Good habits will help you live life. Great habits will allow you to thrive in life.
While I’m still struggling with developing the habits I want, I’m happy about the habits that I do have. They have helped me immensely and continue to reward me the further I use them.
Habits at their core form who we become. As such, it’s important for us to keep in mind what habits we have and what habits we want to have moving forward. After all, even if there is some time still before the new year, we should at least be proactive.
We should be thinking and even taking action on the habits we want to build for the new year now. And to help you with that process, here are some habits that I suggest we all build for our future.
Exercising
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way.
While this is on so many people’s lists, I’d push to take active steps (pun intended) to improve your health. We are not getting any younger and the older that we get the harder it is to be in shape.
Fortunately for us, there are all kinds of resources at our disposal and things we can start doing today or tomorrow. If you really love yourself and want the best for yourself, you’d seriously consider this rather than brushing it off for the umpteenth time.
That or figure out what’s really stopping you. It could be your own attitude. Several studies found if you’re exercising for the sole sake of losing weight, it’s not going to happen.
So if you are serious about it, some activities to consider are:
- Make a point of walking a half-hour a day.
- Follow a training regimen. There are tones of apps that provide exercise plans you can do.
- Can’t find an app? Go to Youtube. There are tonnes of channels that have exercising videos.
- Get yourself into a workout challenge. There is plenty you can do at home.
Habits To Better Manage Your Time
There are always ways we can optimize our time. It all comes down to mindset.
Some of the obvious things is breaking the habit of sleeping in. That or learning to sleep better in general.
Others aren’t that obvious though. For example, determining between the need for a meeting or a brief email is needed to address an issue. That or maybe you take a little bit longer in the shower and could shave off a minute or two.
Whatever the case is, even if you save yourself a minute or two a day, it can add up in so many ways. Saving a minute or two each day will save you 730 minutes every year. That’s a little over half a day extra.
Imagine what you could do with a half day.
Or what if you saved 30 minutes of wasted time every day? That’s upwards of 180 hours per year.
What can you do in a span of a week with that free time?
Look at your current habits and ask yourself if there are ways you can get the same results with less time? Or maybe there’s a habit that you’ve been wanting to drop because it’s a huge time waster.
The idea isn’t to min-max every bit of time, but rather determine if small effortless changes can save you time. Again, I point to maybe trying to shower quickly or setting an alarm.
Seeking Opportunities
Even though I tell myself I am someone who has opportunities come to me, I still do my own searching. It’s so easy for us to be comfortable and to focus on what’s in front of us.
Do yourself a favour and play a more active role in looking for other things you can do. This isn’t to say to be unsatisfied with what you are doing right now but put in an effort to look for other things.
If you have a question, take the time to look for answers yourself.
Are you constantly looking at problems?
Well, look for solutions you can act on.
Take some time to actively look for improvements in your life. Even if they aren’t needed right now, they can come in handy for the future.
For example, right now my financial standings are in good shape. However, I’ve made a point of getting into transcribing on the off chance that something happens and I lose clients.
I’ve created a net of sorts to ensure that should I lose a client, I still have several options.
Meditate
Meditation is a form of slowing down and reconnecting to your inner self. This is so important for all of us as we tend to focus on our work or what’s ahead. So often we forget what we have or what’s around us.
Meditation is a way to get back in touch with us and is a solid habit to develop. Meditation can take all kinds of forms, not necessarily in the traditional form people think of.
For example, my meditation pose is as simple as closing my eyes or letting my mind wander.
We all meditate differently but it’s a solid habit to have in your wheelhouse. Amongst the many, meditation can:
- Reduce stress;
- Lower anxiety;
- Enhance self-awareness;
- Can fight addictions;
- And improves focus and our attention span.
Making Better Choices
Our lives are a series of choices when we think about it, but each choice is better than the other options. One thing you can start doing is making an active effort to make the best choices for you.
What are those best choices exactly?
Well, it stems from your own view of yourself, your life plan and long-term goals.
In that sense, putting together some goals and tasks to help achieve that is key. But once you have that picture, it’s up to you to commit to that picture and put in the effort to make it a reality. After all, if you don’t care about the goals you set, you’ll pick the wrong choice every single time.
While we can’t control everything that happens to us, we do have some control. Don’t allow your life to become a jumbled mess of events and circumstances that you could’ve controlled but chosen not to.
Other strategies go back to some other habits I mentioned before:
- If you are more conscious of your time, you will build tolerance for things. This is a way to control how your time is best spent.
- Meditation or other problem-solving habits will build your problem-solving skills. This helps identify and overcome problems faster. Maybe even help you to think of the problems in new ways.
Learning
“Once you stop learning, you start dying.”
Is a saying I once heard from a famous person and that I stand behind. By this extension, another solid habit to have is reading – whether that’s articles like this or through a book.
