We are creatures of habit. Everything we think, say and do is a result
of deep-seated habits etched into our minds through years and years of repetitious behavior. Those very same habits either help to propel us
forward or to hinder our progress in life. In fact, the state and
quality of our lives right now is a direct reflection of our daily
habits.
Habits are an undeniably powerful part of life. They're an integral
part of the underlying behavioral psychology that shapes the direction
of our lives. They're so integral that a study determined that approximately 45 percent of everything we do on a daily basis is driven by our habits.
Parting ways with our bad habits and replacing them with good habits
is by no means a simple task. It takes commitment, willpower and an
unwavering desire to overcome our seemingly natural tendencies to think,
feel, speak and act in a certain way.
Clearly, for those absolutely committed to things like happiness and
success, habits offer the pathway to enrichment in life. They're also
the tools we use to help automate our progress towards one end or
another, assisting us with the achievement of our goals and the fulfillment of our dreams.
Still, for the most part, we're often left in the dark. We're unsure
of ourselves or where to start on the road to developing good habits.
What are the best habits to have in your life
when you want to succeed or be happy? Are there some that usurp others,
providing some secret magical recipe for achieving life's loftiest
goals?
What are the best habits to have in life?
While any list of habits concocted might seem subjective, there are, in
fact, 25 particular habits that will not only help you to succeed,
financially speaking, but will also keep you healthy, happy and
fulfilled in life. Focus on these 25 habits, consistently making efforts
to instill them into your daily routine, and in time, your progress and
momentum towards your goals will skyrocket.
The early morning hours
are a time for peaceful reflection and ample productivity, where the
world is still and asleep, allowing you to focus wholeheartedly on your
long-term goals. Anyone who is serious about success in any measure
knows that it's important to wake up early.
Even if you're not a morning person, use incremental changes in your
daily routine to start waking up earlier and earlier. Begin by setting
your alarm clock back by 15 minutes the first week, 15 minutes the next
week and so on. Do this until you can wake up at least two hours earlier
than you're waking up now.
We spend a great deal of time immersed in our problems. But problems
are also a sign of life. The only time we'll lack problems is when we're
six feet under. And if you want to shift your focus away from your
problems, you have to be grateful for what you have. Yes, even for your
problems.
Gratitude
is the surest pathway to health, happiness and success. It shifts our
attention towards what we have rather than what we don't have. It's the
natural abundance of simple pleasures and opportunities that we've been
afforded with and blessed with that we often take for granted.
Studies have confirmed
that people who smile a genuine smile (also referred to as a Duchenne
smile) are happier in life. This is one of the best habits for allowing
you to find emotional, mental and spiritual peace-of-mind over time --
simply by placing a smile on your face.
The physiology of our bodies dictates the psychology of our minds.
When we frown or slouch or do any number of other things that convey a
sense of depression and unhappiness, our mind takes those cues and runs
with them. However, once we shift our outward appearance by consciously
adjusting ourselves, our inward feelings follow.
Breakfast is an important part of life. Yet, 31 million Americans skip breakfast every single day.
And that saying you've heard your entire life about breakfast being the
most important meal of the day? It's 100 percent true. If you're
serious about success, eat a healthy breakfast every single morning.
This single habit doesn't take much effort. Some planning is certainly
required, and if you're rushing out the door every morning with barely
any time to spare, you might want to consider waking up earlier to
ensure that you wield this habit in your own life.
One of the absolute best habits to have in life is to exercise every
single day without fail. This isn't about heavy weightlifting or running
a marathon. This is about doing lightly strenuous activity to oxygenate
your blood and boost the endorphins in your body.
Not only will you feel physically better when you start this habit, but you'll also feel more motivated, have more mental clarity and be more emotionally sound. Exercise releases dopamine, Oxycontin and serotonin into the system, giving an almost euphoric effect without the usage of any drugs whatsoever.
One habit that has monumental health benefits is to drink a large
glass of water with lemon every single day. Lemons are a natural source
of Vitamin C, but also possess other health benefits -- such as helping
with your digestion, boosting your immune system, along with cleansing
and re-hydrating your body.
The water itself is also an important way to flush any toxins from
your system early on in the morning when you first arise. Ultimately,
over time, this will also aid with things like weight loss, a reduction
in any inflammations and an overall boost in energy.
Most people have heard about the benefits of walking at least 10,000 steps in a day. Yet, as a society, we tend to fall far short of that goal. One study, which provided shocking results of just how many steps we do take, compared that number to countries from around the world by studying participants from the U.S., Switzerland, Australia and Japan.
Americans, on average, take 5,117 steps a day. Compared to
Australians, who take 9,695 steps per day, and residents of Switzerland,
who take 9,650 steps per day, and those of Japan, who take 7,168 steps
per day -- we fall way short. Event still, this single habit is a great
way to resolve our sedentary ways. Park further from the office or take the stairs when you can to help boost your daily steps.
