Who are your favorite teachers on the topic of creating high-performance habits?

If you’re anything like me (and the first couple pages of Google search results) your list may look a lot like this:

• Tim Ferriss
• James Clear
• Stephen R. Covey
• Aubrey Marcus
• Tom Bilyeu
• Brendon Burchard
• Tony Robbins

While I have deeply appreciated the teachings from these fine gentleman over the years, I’ve come to realize that I desperately need to expand my horizons.

Women (especially women of colour) are the future of teaching on the topic of habits, mindset and personal development.

In most cases women have to work twice as hard and be more efficient and intentional with every moment of their day to breakthrough to the same level of success.

So in this post, I’m happy to share seven tips from powerful women who are leading the way with creating daily habits for success.

Habits for Optimizing Your Morning

#1. Monday Morning Intention Setting 

Fidji Simo, Vice President - Video, Games and Monetization at Facebook

Fidji’s success is linked to her focus on intentional work. She currently leads a team of over 700 product managers and engineers at Facebook. One of her countless accomplishments include leading the team that created and launched Facebook Live (which currently boasts more than 3.5 billion streams). 

HABIT:

• Schedule a 30-60 minute window of time on Monday morning to ensure your actions are aligned with your intentions for the week. 

Fidji shared more with the First Round Review: “My calendar is my most powerful tool for enforcing my prioritization. It’s important to be proactive with how you want to spend your time instead of letting other people dictate how you're going to spend it.”

TAKE ACTION:

• Open your calendar and schedule a recurring meeting with date with yourself to pause and ensure the meetings and work you have on your calendar align with your intentions.

CONNECT WITH FIDJI:

• Twitter 

#2. Create a 'Miracle Morning' Routine 

Theresa Corazon, Entrepreneur, Speaker, Miracle Morning Movie Producer

Theresa Laurico is a walking miracle. After recovering from a life-threatening accident last year, she has made a full recovery with help from her commitment to her daily habits for healing. Theresa is currently producing the Miracle Morning Documentary which will transform the way viewers start their day.

HABIT:

• Every morning Theresa uses best-selling author Hal Elrod’s Miracle Morning SAVERS formula to powerfully start her day.

The formula:

S - Silence (this can be be meditation or simply feeling your heartbeat and being grateful, or connecting to your breath or prayer).

A - Affirmations (say words to yourself or to a mirror that make you feel the way you want to feel. “I AM…” is a powerful way to start)

V - Visualization (this can be a vision board or an emotion or visualizing something you want).

E - Exercise (30 minutes a day of movement/exercise every day is recommended though you can start small and build up).

R - Reading (it’s recommended that you read a physical book).

S - Scribing (the 5 Minute Journal is a helpful tool you can use to write down three things you are grateful for).

• The Miracle Morning begins with a miracle evening. Tonight, plan your morning.
• You can also join the #30Day Challenge with a community of early birds
• Watch the trailer for Miracle Morning which will be coming out later this year!

CONNECT WITH THERESA:

• Instagram  
• Read: This Toronto woman was hit by a bus last spring. They called for a body bag. Today she’s a ‘walking miracle’

#3. “Dress Your Mind” for Success

Karlyn Percil, Creator, Success Planner & Neuro Success Coach + Founder, Sistertalk.

Karlyn Percil’s mission is to empower more women to LEAD and to live and engage authentically daily. Karlyn’s has shared her ‘elephant’ story on the Oprah Winfrey network, spoke to Oprah as the Founder of the SisterTalk group, and changes daily habits and lives through her success planner and coaching.

HABIT:

• Karlyn created the “Dress Your Mind” technique to help you proactively choose the thoughts, words and feelings that you wants to invoke that day.

Tools Needed:

• Blank white or colored paper. Karlyn likes to use a simple sketch pad you could pick-up for a couple dollars
• Coloured pens or markers.
• Optional: Additional decorations such as wasabi paper, glitter

TAKE ACTION:

Think of it like this: you may dress your body with your wardrobe or your face with makeup - why not dress your mind? The technique helps you intentionally choose your thoughts/feelings emotions you’d like to ‘wear’ for the day?