Whatever the case is, you want to be making a habit of learning in some fashion. Best of all it doesn’t have to be in what you are currently doing. It can be learning about yourself, understanding current events in the world, community, or industry.
Each of those things brings some kind of merit. You have no clue how knowing something or some technique can help you in the future.
- Knowing how to handle people better could help you salvage or even strengthen friendships.
- Having knowledge about certain scams can help you better prepare for them and ensure you don’t get caught in them.
- Knowing how to be a better entrepreneur or think like an entrepreneur can help you manage business better. Even before you start.
Knowledge is boundless and can do so many things.
Habits That Boost Positivity
Generally speaking, a lot of us are neutral feeling or outright negative.
Think about it. When was the last time you genuinely smiled?
If it was recent great, but most don’t experience that on a regular basis. That or they don’t take time to think about the good things in life.
Most merely coast through life.
Of course, we will have our ups and downs, but making a commitment now to make every day great is something to strive for. Consider getting into a happiness challenge if you need to.
Be conscious of what you’re taking in in terms of information and people’s thoughts and opinions. Make an effort to seek solutions to your problems and to see the good in bad situations.
You can even practice some positive self-talk or find other ways to be positive all day long.
The idea here is to inject your life with positivity, but not to overwhelm yourself. Positivity is great, but too much can create toxic optimism – something that will surely backfire if you’re not familiar with it.
Habits That Boost Resilience
Another solid habit is resilience. And by extension of that, persistence and showing commitment.
Resilience is basically the grit or discipline to finish what you started. This is despite long periods of slumps or when times to get tough.
This is a solid habit that I have in spades and is something that has kept me going for years now. I owe a lot to it and can’t recommend this one enough.
At the same time though, I recognize how challenging it is to develop this solid habit. After all, our motivation moves in cycles. Once the novelty and excitement of doing something new wears off, people do it less and less and find it not fun at all.
The trick to this though is looking for a deeper purpose.
That or if you are on the verge of quitting something ask yourself why.
I found that whenever I gave an excuse, it was a petty one.
For example, when I debated stopping my business, I reminded myself that at the time I made no effort to make any money from the business. I noted that I could grow as a writer and write better. I noted that I didn’t seek clients or any help at all.
Because of that talk, I switched gears and put in the effort to make this business possible. And as you might be able to tell, that resilience has paid off.
Developing this skill boils down to asking a simple question: why are you stopping?
It can come in other forms like “what is stopping you?” or “How can you progress?” and so on, but it’s all progressive. You’re still thinking of solutions rather than the problem.
A Growth Mindset
Similar to learning, I think it’s important for us to be placing a priority on our growth on a regular basis. This isn’t to say we need to find something profound about ourselves every day, but rather to better ourselves in some fashion.
And no I’m not just talking about reading a book or developing these habits I’ve listed off. What I mean is developing ourselves to have a growth mindset.
What this mindset means is that we recognize we are a constant work in progress. As such, we should always be growing internally.
That means accepting new information – even if it means it goes against what we currently believe in.
It’s having a curiosity for everything. Topics, people, places. All of it matters.
It’s also being flexible and adapting to events and changes in our lives.
When we focus on our own self-improvement and personal growth, we are able to face challenges unlike we have before.
I devoted a section to this solid habit because often we dwell so much on ourselves externally we forget about the internal things. People have a habit of finding a great job, and living a great life, but don’t feel great.
They feel there is something missing despite everything they’ve done to this point feels great and is great.
This growth mindset is a reminder of that aspect and that our fulfilment is both internal and external. As such, we need to recognize all of our needs and when things are off-balance we need to get back to doing those things.
Being Humble
One other solid habit I didn’t mention on this list is to be grateful for things in our lives. One good way to develop that is through another solid habit: humility.
Being humble requires us to be aware of what is around us and what we are receiving. I believe that what we give out to the world we receive back in kind. That is the core principle of my business model and it’s been working out so far.
Furthermore, this humility stems from people giving out to the world and are more focused on making a difference. Of course, goodness will come back to them in many ways, but that’s not the main point.
Being humble means putting others a step above your own needs and providing something that others would value.
This is how leaders are born and thrive, giving out value and getting value in return.
But you don’t need to have exceptional leadership skills or need a following to develop this. It’s a matter of putting out kindness in the world with the intention that someone uses it. If you somehow benefit from that, that’s a bonus.
This kindness takes many forms: an article, a program, a product or service, or straight up an act of kindness.
Work On These Habits
Even if you are reading this after it’s been up, I highly encourage you to develop these solid habits. All in all, these are habits that set higher standards for yourself and that is what you’re really looking for.
After all, when you really care about yourself and hold yourself in high regard, you will put an effort in changing.
To your growth!
Eric S Burdon