Recently, I got an eviction notice pinned to my door of my apartment. I'm

serious. I'm not making this up. I paid my rent eventually

and it wasn't. I didn't want to pay my rent, but new management company

and things got lost in the shuffle. And anyway,

if you want to check out that story, listen to the previous episode. But the

thing that impressed me about it is I didn't. I didn't hide the fact that

I went through this experience. I felt a lot of shame for a couple hours,

a mistake. I've lived there seven and a half years. I've paid my rent every

time. But this happened and I was kind of embarrassed.

But one of the reasons that I was able to go ahead and talk about

it and not get stuck in shame after having this experience, not a big

deal, although I didn't want to get kicked out of my freaking home, is,

is that I have some practices in place that help

me to stay grate.

And that's what we're going to talk about today is a practice called the Daily

Action Worksheet that will help you stay grounded in adversity and help you stay

focused on the good stuff in your life. So welcome to the Decide youe Legacy

podcast. Today's episode is on using the

Daily Action Worksheet. Three keys that will help you

to make this a habit. And you're going to want to do this. So by

the end of this episode, you're going to want to make this a daily habit.

I guarantee it. Because you're going to see so much benefit

from engaging in a habit that keeps you focused on the good stuff in your

life. Big time progress is made

as we channel our energy towards our opportunities. Not the obstacles,

the benefits and the gains, not the gap.

Okay, so by then you're going to grasp this and understand how to use it.

I want to talk about a fear I faced recently because nothing is more important

to your mental health than facing your fears. And nothing is more damaging than playing

it safe. I. I had a hard conversation with

an employee and it was good and was positive. And I learned. I

have had multiple hard conversations recently because I

love reminding myself that the quality of my life is directly connected

to my willingness to have difficult conversations

where I could be rejected, judged, laughed at,

cast aside. Cast me aside. Okay, so I've had

some. I want to challenge you to do the same. So I'm your host. My

name is Adam Gragg and I've been a family therapist for

over 25 years. I'm a Legacy Coach founded Decide youe Legacy

in 2012. My purpose in life is to help people

and organizations live with courage that connects to your

mental health, that connects to having practices in your life like this

Daily Action Worksheet. My struggle with this

is like everybody's struggle with starting a new habit of gratitude

in your life. It's kind of cliche. It's something your grandma would tell you

after she pulls her teeth out. Get it? So. But it's

true. And simple stuff is so needed in this world.

The simple things are what keep us grounded in this

complex world. And you can go to this. And in the hardest times of my

life, I could still take hope in the fact that I could grasp

onto some good things in my future in the darkest days. And I've had some

very dark days. Just ask my buddies. I've had some very dark

days. I've always been able to grasp onto some kind of hope that it could

be better in the future. I'm going to give you that hope, some of the

hope that I have today. So I asked my team today what makes

it difficult to start a new habit of gratitude in your life like this Daily

Action worksheet. And everybody on my team is trained to train our new clients and

our prospective clients and the businesses we work with on using this worksheet.

This is where we start. We. In fact, if somebody can't do this

worksheet consistently for a week, they're not going to get.

They're not going to be able to benefit from what we're teaching at Decide youe

Legacy with Living With Courage. They're not going to be able to grasp it.

Some of the things I heard from my team is the tendency to procrastinate gets

in the way because we don't want to start something and then fail ourselves.

And we want to live in excuses. We make excuses like we don't

have time. It just takes you. And it will take you just 10 minutes a

day, 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the afternoon as you make

this a daily practice. People don't want to grasp the truth.

So Kelsey on my team, she says she just makes

excuses to forget how beneficial it is for her. Come

on, Kelsey. You know, so it's going to take some energy. It

takes. The pain people experience when starting a

gratitude practice is pretty extensive at first because they're

letting go of those worries that give them a sense of safety. I know that

pride doesn't make sense for you, but we're used to thinking in a certain way.

Keeping it, thinking it will keep us safe. So if I look at all the

bad things, I'm going to be prepared for those bad things happening. And so we

zero in on those things, on what could go bad

and we forget what could go right. We're letting go

of a safety blanket by choosing to be grateful. The worksheet.

