave people feeling lethargic and unmotivated.
After a week long trip to Europe in January, I found myself struggling with all the things mentioned above. I simply was not on my “A” game. But then I remembered how John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, would start every season teaching his team how to tie their shoes properly to avoid injury. He did this because discipline is elementary, and discipline matters to performance.
Elementary school also works best when lessons are repeated frequently. The alphabet, multiplication tables, and just about every kind of elementary learning are repeated until they take root in our early years. Somewhere along the educational journey, however, a mindset shift occurs and repetition no longer seems necessary.
When I found myself in the rut mentioned above, I was saved by an appointment on my calendar entitled “weekly review.” This 30-minute time is there for me to review the following:
- My goals for 2020
- My personal Key Results Area (KRA)
- My Rule of Life
- My next week (I outline tasks, declare what my top 3 objectives are, and sharpen focus around them)
There is not a week that goes by where I feel like I have adequate time to do this. Yet, I have come to discover that in actuality, I don’t have time NOT to do this. For, it always reorients me back to what matters.
My encouragement to you this week is to identify what disciplines you need to review on a weekly basis. Schedule these because they will not happen otherwise. And don’t fret about how elementary they feel because discipline starts with the basics.