Want to Earn more Money? Start a Side Hustle? Have more Energy? Become Healthier?

The past years I’ve been writing about various “Make money online” topics.

• How to make money with Print on Demand
• How to make money with YouTube Automation
• How to make money with investing
• How to make money with blogging
• … and more.

Who wouldn’t want to earn $1000-$2000 per month extra (passive) income? I’m sure that every one of us would want this. But how many people ACTUALLY achieve this?

While this is all great and people these days seem to love these topics, there is 1 big problem with all this.

Motivation

How motivated are you? Achieving something (medical issues or any unexpected emergencies aside), always comes down to 1 simple thing: motivation.

• Want to lose weight?
• Want to earn more money?
• Want to get good grades at school?
• Want to eat healthier?
• Want to create a new habit?
• Want to get up earlier in the morning?
• Want to quit smoking?

Okay. So what do people do? They go look for solutions to fix these specific issues. But what’s the problem here?

• Most people these days don’t have patience and expect fast results
• People are focused on “treating symptoms” instead of “fixing the cause”

Read all the above again — this stuff is extremely important.

Do you see where I’m going with this? People have been coming to me saying:

• I want to lose 5kg
• I want to earn more money
• I want to be able to travel as much as you do (yes, I have been travelling A LOT in the past few years).

So I either gave them some tips on how to lose weight (from my experience as personal trainer and nutritionist), OR I taught them the side hustles I’ve been working on for the past couple of years (print on demand, YouTube Automation, blogging, affiliate marketing, crypto investing, real estate investing, Airbnb…)

However… most people quit very soon after.

• It’s too hard
• It’s too slow
• It’s too much effort
• It takes too much of their time

This is frustrating to me.

• I WANT to see them succeed.
• I WANT them to earn more money (and even surpass me)
• I WANT them to lose that weight and become fit
• I WANT them to become happy and healthy

And yet… often it doesn’t work. They quit. They give up.

This is not only frustrating to me, but also to them. We have both put so much money, time & effort into this, and now they’re simply going to give up? I can’t take it anymore.

So, we need a different approach…

You first need to lay a SOLID foundation, a foundation on which they can build new & better things!

Fix your foundations first!

I’ve been thinking, and I came up with the following 7 steps that an individual should follow if they are SERIOUS about making change in their life.

1. Planning

Set your goals and targets: what do you want to achieve?

Take a notepad, an online diary or whatever you prefer — but it’s extremely important to write it all down.

WRITE.IT.DOWN!

People who write down their goals (and keep track of them) are WAY more likely to achieve them.

On the picture above, you can see a small journal that I created myself, to track my goals, habits and plan my days (and yes, I know that I have terrible handwriting).

A tool like this can be a first step to help you on your journey — I’ve put it on Amazon for a couple bucks, should you be interested. You can find it here.

If you have your “big goals”, then break them down into smaller, more achievable goals.

For example, one of my goals is to achieve a highly rated cyber security certification. So, I’m just going to break this down into small steps: study 1 chapter every week. You can do this with anything.

2. Information gathering

After finding out where you want to go (by setting your goals and targets), it’s time to see WHERE YOU ARE NOW.

Take a sheet of paper (or a notebook), and write down your current habits & daily routines.

Write it down in detail. An example from MY MORNING today:

7:00 AM: woke up
7:05 AM: Got out of bed, drank a large glass of water. Made my bed afterwards (and changed the sheets).
7:10 AM: did a bit of stretching & foam rolling because muscles were sore from yesterday’s workout, 10 mins
7:20 AM: took a quick shower, made myself presentable, got dressed
7:30 AM: had breakfast (oatmeal, fruits & nuts). Also took some multivitamins, fish oil and vitamin D supplements
7:45 AM: Grabbed my coat and walked to the train station (25 mins walk)
8:15 AM: Took train to work, bought a train ticket for €14
8:18 AM: continue writing on this article
etc….

You notice I write this stuff down in detail. If you’re just starting with “changing your life”, it’s quite important that you do this. BE SPECIFIC!

Also, you notice that I write everything down together:

• Lifestyle habits / activities
• Food habits
• Financial activities

Ideally, these things should be split up. Manage your finances separately.

I manage my finances in an excel sheet (which I also put online for a couple bucks on Etsy).

P.S. I’m also working on a Google Sheets version because many people asked for it, but that one is still work in progress 🙂

Your food can be tracked in a separate tracker as well, if your main focus/goal is related to food.

3. Analyse & Identify

Once you have your data, you can start to analyse it (or analyse it with a coach — I’m also starting coaching services soon, if you’re interested you can reach out to me.

If you’ve written everything down correctly & detailed enough like I suggested, you’ll normally already notice some areas of improvement yourself.

You might realize things like:

• Oh damn, I’m actually spending a lot of money on X
• Oh wow, I’m eating a bit too much crap and drinking too much softdrinks
• Mmmm I’m not really active during the day
• Wow, I’m wasting countless of hours on social media or X instead of doing something productive

The goal of this exercise is to identify areas where you can improve & most importantly: IDENTIFY ENERGY DRAINS.

