Shift Five: Building Energizing Evenings

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Baamar, located in Nassau Bahamas offers your choice of three luxury hotels, over forty five fine dining and nightlife venues, John Batiste's All New Jazz Club, the Caribbean's most luxurious casino, and one of the kind experiences for the entire family likeike our fifteen acre tropical water park, wildlife sanctuaries, world class golf course, and so much more. Visit bahamar d. com today. This is the harsh truth Yourre nine to five is not the reason you're feeling behind in life It's what you're doing after you're nine to five that's keeping you stuck Because while your day job may pay your bills, your five to nine determines who you become. Those few hours after work are where books get written, businesses get built, bodies get healthier, relationships deepen, and lives begin to change But for most of us, those hours disappear into exhaustion, scrolling, chores and distractions before we even realize it. The reality is most people spend their energy maintaining their current life rather than working toward the future they really want You have dreams that you want for yourself But your daily routine doesn't align with what it would take to accomplish them Ask yourself this Picture the version of yourself that you want to be in one year Does your current lifestyle look like the one that person has The truth is, you're not lazy probably stuck in decision fatigue cognitive overload and with a nervous system that's overstimulated And I think that's why so many of us can feel frustrated with ourselves You genuinely want to change your life We keep falling into the same patterns every night. How many of you tell yourself that after work, you're finally going to exercise, Work on your passion project, cook a healthy meal, reconnect with a loved one, read a book, or try a new hobby And instead, you end up on the couch fourour episodes deep into a TV show wondering where the entire night went You promise yourself, tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow you'll have more discipline Tomorrow, you will finally just do the task you said you were going to do But that's where most people are approaching their five to nine Completely wrong They're relying on motivation instead of systems, reacting to their exhaustion instead of fixing it and unknowingly building routines that drain even more energy from them instead of giving that energy back Researchers studying decision fatigue found that the quality of our decisions tends to decline throughout the day as our mental energy gets depleted By the evening, most people are operating with significantly less cognitive bandwidth than they had earlier in the morning That's part of why passive habits becomes so much harder to resist at night, even when you wake up motivated and ready for a productive day And unfortunately, most of the systems surrounding us are designed to make passive behavior incredibly easy Streaming platforms aut play the next episode Your Instagram feed never ends, and the cozy, comfy couch is always going to feel better in the moment than lacing up your sneakers Now obviously, rest matters I think one of the biggest mistakes self improvement culture makes is treating every moment of rest like failure Rest and recovery are extremely important. There's a very big difference between intentional rest that restores your energy versus the numbing out and feeling frustrated with ourselves that we tend to do on weeknights If you're just constantly resting each night to reset for the next workday You'll realize a month went by where you didn't even start a project you were excited about Your goals start feeling like they belong to some future version of yourself, who will eventually have more time, more energy, more clarity, more motivation But your evenings right now as your life looks today, matter And I'm going to help you utilize them so you can be productive, energized and more fulfilled It's not about finding more hours in the day It's about resetting the way you use the crucial time you do have. You have goals, you want to be productive, you want to feel happy and well rounded, well read You want to spend time with the people you love and who love you All of these things are accessible to you. If you do the five to nine right So today I want to take us through the five shifts that can completely change your evenings and ultimately your life. The first shift is changing your first move after work Behavoral scientist Wendy Wood, who studies habits and automatic behavior has found that much of human behavior is driven less by conscious decision making and more by environmental cues and repeated patterns That's why so many people sit down for five minutes after work. and somehow lose three hours to TikTok. The brain recognizes the pattern before your conscious mind fully catches up One of the biggest mistakes people make is trying to fight the wrong battle If you know that going straight home from the office destroys your momentum Stop trying to rely on discipline once you're already in your home Change the first move instead go directly to the gym after work Stop at a cafe before heading home and spend an hour working on your side hustle Go for a walk after you park your car before you head in the front door Meet a friend for dinner straight from the office. interterrupt the autopilot loop before the decision fatigue fully takes over Psychologists call this implementation intention theory creating specific if then plans ahead of time instead of vaguely saying I should work out more You decide if work ends at six, then I get to the gym at six and fifteen. Research consistently shows that people are far more likely to follow through on behaviors when they've created a specific situational plan ahead of time Most lives are shaped less by huge dramatic choices and more by repeated small decisions that slowly become your identity My first move after a workday is to dive into a book keep books open in different places in my home There's one by my bedside, one in my living room, one in my office. And what I try and do is just dive into a book immediately I know that if I wait to settle down, if I wait to simmer down, I'll probably lose the motivation But if I pick up a book that's already open and go back to where I was when I finished off already I'm reconnected. Something I prioritize doing every single night is having a meal with someone I love without my phone. I think it's so important to feel a sense of connection The second shift is batching small tasks so they don't consume your entire weeat I think one of the biggest reasons people feel like they don't have time after work is because they're redoing the same basic life