Step 1: Do a brain dump using the blank piece of paper. Write the words and thoughts that invoke meaning, desire, joy, and other emotions.

Step 2: After doing your brain dump, create categories; think of it like categories that relate to your makeup/style routine.

Here’s an example:

• Lipstick/lip balm words words: love, light, legacy, laughter (these are words you want to put on daily to embody a habit)
• Blush words: Beautiful, bountiful
• Foundation words: Faithful, fearless, fascinating, foxy
• Eyeliner words: Expressive, ease, easy going
• Skirt words: Savvy, sexy, soulful,
• Accessories words: hope, joy, impact.

As a neuro success coach, Karlyn wants us to know that our brain can be lazy! It won’t create these thought for you - you have to program it to create your own reality.

CONNECT WITH KARLYN:

• Instagram
• Website
• Karlyn's Success Shop
• BONUS | Accessories Recommendation: Since we're on the topic of dressing your mind (and body), Karlyn recommends making your next jewelery purchase an intentional one! Ten Thousand Villages  is a nonprofit fair trade organization that markets handcrafted products made by disadvantaged artisans from more than 120 artisan groups in more than 35 countries.

Optimize Your Day  

#4. Create Non-Negotiable Daily Habits

Chivon John, Wellbeing Strategist and host of the Filtered Perceptions podcast

Chivon is on a mission to help ambitious achievers win and not lose themselves. Through her work she helps promote well-being for thousands of remote employees, and she inspires her audience to take self-care seriously as a well-being strategist and podcast host.

HABIT:

• Create daily non-negotiable habits.

The moment Chivon stopped focusing on crafting the 'perfect self care routine' and worrying about how many things she could do in a day (and began shifting her focus to daily progress and creating small moments of joy or ease) her practices became second nature.

A few of her non-negotiable habits include:

• Working out at least 4-5 times a week
• Using the Calm app for meditation and breathing exercises
• Drinking 2-3L water (it’s so easy to forget!)
• Journalling thoughts when overthinking or wanting to pause and share gratitude
• Setting her phone to do not disturb mode after 10pm.

“Remember that self-care is personal to you and can as simple as taking a few conscious breaths during your day, or setting an intention before you get out of bed. Start small and focus on the feelings and outcomes that you'd like to experience. Most of all, release the pressure on yourself that everyday has to be perfect. A quote that keeps me grounded is 'Nothing in nature blooms all year round. Be patient with yourself'”

TAKE ACTION:

• Start with one or two habits that you believe you could do everyday. Start with the habit you’re most curious or excited about!

CONNECT WITH CHIVON:

• Instagram 
• Twitter
• Subscribe to the Filtered Perceptions Podcast 

#5. Optimize Your Email Response Times with Canned Responses

Eva Chen, Director of Fashion Partnerships at Instagram, Author of Best-Selling Children’s book Juno Valentine

Eva Chen is one of the most well-connected women on Instagram and in the fashion community. With 1.1m Instagram followers, a best-selling children’s book, and mom to two children - no double she’s got a packed calendar and a full-inbox. She shared one of her best email tips with The Cut to share how she cuts down on her emails.

HABIT

• Save an email signature (or use canned responses) for your most asked questions.

“Think about the emails you send in any given day. You’re probably responding to the same ten topics. For example, someone will invite me to an event and I’ll be out of town, so my response is, “I’m sorry, I can’t make it. I’m out of town.” Instead of typing that out, I have it saved as a signature. So basically I have ten signatures saved on my email like, “Sorry I’m out of town I can’t make it,” “I’ll be there,” “CCing my admin to set up a meeting,” etc. It makes a big difference.”