As a culture, we lack the necessary vitamins and minerals through our
food intake. Processed and refined sugars, carbohydrates and other foods
that are a staple of the American diet help to exacerbate this problem.
We simply don't get the proper nutrients our bodies need on a daily
basis.
Find a good set of vitamins and minerals that you can take every day.
It's easy to ignore this healthy habit, but the feeling after weeks and
months of doing this on a regular basis, is tremendous. That impact can
help us to improve other areas of our lives by providing mental,
emotional and physical clarity.
An essential habit for succeeding at anything in life is effective time management.
How well you manage the precious little time you have says a lot about
what you can achieve. And considering that we all have the same amount
of time in this world, how you leverage this resource will dictate your
potential for success.
Find a good system for managing your time and implement it. This isn't
complex to do, but does require conscious and consistent effort.
However, once this habit has been solidified into your daily routine,
virtually anything is possible, and no goal will be too big to attain.
Most people have goals. Whether it's something to achieve in business
or in life, we're all moving in one intended direction or another.
However, while long-term goals do give us direction, it's the daily
goals that we set that allow us to create short-term milestones that are
integral to our success.
Long-term goals can seem overwhelming even in the best of times. But
by implementing a daily goal-setting strategy, you can overcome some of
the enormity associated with achieving big things in life by focusing on
the one-day-at-time, short-term scenarios.
It's often difficult to stay motivated for any considerable amount of
time. We get discouraged and dissuaded from our goals when things arise
in life that send us on tangents and veer us off track. But one of the
absolute best ways you can stay motivated in life is to inspire yourself
on a daily basis.
Read, watch inspirational videos and get inspired by stories of others
who have achieved their dreams. Anthony Robbins calls this your "hour
of power," but you can spend as much or as little time on this as you
need. Inspiration is the pathway to achievement because what the mind
can conceive, it can achieve.
No good habit list is complete without one that calls for saving and
investing. We often overlook the necessity to save for the future
because we're so busy living in the present moment. The truth is that
most Americans have less than $1,000 saved up at any given moment.
But it's not just about saving. You have to invest the money that you
save, and do so wisely. The more attention you pay to this now, the more
your life will be replete with financial success in the future. You
should also be sure to have at least six months worth of savings in your
account to stave off any potential financial calamity in the future.
Benjamin Franklin once said, "Beware of little expenses, a small leak
will sink a great ship." It's easy to lose sight of little expenses, but
they add up, especially when we fail to budget. Be sure to manage all
of your expenses, and sweat the small stuff, so to speak.
When it comes to sound financial habits, this is an important one to
have, and one that will lend itself to your future financial success.
The money saved on frivolous or extraneous expenses can be saved and
invested for your future. Don't ignore the future for sake of revelling
in the present moment.
Educate yourself, and learn something new every single day. Commit to learning and improving your life, whether it's by acquiring new skills
or enhancing the existing skills you already have. From foreign
languages to software programs and apps, you should carve out a small
amount of time every single day to dedicate to this habit.
Whether you decide to learn something new through an online course, an audio book, a blog post, a video tutorial on YouTube, or even through
TED Talks or other means, the importance of implementing this habit is
paramount. Find something that's worthwhile learning and do just a
little bit of it every single day.
Physical clutter results in a loss of focus. When our lives are
disorganized and in a state of disarray, it's hard to stay focused on
our goals. Take the time to organize your home and office, and do just a
little each day to enforce this habit. Take a single drawer and
organize it, or organize a solitary corner of your home or even a
cabinet in your office.
The importance of this habit is highlighted by a study in the Journal of Neuroscience titled, "Interactions of top-down and bottom-up mechanisms in human visual cortex,"
which says "Multiple stimuli present in the visual field at the same
time compete for neural representation by mutually suppressing their
evoked activity throughout visual cortex." In plain English -- clutter
lends itself to a major loss of focus.
In our quest to achieve and succeed, we often forget about others. We
fail to contribute something of value to our fellow man, woman or child.
This isn't about donating money; this is about contributing your time,
which is far more valuable than money. It also helps to shift your focus
from a state of lack to a state of abundance.
We tend to spend too much of our time steeped in worry and anxiety.
But, when you enlist the habit of contributing to others, you can easily
alleviate your personal concerns, and even your problems, by realizing
the necessity of helping others. In fact, it's the people in this world
that contribute the most value to others that end up achieving the
greatest success.
Clearly, it's not just about what you know in this world. In order to
succeed, we need to reach out to others -- who you know is extremely
important. But networking isn't just about dropping names; it's about finding ways that you can help and add value to the lives of others.