And you can hit the link right now to Shatterproof Yourself Light. You

get access in the bonus section to a video that goes over this worksheet in

depth. This is free. Share it with your friends, use it with your family, use

it with your team. Watch that video. Download the PDF of the worksheet. You can

fill it out on your laptop or your iPad or even your phone and

it'll guide you. You fill out one for each week as

you go and I'll share with you what's on that briefly so you

can have that in mind. But that's seven. That's Shatterproof Yourself Light. Seven

small steps to a giant leap in your mental health. Just hit the link to

download it and go through it. And the first part of that

worksheet is you list the good stuff that happened yesterday. So what

happened good that occurred in my life yesterday. So you think about that in the

morning and then what am I excited about during the day ahead? You share some

items. I'm going to go over a Daily Action worksheet that I have completed

at the end of this episode, so you get a real example at the end.

And I'll also share with you that I wasn't evicted, by the way. So good.

I have a place to live and a bed to sleep in. Cool. Great stuff.

So I don't want to leave. And the second part of the Daily Action worksheet

are, well, the things that are exciting today. And then the third part of that

in the morning is what you're going to focus on today. Your key areas of

focus that are going to give you the biggest wins during that day.

So you know if you do these three things, you're going to be able to

look at the end of the day and say it was a successful day. Write

that down. Then at the end of the day, you have this Life Tree. That's

the Decide youe Legacy logo. It stands for seven different life areas.

Spiritual, family, health, intellectual, social and fun,

career and financial. And you're going to shade one of those

leaves in once you have invested 15 minutes of

your time in that specific life area of the Life Tree. I do this

at 8 o' clock at night. Sometimes I do it at the end, at the

beginning of the next day, because I'm not perfect. Make it a seven. We're not

talking perfection here. Then after you shade those areas of the life tree,

you're writing down your three biggest wins during the day. What

happened that you'd say that was a success? I grew here. I learned some things.

Even though it was painful at the time. Emotions aren't facts. I learned and I

grew. And then what you believe are going to be your three

successes tomorrow, put that down on paper, type it in your

phone, type it on the worksheet, the PDF. Do that for seven days in a

row. It's going to impact your life. It's going to show you patterns, areas of

your life, of those seven life areas where you may be neglecting

things. But first, key for you to actually be able to engage this

worksheet is to grasp that it's not about perfection. That's a

huge obstacle that we have. We overthink it. We tell ourselves

we didn't fill it out right or good enough or we missed a day. And

I can't do it now because I missed a day. And it won't be a

complete week. Go back and complete that day, even if it's two days

later. Go back. It'll challenge your thinking. You can remember what happened that

was good in your life from three days ago. I promise you the inner

roommate's gonna tell you you can't, but you can. Psychologically. We know

that most people, 99% of people can go back

even if you have dementia. That's short term memory. Your long term memory

is often much better than your short term memory.

Don't overthink it. Don't make it complicated. This is why it's

intimidating people. You see this complicated worksheet? It looks that way, but it's a really

beautiful worksheet. Thanks to Lloyd, my

guy on the team who does really great worksheets. He's a whiz at that. So

I'm very grateful for my team and what they do. It's a great

worksheet. Download it, check it out, but be

willing to let go of that perfectionism, because

perfectionism causes procrastination. I've never seen a

perfectionist who is not also a procrastinator. If I

can't do it perfectly, I'm not going to do it at all. Living in the

middle is where life is best lived. That is where

relationships are formed. That is where spontaneity occurs. You can

do so much in 15 minutes, including this daily

action worksheet. So the second key to making this a

new habit in your life is to be committed to decide. The word

decide means so much to me. It's purposefully

chosen as a word in the name of

our business. Decide means to relinquish other

options. It means to look and say, this is a good thing and those are

not the best things for me. Good is the enemy of the best.

This Daily Action worksheet is a great thing for you.

This means you're giving up the option to quit. So you have

situations in your life. You can reflect on where you've made a commitment to a

workout, to a diet, to a relationship, to a new habit, to

going to the doctor to get into bed on time, to getting up on time.

Reflect on those times when you made those commitments and I can almost guarantee

you, you will be empowered. And remember that you can make a commitment even

to something like this Daily Action worksheet. You can choose to do things

that are good for you and make those a part of your life. And if

you reflect on that thinking about how you felt, then it'll energize you to

engage in an activity like this today. It's great to set a goal and

then reflect on how you're going to feel when you achieve it. It'll motivate you

to go through the exercise and the pain, because pain is the

price of freedom to get to that place where you've achieved that goal. This

is the same thing. This is an entry point, as I said,

to working with decide your legacy. This worksheet is so foundational. If you

can't do this, I don't think coaching will help you

because you're not willing to make a commitment to your own investment in yourself.

