32 Ways To Make Progress

Wake Up Early

I have often heard people say “I’m not a morning person”. I have learnt that it means that they feel like they operate at their best in the afternoon or at night. This is actually natural. It is in one’s nature to either be a morning person or an afternoon person. However, with time, and depending on circumstances, you can condition yourself to be a morning person.

Growing up, my world was really the morning (in Uganda), the afternoon (in Uganda), the evening (in Uganda) and the night (in Uganda). Time zones were of no consequence to me. I was only concerned about getting to school between 7am and 8am, doing whatever I had to do during the day, and going to bed somewhere between 10pm and 11pm. So when my parents talked about waking up early, they were talking about between 5am and 6am. They used to wake up much earlier because they had prayers religiously at 5am.

Today, the world is so small for everybody that 8am to 6pm Ugandan time might not be your usual activity schedule. Many people have to sync with US time, UK time, China time, etc. Many people are resident in Uganda but their real operating times are based on other countries. So for such a person, what is waking up early? I don’t know. Only they can determine that.

When you listen to many people, you will be told that waking up early is a great quality. It is one of the things you have to do to make good progress in life. I find this to be true. But again, everyone has to answer the question of what time is early enough?

As a parent, my biggest duty is to help my children grow with the best life values, the best manners and the best principles in order for them to be the best they can be and live a life of great quality. Not only for themselves, but also for the community they interact with. We learn a lot as we grow and we have to choose the best lessons and pass them on to our children.

I have always been an early riser. I did not have any particular reason to wake up early. I think I am just a morning person. 🙂 There are benefits to waking up early for me. I get a lot done in the mornings so the more morning hours available to me, the more productive I can be. As soon as afternoon kicks in, my mind becomes lazy. All I’m thinking about is chilling.

“Go to bed early and wake up early. The morning hours are good.”

― Jeff Bezos

It is recommended that an adult has 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night. Being an early riser, tends to make one go to sleep early as well, and it is therefore easy to get the recommended hours of sleep. One would then be fresh and sharp for the day. I usually sleep between midnight and 1am but I still get up at 5am. Maybe I don’t get the full health benefits of sleeping 7 to 9 hours, but I surely do get the benefit of having more morning hours available to me to be productive.

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

― Benjamin Franklin

If you’re not a morning person, I guess you have worked out a way of being productive in your own time. For now, my children do not have to worry about time zones of the world as all their activities are planned around Ugandan time. I am teaching them the benefits of waking up early and their routine is programming them to be early risers. They may change in the future based on what they end up doing in life but as long as I’m training them, I will make sure they have as much of the morning available to them.

I have never been a good reader. I say this all the time. As a child, although the people around me were reading all sorts of novels, I just couldn’t get myself to read anything. Even my school books were a problem to read as I preferred to learn as much as I could in class in order not to be burdened with reading later. I guess that’s why I was good at mathematics. Once I had learnt the principles in class, there was nothing more I needed. 😊

The first book I ever read, I can’t remember which one, was in my P7 vacation. My mother offered to pay me cash if I read and finished it. The cash was my motivation and I read the book. After that, I went many years without reading any books. I think it’s evident in the way I speak and the way I write.

I can’t quite remember when I started reading nor what triggered me to pick interest in reading, but I did. I started reading novels, then I moved on to biographies and then to motivational books. Now I read any book I land my hands on. I still have one problem. I’m a very slow reader. ☹️ People read a book in a week (I can’t understand how they manage that) but I will often be seen reading the same book for more than a month.

That is changing now.

Recently, my daughter came up with the idea that we dedicate an hour every evening as a family to read books. This has helped me as I’ve completed two books that I had been reading too slowly.

We’ve all been told the benefits of reading; Improving vocabulary, improving your memory, focus and concentration, improving your writing and as entertainment. These are all very important. I like reading more for the knowledge we can attain as well as the stimulation of creative thinking.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

DR. SEUSS

Reading every day means that you’ve given yourself the opportunity to learn something new everyday. It is vital that you increase your knowledge base daily. And the more time we spend reading, the easier it becomes for us to grasp new concepts.

“Reading is the gateway skill that makes all other learning possible.”

BARACK OBAMA

If you’re not already in the habit, it is never too late to start. Get yourself a book today and let us all read daily.

Eat Well

Being Ugandan, I know many of you will misinterpret the title. 😂 But I’m not talking about those things. I’m talking about food.

