Michal Stawicki's Blog, page 32

My latest ebook, “Master Your Time in 10 Minutes A Day” launches soon!

Time management. Few concepts are so necessary, yet so dreaded. Volumes of information have been written about the topic, yet so many people still go through life scattered, stressed and stretched thin by the daily grind.

Too many of the books and courses on time management are full of vague advice and theory. That is why I set out to write a concise, specific book detailing how I reclaimed my time. “Master Your Time In 10 Minutes a Day” outlines the actions and habits I undertook in my most productive and fulfilling year to date.

In just a few short weeks, the book will launch, and I am so excited for the life-changing potential that it has. I believe so strongly in its power, that I want you to have it for free! (More on that in just a bit)

Your dreams can coexist with your life!

Do you have a dream for your life? Something huge? Something monumental? Of course you do; the ability to dream of a better future is one of the greatest parts of being human. Even better is the ability to make those dreams come true.

Look at your dream honestly and then answer this: What are you doing, today, to move in that direction? If you are like most people, if you are like I was just over a year ago, your response is probably something like “Well, if I had more time (more money, freedom from my day job,etc.), I would be able to pursue my dream.”

That was my mindset until just over a year ago, when I looked at my life was disappointed with what I saw. I knew that I had to make some huge changes. “Life” was slowly killing me.

With this realization, I launched on an ambitious journey of personal growth. I realized that I was in total control over my life; being overweight, financially insecure and disconnected from God and my family was my fault. I could no longer blame my demanding job, long commute, chores or family responsibilities for my shortcomings. The steering wheel and gas pedal were solely under my control.

You too have the ability to reclaim your life and your time. You have greatness in you, but you have to choose to unleash your potential. Achieving your dreams is not only possible, it’s likely easier than you think. As Henry David Thoreau said:

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

The foundations

When I began charting a new course for my life, the first thing I realized was that I needed a personal philosophy upon which to build my new life, from which to gain motivation and momentum. I spent a month writing, and rewriting, until I had a manifesto of 1300 words: my Personal Mission Statement.

This creed has been an indispensable part of my amazing growth over the last year. Its effect was so strong, I knew I had to share it with the world. In May 2013, I published “A Personal Mission Statement: Your Roadmap to Happiness” on Kindle.

The personal mission statement is such an important foundation for time management, that I want to give you a free PDF copy of this book. When you sign up below to receive updates on the launch of “Master Your Time in 10 Minutes a Day,” I will instantly give you an access to your free copy of “A Personal Mission Statement.”

Let’s Talk Time Management

Armed with my personal mission statement, I set out to change my life. And change I did! I am now healthier than I have been in years. I save almost 5 times as much money as I did before. I am closer than ever to my wife, my family and God. I have written over 150,000 words in the last year, published 4 ebooks (“Master Your Time in 10 Minutes a Day” will make 5), and I can now see the day where I will be able quit my job and focus solely on writing, on fulfilling my true purpose and passion.

“Master Your Time in 10 Minutes a Day” is the story of how I achieved all this in the midst of my seemingly endless daily commitments. It is written for busy people; it is concise, actionable and avoids theory and conceptualization whenever possible.

Topics covered include:

The Ten-Minute Philosophy: even small sustained action produces results
The Personal Mission Statement: your personal motivation engine
The Ultimate Tool: knowing your baseline, so you can judge your progress
Work on What’s Important, Not Urgent: stop spinning your wheels
Time Killers: stop wasting your life
Work Every Day: stay in the groove for amazing results
Breaking it Down: overcoming your greatest enemy – your psychology
The To-Do List: making this essential tool fit your life
Blocking Time: matching tasks to your schedule
Eating the Frog: the secret to constantly refreshed motivation
The Sand-Grains Method: increasing your “productivity density”
Multitasking: the ONE way to make it work

Master Your Time In 10 Minutes a Day launched on January 28th, and for the first 4 days it was on a free promotion.

I look forward to helping you in your amazing journey! Join the conversation: leave a comment below sharing your biggest dream for your life.

The post My latest ebook, “Master Your Time in 10 Minutes A Day” launches soon! appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.

Personal Mission Statement – 4 Good Reasons to Create Yours

Reportedly, only 3% of Americans have their goals stated and written down. So, there is a question, which came first; the chicken or the egg?

Are the top 3% people of society successful because they wrote their goals down, or is it just the habit of the 3% “best” of us?

Well, there has been researche done on this topic, which tries to discover a correlation between goals writing and success. In the case of personal mission statements there is no such conducted.

And having a personal mission statement is even more elite than having your goals written down. On the other hand, there were millions of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People copies sold and this is the book which popularized the concept. So, having a personal mission statement is not as rare as having a unicorn in your stables.

What the heck it is?

A personal mission statement is your philosophy, your creed written down.

“It focuses on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based”
- Stephen R. Covey.

It is supposed to allow you to state your own constitution based on your deepest values, so you can lead a life premised on them.

