Your daily habits determine your life’s path. If you have a goal and you want to succeed, you must create daily habits that will directly lead you there. Even if you do not have a specific goal, you should note your habits and consider where they are taking you and how they are impacting your health and happiness.

Take five minutes and look at your current daily routine and which habits are established.  

Are your habits leading you in the direction that you want?

Look at the following and consider adopting a new daily habit that takes care of you.

Consciously Practice Gratitude

Take ten minutes every day and focus on what you are grateful for. Write at least three things down daily, dwell in their magnificence, ponder over their miracle and celebrate their gift.

Become Mindful of Making Every Human Interaction Positive

When your time on earth comes to an end, how would you like to be remembered? Is that how you’ll be remembered? Are you in the habit of leaving people in a more joyous state than when you found them? Do you lift people’s spirits or lower them? Are you conscious of every interaction, from the guy at the checkout to managers at your next meeting?

Exercise Daily

Boosted energy levels, improved mood, better sleep and enhanced overall health are just a few of the benefits that you are likely to see if regular exercise is one of your primary daily habits. If you are not currently in the habit of exercising, attach an achievable exercise to a current habit and gradually build! What would happen if every day, before you shower, you did ten jumping jacks? If you started exercising daily, where would you be one year from now? Where would you be one year from now if you did not exercise daily?

Improve Your Nutrition

New Year is the time that many people think about diet, but resolutions often fail! People usually try to make changes that are too big, and they try to do it too suddenly. Also, people often haven’t secured their ‘why’ which lessens their motivation to keep going. Make a small improvement in your nutrition and build on it. Begin with improving one meal a day. What could you eat for breakfast that will offer your body the nutritional goodness that it needs? Focus on breakfast and when a highly nutritious breakfast is normal and enjoyable, then start to investigate lunch!

Image courtesy of Brooke Lark

Start Visualising

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Jim Carrey explained the power of visualisation for him. He said that before his big break with Dumb and Dumber he would drive to the expensive area of town and look at the huge houses, making himself believe that one day he would own one. He wrote himself a cheque for ten million dollars, and a year later, that is what he earned from his first big film! Visualisation can start with three minutes a day. Set a timer and take your mind to where you want to be. Imagine that you already have what you want! Think it, see it, believe it, create your own story and be inspired to take action towards it.

Develop a skill

If you want to write a book, start writing every single day. If you want to become fluent in Spanish, play the piano or swim a mile, practice daily. Make sure the skill that you want to develop is one which will serve you or add value to your life! If you want a skill but you don’t know what, it’s time to experiment, reach out of your comfort zone and try new things until you find the one that fits and then cultivate it into a passion.

Read

Reading is a habit that can offer you a captivating world of knowledge. A book can take you to faraway lands of myths and dreams, it can teach you how to get the very best from yourself, and it can offer you infinite knowledge and understanding. It’s common for time to be eaten up with social media, but what if we used this time for reading instead?

Meditate

The practise of meditation has grown enormously over the last decade with successful athletes, millionaire entrepreneurs and celebrities alike speaking of the benefits. For me, meditation is like hitting the pause button on stress, worry, busy thoughts and my hectic life. If you are not familiar with meditation but would like to try, check out some guided meditation apps online. Once you have chosen your app, schedule time every day to practice.

Image courtesy of Kyson

Minimalism

Minimalism is the act of removing things from your life that do not offer you value. Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus, authors, speakers and founders of theminimalists.com describe how minimalism can change your life. “Minimalism is a tool that can assist you in finding freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from worry. Freedom from overwhelm. Freedom from guilt. Freedom from depression. Freedom from the trappings of the consumer culture we’ve built our lives around. Real freedom.”

How many things are in your life, absorbing your attention, time, money or focus that don’t bring you any value? Minimalism is a personal practice; What gives value to one individual may not bring value to another. Personalise your life to you and clear out the waste, the ‘just in case’ items and the consumerism that we are so commonly drawn to.

Showing adoration to the people you love

How would the people that you love feel if you expressed adoration for them? If you showed and spoke of your love and respect and not only noticed their feelings but put their feelings first? To feel great love and respect is the most glorious feeling and one which is hard not to reciprocate.

Crush automatic limiting beliefs

Start becoming mindful of what the voice in your head is telling you. When you look in the mirror, what does that voice say? When you enter a room filled with successful, confident people, what does that voice say? When you have a dream for the future, what does that voice say? Verbally snap any negative words away and replace them. How would you feel one year from now, if you only spoke kindly and positively to yourself?

Image courtesy of Suad Kamardeen

The greatest form of self care is to create the most healthy and focussed habits for our own needs. There is no time to waste. Your life is valuable! Start now!

I’d love to hear about your daily habits and any that you’d add to my list. Drop me an email at [email protected]

Cover image courtesy of Gabriel Silvério