maintenance tasks every single night laaundry. Grocery shopping, answering emails, handling carpool, running to appointments None of these things feel overwhelming individually together, they eat hours of your evenings before you ever get to the thing you actually care about This is why batching your life admin is so important to getting your time back Meal prep for two hours on Sunday instead of spending hours cooking from scratch every single night Do all your house cleaning in one block instead of scattering it throughout the week Pick one evening a week for laundry and stick to it. thirty minutes on a Sunday planning your weeknights ahead so you stop wasting energy. constantly deciding what to do next. goal is to reconfigure the free hours you already have in a week to make room for the things you actually want to spend time doing. The more friction you remove from basic life maintenance, The more energy you have left for your health, relationships, creativity and future. The third shift is to stop waiting to feel good or motivated before taking action We genuinely think this is one of the most damaging beliefs people tell themselves They think they should feel inspired before creating energized before exercising Palm before meditating confonfident before starting a new task. But that's not always realistic in the chaos of our busy daily lives In fact, consistency usually comes before motivation, not after it. That doesn't mean ignoring your body or forcing yourself into burnout But it does mean occasionally whatever it is you want to accomplish in your life You just have to do it tired Go to dinner with friends, even if you're in a bad mood. Go to a workout class, even if you're yawning Open that word document of the book you want to write even if you're creatively slumped Prove to yourself that you can rely on yourself to do the things you say you're going to do even if you're not in the perfect mood to do them Because the reality is after a tough day, you're nine to five, It's likely you're not going to be in the mood to do anything, but lay on the couch and start scrolling So at some point You need to be okay with just doing it anyway You know, when I'm struggling for motivation after work, but I want to work on my book or work on a creative thing that I haven't had time for in my day. I just think about what it will feel like in a week not do it I know if I don't do that thing that I creatively want to do for a week, I'm going to feel emptier. I'm going to feel heavier. I'm going feel like I'm not doing what I was meant to do And so future Facing. the emotion that I'll experience impacts me to make a difference now Another thing I want to talk about is an activity that I don't look forward to or didn't used to at least was going to the gym I always used to feel I don't enough energy for the gym. I'm not ready for the gym Only to realize that every time I leave the gym, I feel amazing and I feel so happy that I went And I want you to realize that Things that are good for you feel bad at the beginning and amazing afterwards and the things that are bad for you, they feel great in the beginning and not so great afterwards The brain naturally gravitates toward immediate relief instead of pushing forward. But over time this creates a deeper issue You stop trusting yourself. Every night becomes further proof that you're okay with abandoning the things you said matter to you. Eventually you come to believe that you're incapable of even accomplishing them at all That's why even the smallest actions matter so much Reading ten pages, going for a walk, spending thirty minutes researching for a project Palling your loved one to check in. These actions seem insignificant in isolation, but over time, they become evidence about who you are It's easy to look ahead and get excited by outcomes, money, success, transformation The real journey to your goals is just based on repetition Your future is truly shaped by what you repeatedly do on ordinary Tuesday nights when nobody's watching Summer is a gift It's the gift of days that last a little longer. Brighter state of mind So giveift yourself a new Kia at the KA Summer Sticker sales event, Epecially taged vehicles including the Serrento, Sportage, Carnival, as well as the Nuro Hybrid. All backed by a ten year one hundred thousand mile limited power train warranty. 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The fourth shift is giving yourself one meaningful goal each evening instead of trying to reinvent your entire life overnight I think ambitious people unintentionally sabotage themselves in this area constantly They get home from work and they expect they'll be able to work out, cook dinner, clean the apartment, answer emails, see friends, meditate, read journal, call family, work on their businesses, and still get eight hours of sleep at the end of the night It's impossible to do everything all When you overset your goals for one week night You're going to end up feeling guilty and unproductive when you inevitably don't get it all done This creates a terrible psychological loop where your evenings start feeling associated with inadequacy instead of fulfillment What you really need to be doing is trying to win the week trying to win every single day There's been lots of times in my life where I've been close to burning out because I've been trying to do everything all at the same time Think about the weather Seasons Seasons exist because even the environment does different things in different phases at different times. Think about your life as seasons, not as one season for the whole year That's what really helped me understand the importance of priorities. Some seasons are like spring. They're about new ideas, fresh growth. Some seasons are about summer Joy, experience going deep into immersive feelings. Some seasons are like autumn, they're like about shedding And some seasons are like winter about hibernating and just protecting yourself Not every goal needs to be worked toward every evening Maybe a couple of week nights are for wellness and exercise, Mbe one is for friendships, one is for creativity, and one is for the practical life maintenance you're now batching. A balanced life repeated consistently is where real progress is made. And finally, the fifth shift is building evenings that actually give you energy back Listen. I understand that having a nine to five is taxing and exhausting And your natural instinct is to structure your entire life around maintaining energy just to survive at work But we as humans actually gain energy back in the long run when we're pouring into ourselves and into the activities that truly fulfill us There's a reason people often feel more energized after a workout, a meaningful conversation, a