1. It is better than goals alone

It is so much more than just writing down even a whole bunch of big visions on paper. It puts your humanity at the core of your all activities in a way unique for you. You don’t spend your life chasing other thresholds and sources of income. You don’t spend it trying to beat another record or to achieve another thing on your list. You achieve all of these as the effect of living in accordance with your values.

2. It gives you purpose

A personal mission statement is about your life’s purpose. It sounds grandiloquent, doesn’t it?

But it’s really hard to state what goal you would like to achieve in the next 30 or 50 years of your life. It’s much easier to state what kind of man (or woman) you want to be and which principles and values you want to stick to. A personal mission statement is your compass, which determines the direction of your life, but doesn’t set the milestones in stone. You will gradually discover and reach your purpose following your personal constitution.

3. It works

Here is my reality check for you, regarding a personal mission statement:

It works. I know, because I’ve been using it since November 2012.

It’s not as predictable and simple as setting the SMART goal, dividing it into smaller tasks and pursuing it according to deadlines and milestones. But it produces results in the same fashion and it is more fun (if you define “fun” as coming out of your comfort zone).

Writing & achievement

When I wrote down in my personal mission statement the words: “I’m becoming a writer“, I had something entirely different in my mind.

I thought about writing fiction in my native language. I finished writing ‘how-to’ guides in English. I didn’t know very much what ‘a blog’ was. Now I have 3 of them and think about launching a couple more. I’ve a few guest posts planned on the blogs which are a thousand times bigger than mine.

All in all, I’ve written about 200k words since the moment of creating my personal mission statement. Writers write. It works. I am becoming a writer.

Gratitude

One of the 14 parts of my mission statement focuses on gratitude. I always appreciated what I got in life, but I was never exercising gratitude consciously. Now, after a year of living with my creed, the gratitude practically pours out of my entire body. I started three gratitude diaries, one about my kids, where I write every day at least 3 positive things about each of them, One about my wife and, in the other one, I write about 15 things I am grateful for in every day I live. My most common thought is: “Thank You, God”.

And three notepads full of my gratitude notes from 2013 are the solid proofs that it’s not an illusion.

Mindfulness

Another area I work on is mindfulness and self-examination. Before I created the personal mission statement, I had thought about my life once, maybe twice per year. Since the beginning of May 2013, I’ve been doing self-analysis on a daily basis. From January to May 2013 I did it irregularly—about once, twice per week. I have hundreds of pages written down from those sessions. And I add another one with each passing day.

Language

I didn’t wonder about my speaking manners at all.

Now I am more careful in my speaking manners. I praise more; I swear less—much less, in fact. I catch myself about twice a day when I want to say something not very wise or cruel and keep my mouth shut.

Inspired by my personal mission statement, the Bible, my own experiences during retreats and the reflections of famous people (like Jim Rohn), in the middle of October 2013 I decided to tame my tongue.

Again, using a personal mission statement doesn’t just come down to saying or reading the words, I have entries on my blog, I have tracking notes. Those are material proofs of my progress.

4. It builds your perseverance and, in effect—your success

Sustained use of the personal mission statement can develop your grit, thus your success, even in the areas you consider impossible.

Wealth

I’ve just checked my past monthly budgets. Since November 2012, I’ve saved about 20% of my monthly salary. Previously it was only 4.5%.

But I’m much more amazed by my ability to generate an income. My Amazon sales in December 2013 generated the equivalent of 1.65% of my salary. I have just to publish 60 times more books and I’m done

Selling books made me my first money online and, frankly, the first money I have ever earned outside my 9 to 5 jobs.

A year ago I didn’t believe I was able to get myself out of the daily grindstone. I KNEW I wasn’t able. My whole life experience taught me that.

And still, here I am, the money-making, published author

Start today

If I were you, I would seriously consider creating your personal mission statement.

If you created it at one time and put into a drawer, I would seriously consider brushing it up.

Your own grit (success) shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Composing your personal mission statement is not rocket science. You need just a hefty dose of commitment and some time to develop your own constitution.

Just do it.

Avoid those mistakes

It’s important to create the personal mission statement in a very serious manner. You may undermine the mission statement status in your own eyes by doing it with a lick and a promise. The common mistakes you can make are:

- You deliberately avoid some unresolved difficult moments from your past

- You marginalize your dark traits

- You pursue the shiny wishes instead of focusing on values and principles

- You put inside it what others expect of you, instead of what you expect of yourself

- You do it hastily, without giving it enough attention

Then, when it comes to the daily usage of your personal mission statement, you don’t really feel the connection with the final product. You feel as though you are repeating lies or empty slogans. In effect, you don’t find the motivation to keep referring to your personal mission statement and you abandon it.

The denial mode

And, of course, you claim that “this stuff doesn’t work” to maintain your mental health. It’s so much easier to blame “this stuff” instead of admitting that you screwed up again, isn’t it?

I have a similar problem with goal settings. I failed so many times to achieve my goals, that I’m very tempted to label goal setting and pursuing as “ineffective” or “counterproductive”. But there is always the reality check: There are people out there who started at a lower level than me and are at a higher level now. And they used goals and deadlines as the tools of their progress. No matter how much I’ll be bitching about inefficiency of goal settings, it won’t change the reality.

