subject: How to Have a Successful Power Hour! [print this page] How to Have a Successful Power Hour! How to Have a Successful Power Hour!
An extremely valuable tool in the Self Mastery arsenal is a Power Hour!
The old adage; "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise" is such a true one.
In this article I would like to talk about the wisdom in that saying. I often quip that I like to get a start on the day and not the other way around. When I get up late, throw some clothes on, grab a quick cuppa and rush off to work, it's as if the day has a head start on me and I play catch up for the rest of the day, but when I get up early even on the cold mornings, have a power hour, I feel like and I am ahead of the game!
And in this day and age that's important. 'Power Hour', was previously know as "quiet time" - I have too much fun to be quiet. I have been known to burst into song and a loud Yes! Yes! Yes! combined with an 'air-punch' or two is not unknown.
Power hours are powerful and day changing, even Life Changing. I am convinced that the writing of my book is a result of me journaling during my Power Hour, for the last 15 years or so. And that's one of the important things we need to be doing in our Power hour - Journaling.
It is imperative that you keep a journal and jot things down that you hear in the spirit or read or think or see. I started with a little A5 hard cover exercise book, but what I use now is a thick A4. My wife has a fancy one with guilt edged pages. I have a fancy one too, but it's too precious to write in so I use something more practical.
I record anything that strikes my fancy and more, it's my journal so I write what I want.
In some of my Power Hours I look back through my Journal and remind myself of the good stuff, where I have come from and where I am going. A journal is and essential growth tool.
It's important for me to start off my day correctly, that's why I do Power List's every day. I am not going to go into much detail on that now, but what I will say is that it is extremely important to start off the day with and Attitude of Gratitude. In general we need to be positive and grateful and I find writing down 10 things I am grateful and 10 "I am's" get me off to a good upbeat start in the mornings. One can think them or even say them out loud, but you can't beat thinking, saying and writing them down.
Another important component of my Power Hour is visualising. One needs to have a clear picture of what you want in your life and you need to visualise it, regularly. I recommend a minimum of 10minutes a day and I sometimes spend half and hour visualising. When you visualise you need to imagine the situation in the clearest detail, see it, smell it, feel it. I highly recommend Creative Visualization - Shakti Gawain,it's really very helpful and inspiring in this regard.
Sometimes I alternate Visualisation with Meditation, there are just so many hours in the day after all. I posted an article on meditation a few weeks ago so again I won't go into detail. Suffice to say I find it invaluable in calming down my busy mind and helping to live more in the Now.
Something else that I make a point of doing in my morning power hour whenever the need arises is deal with Life Sentences or similar issues. The way I deal with them is by 'tapping' i.e. EFT.
I use the Emotional Freedom Technique as described in my book. I make a note of the Life Sentence that I have identified during the day in my journal and the next morning I deal with the issue using EFT and hey presto, almost miraculously I am free. It takes 3 or four minutes of my Power hour and its definitely the most critical.
Do I spend and hour every morning, well yes most weekday mornings. In fact I usually spend more time, up to an hour and a half even two. I have a ball. I always read something inspirational and I sometimes listen to mp3s.
I have a method of holding myself accountable that I will share with you. What I do is allocate a number to each activity. 1 to reading 2 to power list 3 to taking three deep breaths and so on.
The evening before I write down 1 - 7 at the top of the next day's page, then in the morning I mark them off as I complete them. Do I always do all 7 things? No, I often do, but I vary it and enjoy it!
I make sure it does not become another bondage, but I am also fairly disciplined about it.
What I recommend if you feel you would like to start having Power Hours is that you start off slowly with twenty minutes or half hour sessions and maybe 3 or 4 items on the list, but as you get into this absolutely fundamental personal growth habit, you can extend it and add more activities.
As I said above, it's imperative that you start your day correctly and it's foundational to self-mastery and personal growth in general to have a Power Hour. Institute one in your life from tomorrow morning onwards and you will see and experience the growth spurt!