walk outside or after a productive hour of work rather than three hours straight of scrolling Energy is like a generator, not a battery It's not constantly draining until you hit zero Rather, you're able to revive, reset, and pull your energy levels back up depending on what you choose to pour your time and attention into The goal of your evening should not just be recovering enough to survive tomorrow to make the most of our five to nines We need to connect intentionally to something that is building us towards a better future. I love going on a hike after work I think being in nature, being outdoors, expanding the mind makes me feel so, so energized. Now I don't always want to go But I've started to write down and journal about the feeling after I hike So after I do force myself to go on a hike, I'll write about it so that the next day when I don't want to go when I'm tired, I read it to myself or I listen back to an audio journal which is saying to me Give up. go on that hike. get out there For me, an ideal successful weeknight is getting to bed on time I really believe that if we were all sleeping seven to nine hours a night It would take away around fifty percent of our problems becausecause it would give us the ability to curb our cravings, to work out, to have more energy in the day, to feel better, to not be as irritable or as reactive to things around us So for me, a successful weeknight is making sure that I D'g You know, spend loads of time on my phones so that I can actually relax before bed, I allow myself to have a wind down routine and that I fall asleep Bye ten PM latest Now, I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. I step later than that. I have events during the week as well. This is not about perfection, it's about practice and progress At the end of the day, this is really about reclaiming autonomy and authorship over your own life You don't need to make any huge dramatic changes to feel more productive inststead focus on small, repeatable choices every day that slowly shift the direction of your life Most people massively underestimate what can happen in a year of intentional evenings Sure, one workout will not transform your life tomorrow. Reading ten pages tonight won't instantly make you wise. Spending an hour on your dream after dinner won't immediately change your career. These actions repeated consistently over months and even years That's where the true meaning of your life is built I remember when I was working at a corporate company And in my heart, I had a dream of what I really wanted to do And my nine to five wasn't really a nine to five. It was more like a nine to seven, nine to eight And so I get back and then I'd work I remember spending Four to five hours a night Five days a week to edit one five minute video Now if anyone ever tells you, it will take them twenty hours to edit a video, just know that is not a good amount of time. That is way too long I spnd that long because I had to teach myself how to edit. So I was teaching myself how to edit I was editing my videos, I was posting them onto YouTube, I was making thumbnails. I was doing all of these things, skills that I had and didn't have. order to live my dream And I don't regret it at all. Yes, I missed birthdays, Yes, I missed events, Yes I missed hangouts During that time, I missed so many different things Don't regret it because it set me up for the greatest gift in my life, which is doing what I love I remember as a teenager, I read David Beckham's autobiography And he talked about how when he was a young man in his teens All of his friends were out partying on a Friday night And he was at the park He'd hang a tyire, a car tyire in the corner of the goal and he'd practice free kicks until he could get loads in a row And he doesn't regret it because it allowed him to live his dream are going to have to make choices about how you spend your evenings, what you focus on you prioritize, what you build around in order to build your future. It won't be easy It won't be comfortable I remember editing videos and putting them out and then my friend saying things like, Jay, the music editing's bad, The clips are too fast, you talk too fast. There was so much criticism that came with it as well Obviously, I wasn't perfect. I was working a full time job and trying to figure it out I wasn't gray everything I was doing But I started even when it wasn't perfect. And I stand before you today, or I sit before you today. becausecause I was able to follow through on it, not because I got everything right Not because I had a perfect plan, not because everything was perfectly executed Beause I started I want you to think about what your life would look like If you woke up a year from now And you' in exactly the same place. Because all you did after you're nine to five was DoZoom scroll was waste time and not even rest and restore That's one of the most fascinating things We usually turn to something to help us escape We actually think Penis is relief Right? We think of relief from pain and stress as happiness, but it's not, it's just relief. And I find that so many of us Sing. That just doom scrolling all night actually help us decompress will actually help us rest But it doesn't do that. doesn't make you feel calmer I was with a friend a couple of months ago And instead of doom scrolling or instead of just wasting time, we decided to spend an hour in silence together just to help our mind and bodies really decompress. It's almost like putting your phone on charge You have to get off of it to let it charge, to let it refuel. Think about your body and mind We're so overstimulated, we're so overwhelmed throughout the day, we rarely give our body and mind an opportunity to just reset For me It's been such a powerful practice As myself, when do I actually feel rested What do I need to actually do to make myself feel rejuvenated. what do I need to do to distract myself Not what do I need to do to numb myself or escape I do. that really truly makes me feel rested And I would ask you and challenge you to ask yourself that, what do you do so that when you wake up in the morning, you don't regret it How many of you stay up all night watching something and then next morning you wake up and go, I wish I went to bed earlier Right That's not rest. And here's the reality. I know we all carry guilt and shame around this I do too. Like if I dot scroll for too long, I'll feel a bit guilty. If I feel like I wasted an evening, I can feel guilty and here's the interesting thing Guilt can block growth Right? If you force yourself into feeling guilty, it can force you to make a change, but it can also block growth because it makes you feel more shameful It makes you feel like you're not worthy of working harder