Make Every Day a Masterpiece

Legendary college basketball coach John Wooden had many tremendous sayings, but probably his most famous was, “Make every day a masterpiece.” That's great advice.

Legendary college basketball coach, John Wooden had many tremendous sayings but probably his most famous was, “Make everyday a masterpiece.” Great advice from a man who led UCLA to ten national titles in men’s basketball including an unbelievable seven championships in a row!

Did you know, if you live to 85, you will have lived 31,025 days. How many of those could be considered masterpieces? Quite a thought, isn’t it. Well, how many would you say have been masterpieces in your life so far? 50%, 25%, 80%, 2%? What would it take to make every day a masterpiece? What would your life and legacy look like if you actually did that and…. how could you possibly do it? Oh, yes, two more questions.

Do you have a desire to make everyday a masterpiece, and do you believe you actually could do such a thing?

Personally, if the greatest basketball coach ever, gave me that challenge, and he did, I would try to accomplish it. So let’s take a look at this tremendous concept.

First, what makes a day a masterpiece? Let’s look at some ideas and see if these could be characteristics of your days and lifestyle. Obviously, you do not have to do all the things I am about to mention every day but in doing a number of them in a day, you’ll be doing well. Let’s take a look.

1. Tasks completed… you get a lot done.
2. Lives touched.. you made a difference in other people’s lives today.
3. You had a gracious and thankful heart today.
4. You planned today and acted proactively rather than reactively.
5. You had a disciplined day.
6. You spent some quality time with the family.
7. Today you had some personal growth; you read a good book, listened to some good teaching.
8. You had a healthy day in eating right and exercising.
9. You had a creative day.
10. You had a day with laughter.
11. You overcame a fear today and acted out of faith and not fear.
12. You appreciated the arts and or literature today.
13. You faced a challenge and met it head on and dealt with it, and finally
14. You made the world a better place today.

Well, how did you do today on some of those items? Is there room for improvement? Where do you need to do some work and where are you already excelling?

Rate yourself for a week and see how you are doing. At the end of every day, keep score. Give yourself a 1 if you had a miserable day, missing the mark on all those items and give yourself a 10 if you made your day a masterpiece. After one week you ought to have a pretty accurate picture of your life and whether it is a masterpiece or not.

If you want to take this a step further, keep a journal and at the end of every day, write your thoughts and accomplishments concerning the day just ended. You can additionally rate yourself from one to ten. You can be your own accountability partner knowing that at the end of the day, you will be rating your day.

Before you beat yourself up and feel like throwing in the towel, remember one fantastic thing about this life that we have been given. The fact is that every day is a…. brand new day!!! You get to start all over again, so no matter how bad yesterday was or last week or last year, everyday is a new day.

You have 24 hours just like everyone else. Each day is a gift and that is why it is called “the present.”

Not only can you attempt to make every day a masterpiece, you can attempt at making every moment a masterpiece. For that thought and lesson, I defer to my dear friend, my mentor (in a way) and my best buddy, Braeden, my two year old grandson. For him there is no past, no future, actually not even one minute ago or one minute into the future. He completely lives in the moment and for the most part has a fabulous time.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying always act like a two year old, if you do you’ll be bankrupt and very ill in no time, but I am saying let’s learn from someone like him. The average two year old laughs 485 times a day and the average adult 17. Something is not right here and something terrible happened. We lost our curiosity, we live in fear, and we do not appreciate the simple things in life. I take a walk with Braeden and he is fascinated by leaves and sticks and rocks and nearly everything that he sees. It’s all fresh and new and he has given me a great appreciation for the simple things in life.

When we go for a walk, it takes forever to get somewhere because he is observing everything and I have found that if I walk slow, too, I can have a fabulous time. Our modern life with the fast cars and the fast internet and the TV picture changing every three seconds has gotten us so wound up that we miss so much. Slow down, enjoy, smell the roses when you walk past them and listen to the birds and enjoy the butterflies and the flowers and the clouds and the sunsets. They are free.

Finally, Here Are Some Ideas To Make Every Day A Masterpiece In Your Business.

1. Start your day with a “to do” list.
2. Do everything that is on your “to do” list.
3. Don’t waste time needlessly looking at your email, surfing the internet, or other time-wasting activities.
4. Analyze your day when it’s over and ask yourself if you did the things necessary to get you to where you want to be.
5. Do 10-20 or more marketing actions that will make your phone ring in the future.
6. Have control of your company. Understand, use and like your KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators). Do a search in www.icsmag.com for “key performance indicators” and read the article.
7. If you are not cleaning, you are marketing.
8. Take massive action.
9. Maintain a positive attitude and feed your head with good material to grow your business.
10. Be perspicacious. i.e. “Put together the elements that matter, take action and don’t get distracted by the noise.”