Highly effective daily habits
A habit is defined as a behavior or routine that one repeats regularly.
Habits can be broken down into two categories:
- Habits that will have an immediate effect on you
- Habits that will affect your future
It is ideal to focus on habits that will affect both. Exercising is a great example of a habit that will help now and also help you in future. Exercise has a multitude of benefits:
- Your physical health will help improve (ie, weight optimization, if you are healthier, your body will be better at fighting off illnessesYour mental health will improve
- You will have more energy
- Your mood will be improved
- You will sleep better
We know that it is difficult to make changes in our lives. We live in a society that thrives on immediate self gratification. The reality is that we must learn to wait for some of the best things in life to materialize. A farmer’s field has to go through the cycle from seedi to harvest – We can assist the process by ensuring that the crops are watered and have the right nutrients but we cannot speed that process up.
There are four key things that can help to set us up for the right habits:
- We need to be Healthy
- We need the right mental state
- We need to be stimulated intellectually
- We need to work on our long-term goals in order to achieve them.
There are a multitude of things we can do to support these key things and you may be surprised, some are very easy to make daily habits:
So here is my short list:
1. Make your bed.
What an easy way to achieve your first accomplishment of the day. it is very simple but also quite effective. Success builds success. Doing this first thing in the morning starts to build a sense of pride right at the beginning of your day.
2. Wake up early enough to have time to get ready for your day
We need to strive to optimize our sleep and our waking hours, so that we are fully rested and healthy to support our goals.
Waking up early and working on improving your life has rewards. By improving you, you will ultimately improve the lives of those around you, your family and your friends.
3. Stretch and Exercise
Stretching helps to improve our flexibility. When we stretch, we perform better at physical activities . Stretching also reduces the risk of getting hurt, stretched muscles work more efficiently.
Exercise by running, jogging, going on a treadmill, jumping, going to the gym, biking, swimming, playing a sport, dancing, etc. Do something that gets your body moving.
4. Take a Warm Shower then a cold burst followed by fast breathing
Doing this will give you energy, a feeling of freshness, and help improve your physical and mental state. What can be better than a nice shower right after that stretching and exercise?
5. Drink plenty of water
When you are asleep, you are not hydrating. Replenish with 500ml of water first thing in the morning. Water is a key necessity to sustain life. It hydrates; it also helps your body flush out toxins helps reduce your appetite to help you eat less. Drink at least another 500 ml of water throughout the day.
6. Drink either Coffee or Tea
Both coffee and tea have benefits for the body and promote alertness, a big help in the morning. A warm cup of coffee or tea is a great way to enjoy a little quiet time in the morning.
7. Reflect on the previous day and be grateful
Reflect on the day before - what you did you do right, build on it, look at what you did that you can improve upon and spell out what that is. Set priorities for the day ahead.
List out the things in your life that that you are grateful for in your life, Health? Love? Family? People? Events? Growth?
Remind yourself of the things that you are grateful for, it helps us to be humble.
8. Make a Healthy diet a daily ritual
Think of your body as a machine. If you want it to work optimally you have to take care of it. A healthy diet should be a long term plan, not just on certain days. Cut out the unhealthy food. Get educated on this and make it part of who you are.
9. Keep a Journal
A journal can chronicle what we have to do, what is done and it is a great place to let your mind wander and write done ideas and thoughts. This can be like therapy.
10. Pray or meditate and look at inspirational Content
Peaceful moments are valuable, especially in the fast paced world we live in. Meditation and prayer are examples but there are other activities that will help you achieve the same thing.
After the peace, get inspiration from inspirational content. There are many sources available.
11. Work on Your long term Goals
Eliminate all distractions and dedicate yourself with complete focus on the most important activities. Work on the priorities that will give you results. Work to complete the most important tasks forthe day, and then move on.
12. Check your emails, Social Media & get up to date on the News
Only after you have taken a big bite out of your work for the day, your work, check your notifications. Scan and choose the most important things that need to be done, ditch the non important. The internet can be a huge distraction, be very focused and do not let things that are not useful pull you in other directions.
13. Read, learn something new
Read a book for escape. Great ideas can come from reading. Work on self improvement by reading watching podcasts or take a course. Interactive learning is the most motivating.
14. Work On Your Passion Project
Nurture your passion, what really floats your boat. Spend some time as a reward that helps unleash your potential and possibly help those around you.
15 Spend Time with Your Family (or significant other)
Spending quality time with your family or significant other and dedicating them with your undivided attention can be satisfying.
If you are single and live alone use this time with your friends. or choose to have some alone time.
Practicing these habits take a couple of hours a day and should help give you more time each day. These habits will help us to be healthier, more energetic, increase our productivity, improve relationships, be more motivated and inspired and if we are better, we will do better.
Recent Comments
2
Thank you for these encouraging thoughts. They do help to put things into perspective and they make perfect sense. I have a long way to go toward being highly effective but I am working on many of the items on the list.
Have a great day.
Hi Matt, thanks for reading and the positive feedback.
I have to work to practice what I'm preaching here too.
So easy to get into bad habits and let things slide. We need to take it step by step, one day at a time. It is like trying to eat an elephant (not sure we would want to) but a single bite and over time the elephant is gone.