Yo Black Man! You already know how we do it! Yep, Yep! I love you, bro! You are such a beautiful human being! I want to take a moment and say a little prayer for your health, safety, and sanity this year! I pray that you are open to receiving every blessing that God has in store for you! - Alright Black Man let’s get it!
Win the Day!
There are a lot of theories as to why the late great Kobe Bryant chose the number 24. With his brilliant mind, he put out a lot of rhetoric as to why and controlled his narrative in that regard. Kobe once said there are 24 seconds in a shot clock and he wanted his opponents to know that he would dominate them for every single second of every possession. Another theory happens to be the one that I liked the most: it is 24 hours in the day and he made it his mission to dominate every second of it! Or as he would retort, Carpe Diem aka Seize the Day! That is the essence of my message today! Dominate your day. One day at a time!
Black Man, some of us can make out these detailed long-term plans and more importantly, have the discipline to not only stick with the plan but also hit the benchmarks along the way and eventually achieve their goal. But if we are being honest, that is a rarity and something that only the most successful of individuals have mastered and achieved consistently. Most people have peaks and valleys of inspiration and quite frankly, are not where they truly want to be in life because of their inability to stay inspired and stick to the day-in and day-out pursuit of the things that they desire most.
Black Man, let me propose a simple remedy. Take it one day at a time. I know that is cliche but it is the actual blueprint of how everything is built, whether it is the world's tallest skyscrapers or the fabulous life of someone you admire. It all was done, one day at a time. I have worked with youth for nearly twenty years and I would always ask them, “Can you eat an elephant?” The reaction is always similar to how you reacted to the obnoxious-sounding question. After the occasional joke and off-the-cuff remark that I would receive, I would show a level of sincerity about the question before asking them again, “Do they think they could eat an entire elephant?”… Typically with some thought, they would realize rather quickly that despite not wanting to, they could complete the task. However, it can’t be done in a day and it is going to take a considerable amount of time but it can be done… One bite at a time.
Black Man, aren’t you tired of spending all this time creating these very well-thought-out plans that are nearly impossible to execute? Instead, take about 20 or 30 minutes at the end of the day and make a plan for tomorrow, nothing more nothing less. Take it one day at a time. Start by writing down your Most Important Things or M.I.T.s and the time in which they have to be done. After that write out your plan for the day and make time to accomplish 2 to 3 tasks that are stepping stones to a larger goal that you have set. For example, if your goal is to open your LLC in 2024, tomorrow your goal could be as simple as going to the state website and downloading the application. You don’t have to fill it out tomorrow, you don’t have to pay for it tomorrow, just keep it simple, download the application. That is it.
Yep, I hear you now, well why not go ahead and fill out the whole thing and pay for it and get this this and this? Because the goal of taking things one day at a time is the foundation for building success habits. If you try and do it all in one day, you are likely going to find yourself spending more time than you have, trying to find paperwork and doing umpteen other things that are going to get you off track and may even frustrate and discourage you. But if you have the mindset of eating the elephant little by little then you won’t put more on your plate than you can devour when it is time to eat. Yep, this may take a week to complete the task in total, but on Saturday night when you look back at your week and begin to take account of the things you accomplished, that your paperwork for your LLC has been properly filled out and sent off to the appropriate channels. Plan your work and work your plan.
Furthermore, one of the biggest benefits of daily planning and goal setting is that deadlines naturally increase focus and productivity. I am not going to call no one out but we know that some of us can be the kings of procrastination. However, when we are staring that deadline in the face, we find a way to buckle down and lock in on the task at hand. Black Man, you can build that level of focus and productivity on a much more consistent basis if you set and stick to daily deadlines. By setting smaller, hyperfocused tasks that are mini-milestones on your way to achieving your overall goal, you will naturally increase your ability to execute on a more consistent basis. This will undoubtedly come in handy when you find yourself faced with bigger tasks in life. Abraham Lincoln was quoted as saying that if you give him 6 hours to cut down a tree, he would spend the first 4 hours sharpening the saw… If you set and complete daily tasks consistently in 3 months, 6 months, and 2 years you will look up and find yourself able to chop down the proverbial forest of life with what may seem as a single swing.
Lastly, Black Man, YOU are your habits. Your character is the sum total of your consistent and predictable behaviors. This is the essence of the famous Aristotle quote, “We are what we repeatedly do, therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit.” This quote has withstood the test of time as a call to action for us to live life a certain way, however with closer examination of the quote we can shine a light on how our habits define who we are and what we have. Black Man if you don’t have the life that you want and you are ready to build the future that you deserve, the battle is won by winning one day at a time!
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