Limitless - Jim Kwik Page 0,62

coach, Emily Fletcher, a three-step process that involves mindfulness, meditation, and manifestation. To watch a video of it, go to www.LimitlessBook.com/resources.

Next, I make my “brain tea,” a combination of gotu kola, ginkgo, lion’s mane, MCT oil, and a few other things. Then I’ll sit down to spend some time journaling, getting my first thoughts of the day down on the page. My goal in any given day is to accomplish three things for work and three things personally, and I set this agenda now. I follow this with about a half hour of reading. I set a goal to read a minimum of one book a week and making this a part of my morning routine to keep me on course.

Finally, I drink my “brain smoothie,” a combination of many of the brain foods we discussed earlier in this chapter (no salmon here, in case you were wondering).

Now, admittedly, this routine requires a good deal of time. As I mentioned, I can’t get to all of it every day, and I can appreciate if it seems like more than you can handle, particularly if you need to get others started on their day. But if your goal in reading this book is upgrading your brain, then some variation on a morning routine of this type is an integral part of the process. Here are the keys:

Check in on your dreams before you get out of bed. There’s so much gold to mine here, so I strongly recommend that you not skip this step.

Get yourself hydrated and oxygenated.

Nourish yourself with some of the brain foods mentioned in this chapter.

Set a plan for the day.

If you do at least these four things, you’ll be well on your way to revving up your brain to operate at a high-octane level. Build as many of these things into the start of your day as you can. The most important thing is having a productive morning routine. I can’t stress enough how much of an impact getting your day off to the right start has on how the day goes for you overall.

KWIK START

Create your new morning routine. Remember, it doesn’t have to be a lot. Even a simple three-step routine can help jump-start your morning. What are the three things you will always do when you first wake up to set up your day to win? Write them down.

BEFORE WE MOVE ON

None of us would be able to live without habits, of course, but consciously working to bring constructive new habits into your life and to replace bad habits with better ones will take your superpowers to a new level. Before you move on to the next chapter, here are a few things to do:

Bolster your understanding of the habit loop by thinking about the four components of some of your most common habits, like making your breakfast or taking the dog for a walk. What’s the cue, the craving, the response, and the reward for each of these?

Spend a few minutes thinking about a habit that you’d love to replace with a more constructive one. Using the Fogg Behavioral Model, what new behavior can you adopt that fits neatly into the model?

Walk yourself through the process of starting a valuable new habit using WIN.

10

FLOW

Why is flow so important to becoming limitless?

How do I achieve a flow state?

What are the key enemies of flow?

I’m sure there have been times when you were so completely caught up in what you were doing that everything else disappeared and it just felt like the most natural thing you’ve ever done. Time probably melted away for you during these experiences. People regularly tell me about focusing so deeply on what they were doing that they had no idea that afternoon had become night or that they’d missed multiple meals in the process.

This experience is flow.

In his groundbreaking book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes flow as “the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” To Csikszentmihalyi, flow is an expression of “optimal experience.”1

Dr. Csikszentmihalyi describes flow as having eight characteristics:2

Absolute concentration

Total focus on goals

The sense that time is either speeding up or slowing down

A feeling of reward from the experience

A sense of effortlessness

The experience is challenging, but not overly so

Your actions almost seem to be happening on their own

You feel comfort with what