The best networkers in the world are also some of the most successful
individuals. But they didn't focus entirely on themselves at the outset.
They always looked for ways that they could help others without
thinking about receiving something in return. That's how the world's
best networkers are born.
We spend a lot of time immersed in fear. Those doomsday what-if
scenarios play out in our minds throughout the course of any given day.
We're so worried and nervous about the future that we forget to enjoy
the present moment. It's so ingrained in our minds to fear things that
it stifles our progress.
Breaking through your fears
is quite possibly one of the most important habits that you could
develop. Get used to doing one thing that makes you feel uncomfortable
each and every single day. Talk to a stranger, give someone a
compliment, or tell someone the truth about something that makes you
feel uncomfortable.
Take action. It's a cliche that we've all heard repeatedly, yet it's
something that many of us fail to do. In fact, we do just the opposite
-- we procrastinate. We fail to take action for whatever number of
reasons, hindering our progress and ability to achieve any of the
monumental goals we set for ourselves.
The best way to overcome procrastination is to use the 15-minute rule.
Take whatever it is that you've been putting off for the longest, set a
timer on your phone for 15 minutes, and only commit to doing it for
that long. Why only 15 minutes? First, it breaks the cycle of inaction.
Second, after 15 minutes, you've built some momentum, so you might just
keep on going.
Having a plan is integral to every successful entrepreneur -- and
person -- throughout history. Whatever it is that you want out of life,
not only do you need long-term goals and daily goals to help conceive,
but you need to follow an intricate and detailed plan that you create
along the way.
Without a plan, we often fail to realize our goals. Without
understanding how we'll get from point A to point B, it's hard to see
the cliched forest through the trees. But when you stick to a plan and
track your progress, making changes along the way, you can eventually
reach your goals as long as you don't give up.
One of the habits that most of us fail to implement in our lives is to
enjoy some down time -- or "me" time. Do one small thing that you love
doing every single day. It's not always about achievement and success.
By doing one small thing that you love, you're actually instilling peace
of mind and re-focusing your center.
Whether you listen to your favorite music pumping through headphones,
take a walk through the park, go for a drive along your favorite road,
watch a movie, or anything else for that matter, be sure that you always
carve out some time for yourself in the day.
Like attracts like. When we think negatively, harboring negative
thoughts, we attract negative things into our lives. When we think
positive, we attract positive things. It's hard to stay positive all the
time, and it's often our natural tendency to think negatively about
things.
However, positive thinking is one of the surest pathways to the
achievement of your goals. Ignore the naysayers and the people who doubt
your abilities, and pursue the things that you love, staying positive
all the while. It's purely a matter of momentum. Think positively for
long enough, and good things begin happening.
Whether you read the newspaper, financial news, a novel, a non-fiction book, or anything else, find time to read something. Reading
is an important habit to develop in life, and you shouldn't rely on
audiobooks or movies all the time. Good old-fashioned reading, the
traditional non-screen way, does the trick.
Reading can help you uncover new worlds, ideas or ways of doing things
that you might not have known about before. It's also a great way to
educate yourself or entertain yourself at any given moment.
Although it's important to wake up early every day, it's also
imperative to get ample rest. Finding that delicate balance might be
difficult, especially if you have kids, two jobs and other obligations.
However, if you care enough about your physical well-being, along with
your future success, you'll focus on a minimum of six to eight hours of
uninterrupted sleep every night.
If you have trouble falling asleep, be wary not to drink coffee or
alcohol too close to your bedtime. Also, if you smoke, eat too much
sugar, or ingest any other type of toxins throughout the day, you'll
find it difficult getting to bed at a decent hour. Cut those out of your
routine so you can get some ample rest at night.
Journaling your thoughts is a great way to reflect on who you are and
what you've been doing in life. Time can go by so quickly that we often
forget the details of what we did even a few short months ago. Those
details are often novel to recall as it adds clarity and purpose to our
lives, reminding us of life's lessons and joys.
Get in the habit of writing out your thoughts and journaling your
experiences on a daily basis. Intertwine it with your goals, hopes and
dreams for the future, writing out what you envision your life will look
like down the road, then come back to read it later on to get a window
into your mind at any point in your life. This is a powerful method for
self-reflection, and also a great way to motivate and inspire yourself
going forward into the future.
Getting started.
How many of the habits above have you already worked into your life?
Are there bad habits that seem to continue holding you back from
achieving any semblance of success and happiness? Bad habits can get in
the way of our progress and quitting them is not easy by any means.
However, it's all a matter of momentum. It all boils down to small
incremental steps that you can take day in and day out to help you build
up the right repertoire of habits to help you achieve whatever your
heart desires. The habits above are some of the best habits to have in
life. How many of them will you agree and commit to taking on today?
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