Is it possible to live a life of bliss and daily discipline, to achieve happiness and success? I believe so. I refer to this as “Blisscipline.” It’s the combination of “bliss” and “discipline”: being in the now, which is bliss, as you strive toward achieving your goals, which takes discipline.

You know I love the play on words here — finding the fun being in the now and being present, especially with those things that can be a little bit tedious, or that challenge us, that grow us, that require more perseverance, passion and grit.

Aristotle said, “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” I love how clearly this bloke Aristotle was saying things back in the day.

So today, I’m going to share with you the framework that I have found that works for me to keep the focus I need to sustain success and happiness in all areas of my life.

To be clear, it hasn’t always been easy, and I’ve got to continue to work at it in order to create that harmony.

How we are going to do it is to break it into four scenes. We are going to start way out here, and we are going to chunk it on down. Here we go.

Scene one: Vivid vision. Think of your ideal life, three to five years from now. Then reverse engineer back to today to create an annual, weekly and daily plan and strategy. Then go forth into your day, taking the daily actions required in order to make it a reality.

Scene two: Annual goals. Start to plan your year in November, well before the new year. This is the time to set your annual business and personal goals. By taking control, we can choose how we want our year to look and feel.

Get an annual calendar and put down all the dates/events known for the year. By doing this before the new year, you can take control of your year before it takes control of you.

Scene three: Weekly cadence, or routine. By this I mean having a set structure to your week, an allocated purpose for each day (e.g., Monday through Wednesday I have client-facing appointments, Thursdays admin and on Fridays, a creative or free day, leaving weekends for focusing on fun and family).

By having structure, it allows us a consistent approach and takes away ebbs and flows, allowing us to form great sustainable habits.

Scene four: Daily rituals. For the same reasons I just mentioned, I also find structure and routine of my weekdays important.

The most important, however, would be my morning routine. My morning rituals are not only fundamental to my success in business, but also, perhaps more importantly, to my health, well-being and relationships.

Each morning I make time for meditation, exercise, journaling, affirmations and gratitude. This process gets my brain into action, and I’m mentally and physically ready to launch into the day before our identical twins, Eva and Grace, wake up.

It means an early start, but by committing to the process, I have been amazed at the positive outcomes in all areas of my life.

But here’s the thing: To achieve our goals, I believe motivation, or your “why,” is simply not enough. We need focus, perseverance, passion and grit. We need to be present, and we’ve got to be disciplined in those “will I or won’t I” moments.

The planning and structure I just described provides a framework to make this easier for us all.

I truly believe if you can get your daily and weekly cadence floating along in an optimal state, through applying focus, motivation plus Blisscipline, you will have more consistent success and happiness in all areas of your life.

If I had to give one takeaway tip from this talk and from my experience, it’s this: Write down at least one goal each day, no matter how big or small, and whether you’ll do it in the next 15 minutes or sometime in the future.

Then go forth into your day knowing that, by taking action, you will have success in all areas of your life.

That’s the ignition that sparks energy and that enables motivation and success to move to a whole other level.

Have a Blisscipline day!