This is my new Vlog on becoming our best self by using the 9mm program. This has been uploaded on youtube. Embedding it here on my blog with the complete transcript of the video in case someone wants to read it as well.

TRANSCRIPT OF THE ENTIRE VIDEO

Hi. This is Ashish Lal.

Today we’ll talk about how we can become our best self by investing only 9 minutes daily. I call this 9mm program i.e. 9 minute mentorship program. Why do I call itmm, and not 8 mm or 12 mm? Just to show that it takes less than 10 minutes to analyze and plan a day in such a way that it makes you become your best self eventually. The focus should always be to improve and change ourselves, not others. So that is what we will do today.

Why is it a mentorship program? Who is the mentor here? The one who understands you the most! Your parents, siblings, partner, best friend, teacher, Boss? No, it’s YOU! Because ‘you’ understand yourself in and out. You understand yourself completely. Yes, you should take feedback and ideas from others, but finally it is you, who can change yourself by becoming your own loving but a very strict mentor.

So what do we do in a 9mm program? We spent less than 10 minutes daily to analyze that day and then plan the next day.

Let us talk about the planning bit first. 

So what should be the order of things? Ever heard of The Pareto principle? It states that, for many events, roughly about 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Here also you’ll find that 20% of your activities account for 80% of your results.

So should you start with the least important task first, finish it and then peacefully do the big tasks? The answer might sound counter-intuitive but it is given beautifully by Brian Tracy in his book “Eat That Frog”. After a lot of research, it has been found that all, almost all extremely successful people, start their day with the most important work and then end the day with the least important work.

Importance is judged by the effect it has on your life – remember those 20% of the activities that cause 80% of your results? Those are the most important ones. That’s the way you need to plan – from the most important to the least important, and in that order.

There might be cases where you’ve a dance class and dance class does not fall in the most important category. What do you do then? Use common sense. After the dance class is over, do the most important task. Simple!

Not let us talk about the 2^nd part of the 9mm Program – the analysis bit.

You can be dishonest with everybody but you cannot be dishonest with yourself. Yes, your mind rationalizes and gives you false reasons as to why you’re always right, but at least while you’re analyzing daily, try to be really honest.

Analysis is simple – you just need to flashback the day in your head and see what you did right, what you did wrong and where you could have improved. Once you know what you did wrong and where and how you could have been improved, you can plan your next day accordingly, so that you do not commit the same mistakes again. That is why analysis for that day is to be done before the planning for the next day.

Analysis can be not just of work, finances or relationship related stuff, it can be of anything. Whichever area you want to be better at, you can analyze that. For example, if you’re deep into spirituality, you can analyze the day by analyzing whether you were mindful, at what times you were not mindful, your attachments towards living, non-living things, your attachment towards emotions, whether there was acceptance in your day or not, whether you were trying to hold on to objects, or people or a particular emotion, and so on and so forth. Analysis helps everywhere – material, spiritual and everything in between.

One very important tip is to WRITE – write the analysis and the planning, not just think in your head – it doesn’t work like that. My suggestion is to get used to soft copies instead of paper. Not only does it save paper, but it is also accessible anytime, anywhere.

The next day delete the previous day’s to-do list and analysis. It is not a very good idea to keep every day’s analysis like a diary – just let go of the past, learn from it, and then move on to the present moment of the present day.

The best app for laptop and mobile is Google Keep. You can Download it on laptop and mobile, sync it using the same Gmail id and use it wherever you want to. If you’re comfortable writing on mobile, you can write there; if you’re comfortable writing on laptop, you can write there. In Google Keep, you can write as a normal textpad or as a list. When you are doing the analysis, use the normal textpad mode and when you are doing the planning – writing the to-do list – then use it as a list.

So, to sum it all up:

1. Download Google Keep and sync it both on laptop and mobile
2. Before sleeping, give 9 minutes to analyze that day and plan the next day
3. Next day in the morning, give 2 minutes to see the list once again
4. Now as you go on doing different tasks throughout the day, keep checking the checkboxes.

Do one task, check a checkbox. Using the ‘reward’ concept explained by Charles Duhigg in his bestselling book “The Power of Habit”, it can be concluded that when you check a checkbox, you feel rewarded. Because you feel rewarded, happy hormones are released. Because happy hormones are released, brain likes it. It motivates you to stick to completing other tasks as well. So just a simple activity of checking the checkboxes can make you develop a powerful habit of doing the right thing at the right time daily. Isn’t that wonderful?

Try following this 9mm Program for at least a couple of weeks. If it doesn’t help you make remarkable changes in your life, you can always switch back to your old ways. But trust me, it’s definitely worth a try. Hope this helps. Stay happy, stay blessed! Thank you!

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Ashish Lal (http://www.ashishlal.in) is an Actor-Writer-Director based in Mumbai, India.

In 2007, he founded a film production house – RedAsh Films Pvt. Ltd. (http://www.redashfilms.com) which operates from Andheri West, Mumbai.

Before venturing full time into films, he has worked for 4 years in the corporate world in New Delhi in the Data Analytics domain.

He has done his B.Tech. in Civil Engineering from IIT Delhi.
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