TAKE ACTION:

• Go to your Gmail and write an email signature for one of your most asked questions.
• If you have longer 'canned responses' that you want to save you can follow this short YouTube video to learn how to set them up:

CONNECT WITH EVA:

• Instagram
• Juno Valentine (Best-selling children's book)

#6. Focus on Important Tasks with Time-Blocking

Pauleanna Reid, Celebrity Ghostwriter, 2x Author, Sr. Forbes Contributor

Pauleanna Reid is a multi-passionate entrepreneur. With 6 streams of income, time management is an essential skill she’s honed. Her ability to be focused on income generating activities helped her make double her income from her 9-5 job last year, and recently quit to go full-time in her businesses.

HABIT:

• Time Blocking

Time blocking is being very strategic and intentional with how you spend your day and decide when you will work on specific projects. Below is a framework she adapted from @themattiejames to plan her day

• Time blocking (4 time blocks between 7a to 5p)
• Time Block #1 is called AM1 from 7a to 9a - (her most important items happen)
• Time Block #2 is called AM2 from 9a to 12p - Social media, special projects, content creation, revenue generating activities - which is critical
• Time Block #3 is called PM1 from 12p to 2p - Meetings/staff questions 
• Time Block #4 is called PM2 from 2p to 5p - prep for next day
• Buffer - for anything that has not been completed during the day

“You will not get 10 things done in a day. Be very realistic. Whatever to-do list you’ve got shorten it by 75 percent. Focus on few. There’s no point getting a bunch of things done at 50%. Approx. 2-3 tasks in each time block. Plan one day at a time. Don’t plan an entire month if you struggle to get through 1 single day.”

TAKE ACTION:

• Write down your top priorities, and then add them to your calendar in color coded time blocks.
• She also recommends that you schedule blocks of time around your most natural energy waves. If you’re a morning person like Pauleanna, do those tasks first.

Reflect and Evolve Bad Habits

#7. Replace a Bad Habit with a New Practice

Natalie MacNeil, Emmy® Award-winning Entrepreneur and bestselling author

For the last 10 years, Natalie has helped over a million entrepreneurs and leaders in almost every country on the planet build and grow flourishing, purpose-driven businesses. She also discovers and shares the habits of high-performers with her series with Entrepreneur.com. 

HABIT:

• Replace a bad habit with a new practice

“One of the best ways for you to break a habit that isn't serving you is to replace it with a beautiful new practice. Let's say you have a mid-afternoon habit of heading to the break room for a sugary snack. Instead of just nixing your break, use it as an opportunity to get up from your desk, stretch your legs, and then have a green smoothie or some veggies. The biggest challenge will be those first few days. You'll have to be prepared to face off with the temptation to slip back into the old pattern.” 

When faced with the trigger to fall back on a bad habit she asks herself two questions: 

• Which choice is going to make me feel most energized?
• Do I want to move forwards or backwards right now?

"The truth is, creating any kind of change in your life can be hard and the ones who do it don't have anything that you don't have. They simply decide what's no longer acceptable, face off with that pull back into the way that had been conditioned over a long period of time, and they choose differently. What will your choice be?"

TAKE ACTION:

• What’s the one bad habit that you know is holding you back? Write that down (where you will see it).
• When the temptation comes up ask yourself the two questions above to encourage you to avoid falling back into the bad habit. Take a screenshot of the questions or put them on your phone so you can refer to them!

CONNECT WITH NATALIE:

• Instagram
• Ritual Course (Coming soon - sign up for her email list for updates)
• SheTakesOnTheWorld.com 

Conclusion 

Thank you for reading. I’ve only scratched the surface here with a snapshot of the habits of high-performing, inspiring women.

If you’ve learned life-changing habits from women, I’d love to learn and share.

Please comment below to share what you’ve learned!

I appreciate you reaching the end of this post, and if you found it valuable I'd love it if you shared with friends/family who may find it helpful! Let's help create and support intentional, powerful leaders in your daily life.

- Gwen