This year I started a new journal titled “What I Learned”. I am creating a habit of keeping track of the key insights and lessons I learn each day. My primary goal is to learn and grow daily, but I struggled with finding a way to measure this better. So now I have a separate journal I use only for this purpose. Whether it’s from my daily reading, podcasts I listen to while driving or working out, or from events and meetings I engage in, I wanted to build a treasure chest of life lessons throughout the year I could reflect on at any time. Some are new insights whiles other lessons are powerful reminders.

Here are 10 things I learned or was reminded of in January 2017:

• Whenever you are conveying fears or mistakes that lead to some kind of pain in your marketing message, be sure to include a path to improvement. Don’t just finish with the painful reminder. Share steps your audience can take to overcome the problem; classes you’ll be hosting to help them, videos they can watch, tools to utilize, or an invitation to a special consultation you can provide.
• Keeping a daily gratitude journal leads to better sleep, reduction of physical pain, a greater sense of well-being, and a better ability to handle change.
• Practicing gratitude influences the hypothalamus – a tiny part of your brain that directly influences sleep, eating, and stress. Practicing gratitude also stimulates the part of the brain associated with the neurotransmitter dopamine – the chemical responsible for the creation of new learning.
• You have the power to change your perception of the past and influence the future. Your perception shapes your reality. Ask yourself at the end of each day: “How could I have made today better?”
• Having the end in mind is no guarantee you’ll reach it…but NOT having an end in mind is a guarantee you won’t!
• We cannot control external events that happen. We can only control our opinion of those events. WE decide whether they are good or bad, fair or unfair. We do not control the situation, but we do control what we THINK about it.
• If you don’t feel like you have enough time, you don’t have clear priorities. Thank you, Tim Ferriss.
• If everyone is your market, then no one is your market. If everyone is your customer, then nobody is your customer. It’s better to have a thousand people LOVE you than a hundred thousand, or a million, just ‘kind of like’ you.
• The only thing we control in this world is our mind. This means the only thing we can truly manage and should focus on is our choices, our will, our judgment…how we think.
• There is clarity in simplicity.