How?

1. If you have a lot of time for web research, just type into Google, ‘how to write a personal mission statement’. You will find some gems and much junk, but you will be able to write your creed sooner or later.
2. Get and read at least parts 1 and 2 of 7 Habits of the Highly Effective People.
3. Or just read my book with step-by-step instructions on developing your own mission statement. It will save you at least a few hours and I have included the ‘gems’ of Web research at the end of it.

The post Personal Mission Statement – 4 Good Reasons to Create Yours appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.

To set or not to set? A goal is the question.

Goals and I don’t get in sync. Too many times in the past I have set a goal and failed to reach it, way too many.

Goal setting connotes to me with frustration and failure.

It seems like the magic of goal setting, of writing them down eludes me.

I hardly remember the last time I met a deadline. Oh, yes, I met it with my first book. It was at the end of May 2013. In September 2013 I wrote a short philosophy work—a week before the deadline.

Falling short of…

My list of unaccomplished or delayed goals is long and miserable.

I wanted to reach 144 lbs on the 1st of January 2013. I was close, but not yet there. I achieved it on 12th of January, a couple weeks later.

In the past year, I set myself a goal of saving $5k. I fell short $2k of it. I did what the gurus say—set a goal which is ambitious, which will make you stretch a little beyond what you think is possible now. I felt like I might as well set a goal of saving a million dollars.

I created an Excel sheet with the publishing schedule for my books. After the first, each and every one of them has been delayed.

I wanted to read 700 words per minute at the end of 2013. My best result was at about 520 wpm.

As I said, goal setting is very frustrating for me.

Achieving without goals

There is another school of thought which I believe was born quite recently, The goalless school.

My experience is in accordance with it. I’m a firm believer in a daily sustained action. It will lead me somewhere, that’s unavoidable.

I didn’t plan the specific metrics for my fitness progress this year. All I really planned and wanted to stick with was my weight in a range 138-146 lbs. I barely managed to meet this goal during Christmas.

Anyway. I had no plans, no goals, no metrics to achieve. I just had my daily disciplines—pushups, pull ups, chin ups, dips and a light morning workout. Nonetheless, I beat about 40 personal fitness records in 2013. The most impressive example—I did 40 consecutive chin ups at the end of the year compared to 24 at the beginning of it. 66% progress.

Vague plans sometimes yield amazing results. I have no budget for my books. To publish the first one I spent only $5 for the Fiverr-made cover. My English is far from perfect. I couldn’t afford proofreading. I’ve come up with the idea of sharing my book with the people I met virtually during the Transformational Contest. A lot of them were native speakers.

Diane Arms volunteered to edit it. She also edited 3 further books. A friendship blossomed out of this venture.

I met more people willing to add to my work voluntarily. Hynek Palatin remade my ugly covers. Chris Bell edited my latest book (number 5), which will be published very soon. I didn’t, I couldn’t plan all of this.

My books were selling poorly in the middle of 2013, at a rate of about 1 copy per day. I had 3 titles published and the results were discouraging. I dreamed about selling 5 books a day. I didn’t set any deadline; I just wanted to reach that record for one day. I published two more books and the sales in November and December were almost exactly 5 per day.

I had exceeded my dream multiple times over. My best daily sales were 18 copies.

I see the merit in what Leo Babauta says.

Back to goals

But Jim Rohn said that a man without goals is like a kid playing around with a tennis racket, without a net, scores and an opponent.

And I have experiences that prove he was right, that deadlines enhance productivity. In October 2013, I participated in the monthly writing challenge organized by Steve Scott.

It was my most productive writing month ever. I exceeded the threshold I set for myself—22k words—and I wrote a little over 25k words. To give you a picture,in December 2013 I wrote 15980 words, almost 10k less.

Goal mechanism is useful sometimes. Even for me.

I’ve joined, a couple days ago, a group of people who want to hold themselves accountable for their goals, sharing their daily progress. The group rules assume members have goals in place.

My goals for 2014

So here are mine:

1. The unity of my marriage.

This is my most important and the toughest goal. I’ve been married for more than 13 years and still our relationship needs a lot of attention. Clearly I didn’t master this area of my life.

2. Quit my 9 to 5 job.

My job slaves me for 12 hours a day, 5 days of the week. I want my life back; I want to see my kids growing up!

My only idea for the new source of income is selling my books on Amazon. To replace my salary I need to sell about 130 000 books a year, 4274 a month, 356 a day. I sold just 145 during the whole of December. Here is where skepticism for the goal settings kicks in. I need “only” 7123% growth.

3. Growing my mailing list.

Right now it consists of only 47 addresses. A mailing list, your own audience, is a great tool for a Kindle author. I want to grow it to a billion or two That’s the wish.

The goal is, let’s say, 1000 people.

Feedback

What do you think about goal setting? Have you got goals for 2014?

The post To set or not to set? A goal is the question. appeared first on ExpandBeyondYourself.