[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://youtu.be/f2NU-1MB0PY”][vc_separator el_width=”40″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1527712567193{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]Hey everybody, and welcome to 2018. What a wonderful time to be alive. Let’s talk about making 2018 the best year that you have ever had in your entire life.

Pasha and I just finished a trip to Australia. We were gone for about three weeks, and had the opportunity to visit many places in Australia. That’s a trip that we had planned way back early in…well I guess late in 2016. We decided that was something that we wanted to make happen, and we did. And what a great trip! What a great opportunity to see another part of the world, and experience another culture and how they do things. That trip was really a culmination of clear intent way back in 2016 when we decided that we were gonna make that happen. That’s what I want to talk to you about today: living a life of intent and living a life with intentions.

Control.

And what I mean by that is being in control. Being in control of your own life, setting your own destiny, and deciding what it is that you want to do…not living a life where you’re only living in reaction to someone else’s agenda, or at the whims of a company, or at the whims of someone else. Truly living a life that you have designed and that is your intention, what you want, and what you want to experience.

I know this is the time of the year when everybody makes resolutions, and I think that’s a fair thing to do. It’s a good time to reflect on your life, take stock and evaluation of what your life looked like in the year previous, set some new goals, and establish some new habits as you move forward into a new year. But I hope that you’ll do that with intention.

Let’s try it.

There’s a little exercise that I would like for you to try today that has certainly been helpful for me. I want to share with you what it is and how I looked at it, and how I experienced this exercise. So get out a sheet of paper, and a pen, and I want you to write down everything that you have no control over. You heard me right. Write down everything on a sheet of paper that you have no control over. This was a wake up call for me, when I went through this exercise, because I started looking at my list and realized all of the things that I had been trying to manage and control are simply things that I cannot.

I cannot even control my own body, my own health. There are things that can just happen to you. I don’t even control my relationship. I don’t control my dog. I don’t control my company. I don’t control my relationships. Are there things that I can do to influence those? Of course there are. But I don’t have any real control over them. Certainly not enough control to warrant the amount of management that I’d try to influence on those things.

So I would like for you to take a few minutes and make a list of the things that you don’t control. Look at that list and ask yourself: what is it that you’ve been trying to control that you really have no control over?

For me, what I realized through that process was that the only thing that I can control is my thoughts. My mind. That’s really the only thing that I have control over. So whether any circumstances happen to me, or come at me, the only thing that I really can control is my reaction, how I think about it, and how I respond to it. That’s all I’ve got. That’s the only amount of influence and control that I have.

Routine.

So one of the things that I’m really working on, and have been working on for a long time, in living a life of intention, is getting down the right routine for me. If you know me, you know that, for many years, I have battled depression and dealt with issues around that depression. I’ve found that finding a good routine has been extremely helpful for me.

One of the things that I want to work on, and will continue to work on this year, is that routine. So for me, when I’m thinking about what happened last year and how I want to move forward into this year, I want to think about what are the routines that worked how I can adapt and adjust those routines in this new year.

One of the most effective things that I found for myself in 2017 was my morning routine. Just having a simple morning routine where I know exactly what I’m gonna do to start my day, every single day, and doing that with intention, has made a world of difference for me. Every day when I get up, I want to make sure that I’m taking care of my body, that I’m taking care of my mind, and that I’m taking care of me first. I’m not gonna jump on Twitter, I’m not gonna jump on Instagram or Facebook, I’m not gonna jump in my email very first thing in the morning, because those are other people’s agendas, those are other outside influences that I have no control over, and no matter what might have happened in the world overnight, I have no control over it. And I know what my reactions are going to be, internally, and those reactions are not healthy reactions that are gonna set me on a good path for the rest of my day.

So in the morning, I want to make sure that I’m exercising, that I’m doing something to move my body, that I’m hydrating, and that I’m doing some reading, all to get my mind in the right place. Again, not social media stuff, but reading something that’s gonna really feed my mind with the good stuff. What are the good things that I want to fill my mind with, and how do I want to start framing up my mindset and my intention for the day? I think if you get your intentions set for the day, in the morning, then you’re gonna have a great day. And good days lead to good weeks, and good weeks lead to good months, and good months lead to good years.

So I really want to encourage you to start looking at, what are the things that you’re trying to control? Live with some intention, every single day. Even though your resolutions may change, make sure that you’re the one changing them, that it’s not outside influences that are causing you to change those things. If you make a change in your resolution, if you make a change in the direction you want to go in your life, make sure that you’re in control of that, and it’s your intent to make that change. And work on your routines.

So what is it that you’re gonna do, every single day? For me, that’s a morning routine. What is it that’s gonna work for you? What does that morning routine look like, for you? How is that going to fuel your mind, and your body, to get you through, to be the best version of yourself, all throughout the day? Because there are people in your life that are gonna need you to be at your best. You, first of all, need you to be at your best, but then there are a lot of people around you that count on you, and rely on you. Whether that’s your family, or your clients or your employees, that need you to be your very best.

I want to encourage you to look at those things, spend some time thinking through those things that we’ve talked about in this video. Have a wonderful 2018, and I look forward to talking to you again soon.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]