This morning I went for a walk.

 

Not the kind of walk that I get my active pants or shorts on, and my active shirt or tank top, and my active shoes, or my hat to catch some of my sweat. My walk wasn’t to “get my steps in” or to make sure I stay consistent with my daily health activities.

 

Well, actually, the walk was for health purposes; Mental Health purposes. I wanted to get the blood flowing to my brain nice and early today. I knew I wanted to do some writing and I knew I had to give myself a jumpstart. Specifically, I wanted to mentally prepare myself for an effective approach at writing.

 

And so as I planned my walk, I decided to select some business attire to wear, as if I was working in the office. I picked out one of my pair of dress slacks, belt, undershirt, 1980’s-style supima pullover sweater, and comfy dress shoes. I was ready to go to work.

 

Professional and successful motivational speakers often endorse and urge the process of mentally creating your environment as you want it to be. For instance, are you not currently a businessman, but WANT to be? Then, dress like one. Walk like one. Think like one. Talk like one. Act as if you already are a businessman. Or even better, take it up a notch and not only act as just a businessman, but act as a GOOD businessman; A GREAT one; a SUCCESSFUL one. Put your mentality in a position where you create the environment that you seek, as if you already are there and living it.

 

This was puzzling to me when I first contemplated it a few years ago. I was not businessman. Or at least, I was not a professionally experienced businessman. I’ve encountered and interacted with many of them in my life, but I never took the time to envision which one of them resembled the type of businessman I could be. So this was the first step for me. I needed to construct the type of businessman I was going to emulate (and eventually become). Achieving this first step laid the foundation for a motivated mentality.

 

Fast forward to my morning today and envisioning my approach to the day… I was fresh, dressed like a million bucks, and ready to utilize my time as so. Before I stepped out of the house, I reminded myself of the possible interactions I may encounter and how I was going to address them. My walk was going to be brief (I planned on walking to the locally-owned coffee shop for a nice warm cup) and admire the day of opportunity that I have been provided.

 

And the process worked! The mental preparation worked. Here I am writing a piece that I did not know I was going to write about when I woke up this morning. I just knew I wanted to write and that I wanted to position myself in the best way possible to do so.

 

A final note on this piece… my mental preparation this morning was in order to do some creative writing. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about, I just know that my personal success depends on writing and the thoughts that develop from my writing. It was my jump-starter, my pep-talk, my spark in order to set ablaze.  My objective for the morning maybe minuscule compared to yours, or perhaps even irrelevant, but the process of reaching the objective is universal in any situation, whether your objective is to do something small or do something great. Whatever it is you look to achieve, prepare yourself properly, and you prepare yourself for success.

 

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