Whether we like it or not, we all have habits.
For the majority of us, our bad habits outweigh our good ones.
You see, habits are easy to start but notoriously difficult to break.
That’s why we are more inclined to lie in bed than get up at the crack of dawn and go for a run.
We like to take the easy route. We get used to doing so, and eventually, it becomes a habit we struggle to shake.
The good thing is, you can rid yourself of these habits.
You just have to create better ones to take their place!
1. Make Your Bed Every Morning
This is such an easy habit to form, yet so few of us do it.
Making your bed in the morning after you get up should be the first thing you do.
It will set the tone for the rest of the day.
Don’t just take it from me! Admiral William H. McRaven is singing from the same hymn sheet!
“If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed. If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never be able to do the big things right. If, by chance, you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that’s made. That you made. And a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.”
It may not be the most grandiose task, but if you can accomplish one little task at the start of your day, they will start to compound by the end of it.
As McRaven states, if you can’t do the little things right, you can’t expect to get the big ones right.
Once making your bed becomes a habit, creating new ones won’t seem so daunting.
2. Drink a Glass of Water As Soon As You Wake Up
Water makes up 60% of our body, yet a lot of us don’t drink anywhere near enough of it.
This is a crazy thought. We pass up drinking something which is essential to our very existence because we prefer to drink sugary drinks that destroy our teeth and insides!
When you first wake up in the morning, your body is dehydrated from the night before. It will have gone 7 to 8 hours without water, it’s craving hydration.
Drinking water as soon as you wake up will fire your metabolism and flush out any toxins that have built up in your body during your sleep.
I’ve found it also helps with my bowel movements in the morning. They are much more regular when I drink water in the morning.
This helps to keep your colon clear and will allow you to absorb more nutrients from your food during the remainder of the day.
Dehydration is linked to a number of problems. By starting your day off with a glass of water, you are ensuring you can start the day refreshed and healthy.
Once you develop this habit, you’ll wonder how you ever did without it!
3. Meditate Every Day Without Fail
Meditation is something I never thought I would do.
I thought it was an outdated practice that only monks in Asia did.
I was wrong.
Since I added meditation into my daily routine, I feel much more content and relaxed.
Taking 5 minutes a day to meditate and check-in with yourself is an essential daily habit.
For 5 minutes you are allowing your mind to wander, while you only focus on your body and how it feels in the present moment.
We are too quick to worry about the future, relive the past while forgetting that we are living in the present.
Meditating will allow you to take yourself back to the present and make you less anxious throughout the remainder of the day.
It will increase your self-awareness about yourself and your body while allowing you to destress at the same time.
If you’re not meditating already, you need to be!
4. Swap Sugary Snacks for Fruit and Nuts
Eating sugary snacks is too easy, I used to find myself doing it all the time.
If I was hungry and scouring the kitchen and couldn’t find something that caught my eye, I would always end up eating a chocolate bar.
They were there. It was easy, and I was satisfied for a short period of time.
This was not a good habit to have.
Sugary snacks offer nothing in terms of nutritional value. They just fill a gap.
Instead of eating these snacks, you should substitute them for fruit and nuts.
Yes, most fruits have a lot of sugar, but it’s natural, not processed sugar. Plus, they come packed full of extra nutritional benefits, that chocolate bars don’t.
Nuts are just as good and are an excellent source of protein and healthy fats.
By swapping quick and easy sugar snacks for healthier snacks such as fruit and nuts, you are getting extra nutrients throughout the day, and not causing your insulin to spike, which will cause to crash and burn later on in the day.
It’s a simple, yet effective habit, that will do wonders for your health!
5. Exercise Daily
Your body is a tool.
If you don’t use it regularly, it will become blunt and begin to rust.
Much like a master craftsman will keep their tools in top condition so they perform at their best, you have to think of your body in similar terms.
Our modern lifestyle is not what our bodies are designed for. They were not designed to be sedentary for long periods.
They were designed to run, jump and move.
Exercise is now seen as a chore when it is an essential part of our very existence. Moving is how we came to be the dominant species on the planet.
The health benefits of exercising are innumerable. There are so many it would be impossible to list them all.
The results of not exercising are just as numerous and include a variety of problems.
You don’t have to go to the gym every day. Walking for 30 minutes a day is a great way to start, and should be the minimum you strive for.
Once you add more exercise into your life. You will feel more energetic, happy and you’ll even look better too!
You only get one body, take care of it!
6. Do Your Hardest Task First
One of the habits I had was putting the most difficult tasks off for as long as I could get away with.
I knew how difficult they would be, so I put them off as long as I could. However, no matter how long I put them off for, I would always come back to do them eventually.
I couldn’t run from them, and it would ruin my day anticipating how difficult it would be to get them done.
One day, I decided to see what would happen if I did my most difficult task first.
It changed my life!
Doing your hardest work of the day first may be daunting, but it sets your day up perfectly.
You get the hardest thing straight out of the way, and you don’t spend the whole day fretting about getting it completed.
It also makes you more focused throughout the day. You exert a lot of mental force to get the task done, and it remains with you during the remainder of the day.
You perform at your best for longer.
Do your hardest tasks first, and your day will be smooth sailing afterwards!
7. Be Grateful
This one isn’t so much a habit, more a mindset, but it’s one you should adopt every day without fail.
To simply, be grateful.
It’s easy to go through life and not be grateful for the little things, but they are often the most important things.
We take our very existence for granted most of the time, yet, every day we spend on this Earth is a blessing.
Every day we get to spend with our loved ones is a blessing.
Every day we get to wake up, see the sunrise and take in our beautiful surroundings is a blessing.
By being grateful, you are taking pleasure in your very existence. You are recognising that to be alive is a gift, and not to be grateful for this very fact is a sin.
Going through life without being grateful is like going to a banquet without wine.
It’s just wrong.
Life is short. Be grateful for what you have, you will not have it forever.
8. Read. Every Day
Books are one of the most underrated sources of knowledge we possess.
It’s easy to neglect reading once we are finished with school and university, but this is a mistake.
Reading about different and varied topics is one of the best ways to stay informed in an ever-changing world.
It exposes you to different ideas, which results in you challenging the perceptions you have about the world.
Books are a fantastic source of education. You can gain experience from a variety of people, past and present, successful and unsuccessful, and use that knowledge to improve your own life.
Not only are books fantastic for knowledge, but they will also boost your creativity and imagination too.
Your mind creates worlds and pictures as you turn the pages, and it will slow piece the new information together with the existing ones, to help give you a better picture of the world.
Even if it’s just 20 pages a day, make sure you spend more time reading.
The benefits will become evident the more you read.