Lately, I’ve found myself losing weight, increasing my GPA, feeling better overall, improving my friendships and I wondered after a month or so, what have I started doing differently? I didn’t mean really to do any of this. I just wanted to calm down my life and make my friendships and life better…so I changed my habits. I changed my self-talk habits. I changed my sleeping habits. I changed my eating habits. I just changed small things. I changed the fact that many times I wouldn’t contact friends first, I changed it by sending them positive affirmations regularly.
It was these small changes that at first, I didn’t even realize how much they changed my life. Habits are who we are.
This sounds extreme, but when we describe a person, we describe them by their habits: flakey, studious, shy. Breaking out of our traditional habits can have a positive effect on oneself. It can change your life and I promise you, for the better. The power we hold in our habits speaks volumes about who we are as people.
So needless to say I saw just a revolutionary change in my life, I wanted to share it with others. It wasn’t something I wanted to keep to myself, I wanted to be 100 percent genuine about the changes I am going under, and the habits that helped them.
1.) I told myself no is always better than flaking later. Even if people make you feel guilty. Even if people beg it’s better to say no now than flake later.
2.) Eating what will make me feel better tomorrow rather than what will make me feel better today. This sounds weird, but every time, you eat something think: is this going to make me feel worse or better tomorrow?
3.) Be honest with yourself about your flaws and be honest with yourself about how to get better at being a better you.
4.) Smile often. Even when you don’t feel like it.
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5.) Read more often than you watch TV.
6.) Limit consumption of alcohol
7.) Be brave more often.
8.) Consume less media…social media, news, etc. As a journalist, this one may make people cringe, but I believe the only news that should be consumed should be on a streamlined need-to-know basis. It’s not too good for us to dwell on bad details all the time. That’s my firm belief. I don’t think all media is bad, like books (after all, I said read more) but traditional media you probably grab on a daily basis, yes. Limit that.
9.) Sit in the quiet. Just sit. I know it’s hard to be inside our own heads sometimes and commune with ourselves, but I believe it’s really good for us to sometimes just sit and chill out and just think for ourselves. Some call this meditation, some just thinking, I call it that quiet time that’s essential for my sanity.
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10.) If you can’t get everything done in one day, see if there’s anything you can quit, if you can quit it. If not, set a time of the day where you’re like: I’m done for today. It’s at a cap and it’s been met. This will help improve your study time.
11.) Set do not disturb for your most busy hours of the day and set it where you have to manually say it’s okay to open that app during that time. It might not always stop you, but it’s a deterrent that makes you think: hmm…maybe I should do something else.
12.) Give yourself a break. Usually, people are always being much too hard on themselves and many times others too. By giving yourself a break for not always living up to expectations make space to actually begin to do so.