You don't have to do it perfectly. But to grasp the fact that something like

this, there's other forms of a gratitude practice. I just like this one

because I understand it and I've been teaching it for decades.

It's the one I know. Committing to something that you can follow through for

yourself. Because coaching is a process of following through on

commitments that you know will benefit you, even if you don't feel like they will

benefit you. Challenge clients, challenge prospects, challenge people.

When I speak to engage in this type of action. So the

third key, and I'll just share a success story. Actually,

somebody that I know and I know very well

drug their feet for a long time and had a lot of excuses on

why they wouldn't engage in the Daily Action Worksheet. I Already do something like this.

I've already made it a practice. But they have made it a practice in various

forms throughout their life. But one thing they had not done

is committed to doing it consistently every day. They committed to

doing it consistently every day. And they noticed that they were neglecting one

part of their life and that was the social and fun area area. They made

it an intention, intentional commitment to shading in that

social and fun goal area. And they started to block out chunks of time where

they spent 15 minutes at the end of the day texting and calling friends and

planning things with friends for the weekend. They noticed

the difference that made in their lifestyle and their weekends. They started to get excited

about. They started to see that they had good things planned and that

anticipatory excitement made the rest of their week more

enjoyable. And they ended up shading in that social and

fun area of their life tree on their daily action worksheet consistently

for the next month. Noticed that it was that it was impacting the other

parts of their life tree. It was making it easier for them to shade

in the area of health because they were starting to exercise and go on walks

with friends. It made it easier for them to shade in the spiritual area because

they were engaging relationships with friends where they were talking about

spiritual type things. It made it easier for them to shade in

the career area because they were engaging in social and fun activities

which were leading to career opportunities for them. They were more excited about

shading in that area as well. That's what happens. That's why this is so

foundational for you. So check it out. So the third key to

making the daily action worksheet a part of your life, a lifestyle

habit, is to remember that a very key psychological

principle that what you put your attention to in

your life grows, that you have neural

pathways, connections of neurons that form based on what you

focus on the most. Neuroplasticity basically means that

you can change those neural pathways through

intentional habits of gratitude and focusing on your

7x vision and focusing on your relationships that you have that are so

positive and encouraging in your life and, and channeling energy into those

things and making sure you invest in areas of your

life which are gonna make positive neurons, neural networks, more

accessible for you to form. And you can actually see this stuff in

brain scans and imaging. We have high powered imaging

that you can access and see stuff start to form. And basically

what it is is that your brain channels in to what you're intentionally

deciding to focus on. So you read a book, you do A gratitude list. You

spend time with your friends sharing what you're grateful for, sharing what you're excited about.

And it's going to start to form new neural pathways

which starts to create even this

cognitive bias that is positive, where you start recognizing the

good stuff in your life and not the bad stuff.

You're going to see the bad stuff when you're grateful.

You're actually much more prepared to be able to handle the bad stuff in your

life because you're accessing resources that you're not able to access

when you're anxious in tunnel vision and seeing how to protect yourself

and how to defend yourself. No, gratitude changes

that. So what you, that key concept of recognizing that what I

focus on grows is going to empower you to channel your focus

towards what is good. And it's going to give you energy

to realize that I have this power to channel my

thinking. There are very few things in your life that you have control over. You

don't have 100% control over your health. You have a great deal of influence on

your health. You don't have 100% control over what other people do in

your relationships, but you have a great deal of influence over how you approach

relationships and your willingness to have courageous conversations. The

thing you do have influence over is your actions,

which means you do have influence over whether you, whether or not you

choose to focus on the positives in your life. By completing the Daily Action

Worksheet, you. You don't have 100% control over your thoughts. You have

intrusive thoughts. Things trigger you, like a bearded man

who reminds you of some abusive person in your past, or

like some situation where somebody approaches you to

ask questions, and in your mind you're thinking they're going to reject you or they're

trying to sell something to you because you've been sold a lot of things in

your life, and they're really just trying to encourage you. That's what happens with

intrusive thoughts. But I will tell you this, the Daily Action worksheet,

it makes intrusive thoughts less sticky.