I just did a quick Google search for “Most common Energy drains”, and this was the result. Recognize any?

So, which ones could you identify? Write them down.

4. Tiny changes

The next step is to implement tiny changes.

You now know your daily routines, right? Okay, then let’s see where you can improve. Here are some suggestions:

• Plan “your tomorrow” the night before (this is the most powerful tip).
• Drink a glass of water in the morning.
• Change your breakfast from sugar to protein (like eggs instead of Nutella).
• Put your phone in “Work mode” or “Focus mode”, to cut down your notifications, which might distract you.
• Do a bit of exercise. Take the stairs instead of elevator. Go for a quick walk.
• Skip those cookies. Have some nuts, blueberries or dark chocolate instead.

Another tip I can give you is to plan your energy boosters.

Energy boosters are activities that make you feel energized, inspired, and happy. What has this effect on you?

For me, it’s stretching, foam rolling, walking, exercising, reading, sauna, swimming, spending time with friends, playing pool, rock climbing, calling with friends via Discord, playing a video game together (for max an hour or so — no solo gaming), enjoying sunshine….

Identify your energy boosters. And whatever they are, you need to schedule them into your daily or weekly routine and make them a priority.

BUT: Start small guys. Don’t expect to change your life completely in 1 day. I mean, if you can handle it — then by all means, do it. But otherwise, take it easy.

Take it step by step. Tiny steps, big progress!

5. Track your progress & celebrate your wins

This one is a bit up to you. I like to do it once a week:

Every Saturday or Sunday (or sometimes Monday morning), I take my notebook and I review how my previous week has been.

• What was good?
• What was bad?
• What did I like? What did I enjoy?
• What can I do better?
• How far am I to achieve my goals / targets?

Just start writing. Let me give you a personal example of my past week:

Last week was pretty rough. I got sick a bit, which is why I couldn’t go to the gym as much as I’d planned. Nevertheless, I paid close attention to my food. I ate a lot of healthy stuff and I fasted for 1 complete day (24 hours)! I bought a new protein powder that my friend created with a company that he started, will test it tomorrow.

I completed a First Aid course and started studying Module 1 of a new Microsoft Cyber security certification. I noticed that I get distracted often and quickly, studying was very hard. So I need to remove distractions like my phone, and maybe work with “focus periods (see pomodoro technique)”. This week my goal is to study module 2 (*adds to schedule*).

I hired a guy from Fiverr to help me redesign my habit tracker that I made, he provided me with some samples that I need to review. This week they must be finished *adds to schedule*.

Upcoming week, I want to do some breathing & yoga exercises in the morning (*adds to schedule*). Finance-wise, I’m doing well. I’ve earned good money with Airbnb, plus the stock market & Bitcoin are soaring. Things are good, let’s keep it up!

This is just MY example, you write whatever you want. However the important thing is that — while you’re writing this — that you also PLAN/ SCHEDULE things in you calendar for the coming week.

6. Get support

It’s important to realize that the above steps are not as easy as I might make them seem. I mean, for me they are easy because I’ve spent years making habits out of most of these things.

However, for you they might be a whole new lifestyle. And if this is the case, then it’s important that you get some support.

Be it from a personal life coach, from your partner, family member or friends, it doesn’t matter. But often it’s difficult to do these things alone.

Example: going to the gym is more fun if you do it with a friend or partner. You’ll motivate each other to keep going and to push harder.

As I’ve said above, I am starting with a lifestyle coaching business and I’ve just accepted my first client. In this first phase I’m only going to accept 3 people because I want to dedicate my full time & focus on them. If I accept more than the quality of the service might suffer from it, and that’s something I absolutely don’t want.

So what I’ll do:

• Be their personal motivational & life coach
• Check in regularly via a simple WhatsApp message and/or a weekly call.
• Provide them with the right tools to help them succeed (like planners, journals, trackers).

7. Continuous improvement

This is the final, but never-ending step.

It’s very important to realize that all of the above is a LIFESTYLE change.

It’s not a 4-week “fat loss program” that will magically make you lose 10 kilos. Nope.

If you REALLY want to change your life, it will take a long time. It will take effort, dedication. Plus:

• You’ll struggle
• You’ll face setbacks
• You’ll fail now and then.
• You’ll get angry.

Don’t expect things to go smoothly, because they won’t. Maybe sometimes they will, but often it will be really hard. Take it step by step. Improve a little bit every day.

And as Rocky says: “It ain’t how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward.”

Me personally, I’ve been on this path to a “healthy, wealthy life”, for more than 10 years. And I’m still improving every day. I’m getting better every day.

For 2 years I’ve been tracking finances, food and habits, and today I still am.

The best way to achieve your goals is to NEVER GIVE UP!

Thanks for reading!

If you’ve got questions or thoughts, drop them in the comments and I’ll get back to you! Follow or ???? if you’d like to see more content like this. Or buy me a coffee, this stuff is magical 😉

P.S. did you claim your copy of my free e-book yet?