It is very important be in good health. You must first be alive and well, then you can do the things you set out to do. Even when you’re on a plane and the crew is giving you the safety guidelines, they tell you you must put on your life vest first before you help your child with theirs.

Eating well is to do with having a healthy diet. These days there is so much information about what to eat that it is confusing. Just when you have been convinced to eat right for your blood type, some other theory comes up. It is hard to keep up with all that. In primary school we were taught something simple about a balanced diet; it should have carbs, protein, fat, fiber, vitamins, minerals and water. That’s how simple I try to keep it.

The doctor of the future will give no medication, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.

THOMAS A EDISON

A friend once told me something I found useful. He advised me to eat my food in a particular order. Always eat the vegetables first, then I can eat the proteins, etc. But the carbs should always be last. When I asked him why, he said that if I got satisfied and could not finish my food, at least I would have had my veggies and protein. 🙂 Well, apparently, eating veggies and proteins before carbs makes you fuller for longer and helps control blood sugar. You may need to read more about that.

The bottom line is that we need to eat well to remain in good health, have more energy and generally feel great. It is only when you are healthy that you can have the peace of mind to achieve what you have set out to.

Love Yourself

If you’re my age and older, you will remember that there was a time when we were taught to be modest. In fact we were so modest that we held back a lot about ourselves. It’s just the way we were being raised at the time. The focus seemed to be on how we treated others, respected others, etc. We were understanding it the wrong way.

Fortunately, as time went by, the lessons changed to respect yourself, love yourself, etc. We started being told that you cannot respect others if you don’t respect yourself. You cannot care for others if you don’t care for yourself. You cannot love others if you don’t love yourself.

Today let’s focus on loving yourself.

Love yourself like your life depends on it, because it does.

:- ANITA MOORJANI

When you love yourself, you’re not moved by everyone else’s opinion of you. You will be comfortable in your skin and confident in your choices. If you had to consider everyone else’s opinion before you set out on your business, you would likely never move forward. Your chances of getting depressed would increase and that would make you hold back on a lot of your potential.

Love yourself first and everything falls into line.

:- LUCILLE BALL

People who love themselves are happier and are in control of their emotions. These are the people who actually enjoy life.

Learn to love yourself first, instead of loving the idea of other people loving you.

JOHN SPENCE

Hold yourself in high esteem. And don’t be shy about it. You will find that you make better choices for yourself. If it’s a choice about food, you will choose the right food for you. If it’s about what to wear, you will choose clothes you’re comfortable in.

It’s hard to say no to people but sometimes you need to. When people suggest things to you that don’t align with your values, you must say no. This is very easy to do when you love yourself. You know what’s of value to you and you won’t let yourself get diverted onto a wrong path.

When you love yourself, you trust in your own abilities. You depend less on others and thus limit the number of times you can be disappointed.

To help you on this journey, know one thing. You are the most important person in your life! Once you understand this, you will make sure that you develop the best version of yourself. In turn, the world will be blessed with the best version of you.

Accept who you are and give yourself the best development. Love yourself so you can be the best you can be and you will make progress in life.

Judge Less

This is a tough one. Naturally, we tend to look at other people’s situations and form our opinions on them based on what we see. This is not an easy habit to get rid of but we must try.

As in most aspects of life, we must deal with ourselves first. In order to judge others less, we must first judge ourselves less harshly. The most progressive people set high standards for themselves. Any slight dip in standard and there can be chaos in their minds. It is important that even with the desire to maintain a high standard, we know that for various reasons, things can go wrong. Once we accept that, we will judge ourselves less harshly.

“The less harshly we judge ourselves, the more accepting we become of others.”

HAROLD H. BLOOMFIELD

This will help us not to judge others. Everybody is different. Some people take longer to understand than others. This does not make them any less deserving. Some people have standards which we consider below our own. We should not judge them by our standards. We have no idea what they have been through and we don’t know what their life goals are. Accept people as they are and help them on. Simply judging them will achieve nothing for us or for them.

“You don’t have to judge the whole world by your own standards. Not everybody is like you, you know.”

HARUKI MURAKAMI

Be more aware of other people’s circumstances and experiences. Try and understand them and then accept them. This way, you will be less judgmental. Judge less and you will live a more fulfilled life. That peace of mind that you will derive will go a long way in helping you make progress in your own life.