You start to get space from them and realize that they're not true much

faster because you have a practice like this in your toolbox that you

can access every morning, every afternoon, or even during the day, because

you want to shade these areas as you go during the day. That's a great

practice as well. So the

challenge for me with something like this is, hey,

if I don't do it for a full week, my perfectionism comes to play.

And I wanted to share. Share my Daily Action worksheet.

This is it reality for me. I'm just going to read it because I filled

it out this morning. This is a Tuesday. So

here, here's my positive, so really great meeting with a client. Potential

new client company, business that's really exciting for me. Getting

a payment that I've been waiting for. Going and

giving my dog a bath was a real positive thing. He's trained to give me

a bath. Meeting with some friends, meeting with the guy that

produces my podcast. Yeah, he made this list, Troy. So excitement

today. Focusing on growing, focusing

on encouraging clients. I had things down there. Recording podcasts, having

some organization I can do later today. Those are really

positive, exciting things. Getting some exercise after work, eating a good meal,

simple, basic things can go on there. Having a cup of coffee, you know, all

these things can make the list. I got a Father's Day card early for my

parents. And yes, I did open it already. I always do because I generally know

they're gonna give me a gift card and I wanna see what it is. So

thanks for the Starbucks gift card. Mom and dad appreciate that. So, and then I

put down that on my today's Focus. Well, recording podcast. Great.

And what have I shaded in on the tree areas? The spiritual I've put in

the work area which most of you, if you work a job, you're gonna shade

that in pretty easily. Intellectual development haven't done anything for health.

I've gotten some social and fun and the wins I'm going to fill out later

today. But my wins from yesterday was new

work opportunities, a great client, progress on their

marriage, getting well, some of the same wins so that it carries

into the next day. The wins from yesterday becomes my positives, often

become my positives the next day that I reflect on. So I start my day

by just copying that and pasting it in the same Daily Action

worksheet. So another opportunity that I had, dealing with the difficult

conversation, that was a win. And then my successes

yesterday were actually just

client progress. Some things with getting more

sleep, some summer activities

that I have done some planning with, taking my daughter to college

in Boston was a win. Getting that planned out and meeting with

some family that live in Boston that I rarely see if I've never met

them, in fact. But that was a win because I got some put some energy

into that. So it's both personal and professional that go on this

Daily Action worksheet as well. So if you've

just in reviewing here basically what I want to the Daily Action

Worksheet three keys to making this stick as a new habit. So remember, it's not

about perfection. That's the first key. The second key is to be

committed. You have the ability. Don't talk yourself out of it. Don't listen to that

negativity. Third key is is what you focus on grows

remembering. That will empower you. If you found this helpful, check out

Shatterproof yourself lights 7 small steps to a giant leap in your

mental health There's a worksheet. The bonus section again has this daily action

worksheet. In a walkthrough video there's another

whiteboard because in the full version I have worksheets and whiteboards that I've used with

clients for 25 years. I give you a walkthrough video on that

and some other content to help you understand it to make it stick. So

shadowproof yourself light an abbreviated version than the

full version you can purchase. Both of those links are going to be in the

show notes today as well. So

nothing will make my day more exciting and

enjoyable than hearing from you on how you've taken action

based on this content. Make a commitment to apply something

from today and apply it today because 80% of

changes is action, only 20% or less is

insight. You gained insight from this content today.

There is no positive change until you decide

to change. Decide today because your legacy

depends on it. To decide means

that you're eliminating other options and your legacy is the

impact your life has on other people. So by the way, with that eviction,

I went in, I talked to management, got it cleared up. It was

probably my fault because I didn't watch how things were coming out of my

account anyway. I decided to pay the late fee

without any kind of grumbling. But you know what? I was able

to channel it towards gratitude quickly and I wasn't evicted and I didn't

catastrophize it. So I'm kind of proud of myself as

well. So do me a favor. One thing is take

action today and then subscribe and follow me

because I want to stay connected with you. I want to close the way I

always do. Live today, your life

today, the way you want to be remembered 10 years after you're

gone. You decide your legacy, nobody else. I appreciate you

greatly and I'll see you next time.