What Habits Will Make My Day?
Your habits shape your life and define you as a human being. You are what you continuously do. I asked myself the question of what can I do on a daily basis to get closer to my vision? Below are 10 habits that if I do them will make my day a bit better.
Get enough quality and quantity of sleep
The importance of sleep shouldn’t be underestimated. It can provide better skin health, more healthful appearance, emotional regeneration, and better relationships, decreases the risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease, fewer accidents, lower levels of inflammation, enhanced immune and the list goes on and on.
How to Improve your Sleep Hygiene
- Adopt a pre-sleep ritual that helps calm you down and tells your brain that it’s time for sleep. Go to bed and wake up at the same time every night (including the weekends).
- Expose yourself to sunlight early in the morning and throughout the day, and exercise early in the morning, outside if possible. Don’t expose yourself to bright lights (specifically blue light) within 1–2 hours of going to bed.
- No lights at all in the bedroom. The room should be submerged in complete darkness. Your room temperature should be cool. The recommended temperature is 18 degrees celsius.
- Avoid eating a lot at night; if you are snacking try to for a small snack with protein and carbohydrates. Avoid caffeine late in the day and nicotine entirely (both are stimulants).
Move The Body, Eat Good Food & Drink Water
My health is a great focus of life. When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless, and intelligence cannot be applied.
One of my foundational goals is to live a qualitative and quantitive life. Qualitative, to have a healthy body and a sharp mind. Quantitative, to live a life of longevity.
This comes down to three habits
- Exercise every day (strength training, cardio, and flexibility)
- Eat healthily (prepare your meals once a week)
- Drink enough water
Practice Mindfulness
The meditation routine I follow is the one I learned from Headspace. Here is what they say about the benefits of meditation: “There are thousands of studies that have shown mindfulness meditation can positively impact mental and physical health. Whether it’s by reducing stress, improving sleep, increasing focus, or improving relationships, research shows mindfulness works. While the research on mindfulness, especially digital mindfulness programs, is still growing, there is evidence to support the use of mindfulness training for many outcomes.”
Skin Care & Dental Care
A simple habit to maintain. However, it is one I regularly want to skip. Just because it's easier not to do it. I also usually don’t experience immediate benefits. Over time these habits do build up. It will improve my skin which prevents me from being insecure about it. Having teeth that will go bad scare me. Which can be a good motivation.
Write Out At Least One Thought
Writing has helped me greatly in life. Seth Godin explained my benefits very well. Here is why he has been writing at least one article every day since 2002:
Audiobooks outsell print. AI can turn text into speech. People scan, they don’t read. Doesn’t matter. Learn to write. If you’re an actor, being able to write means that you can cast yourself. If you’re a marketer, being able to write means you can tell your story. If you’re looking for a job, being able to write makes you part of a special minority.
Writing is organized thinking on behalf of persuasion.
Read a Book
Reading. The habit that every self-help fan once has tried to build. You often hear leaders are readers. So why read? I see every book I read as a trophy. A trophy is something that has to be earned. Every time I look at my bookshelf I get proud when I look at those trophies.
In order to finish a book, you will need to invest time on a regular basis. This will help you build perseverance. In order to actually understand what you are reading, you will need to stay focused for a long time. In order to understand the characters, you will need to build empathy.
Books like Sapiens & Homo Deus have made me understand the world around me. Books like Linchpin & The Four Hour Work Week have changed my perspective on the future of work. Books like Can’t Hurt Me and Extreme Ownership helped me take control over my life. And books like the Kingkiller Chronicle series helped escape reality.
Eat the Frogs
As Mark Twain once said “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
The frog is that one thing you have on your to-do list that you have absolutely no motivation to do and that you’re most likely to procrastinate on. It is the one thing that you think will be dreadful to do. Many excuses will be made to not do that one thing.
When you finally do it, you will realize that it wasn’t that bad. You will feel relieved and be motivated to tackle more difficult problems.
Cold showers
8 months is what it took me to start to understand why these are important. I often experience anxiety for certain event. Events that can be fun for most, can be terrifying for me. Social anxiety is what has held me back for most of my life. For some reason, I can just shut down with the thought of social situations. Another thing that scares me is failing. Combine those two and you have the perfect poison for me.
This is where the value of cold showers come from. Cold showers are a safe playground to experience stress on a daily basis. After all those months I realized how anxiety and the cold are connected. When you are in a cold shower you can do one of three things: flight, fight or embrace it.
This is how the process went for me. In the first couple of weeks, I hated it and wanted to run away from them. I would stand under the shower for a couple of seconds and got out. With time this window of exposure expanded.
Then I started to fight it. I would tighten my muscles, went in there with a mindset of fighting the water. It worked, but the process wasn’t natural and took a lot of energy.
Finally, one day, something special happened. I stopped caring about the cold. I embraced it. I realized that you can’t fight the cold. You need to accept it.
A couple of months later I was able to use this concept of embracing the stress of an event I couldn’t control.
It also showed me that some concepts can only be explained by experience. Some experiences can take months to be understood.
Set a Daily Goal and Timeline
I have found that time works as a great motivator. The feeling of urgency makes me start quicker, work harder and for longer periods of time.
When I know that something has to be done right now I will do it. When it can be done whenever I’ll postpone it and probably forget it.
My day becomes meaningful when I have a goal in mind. I like to have one anchor task. This task will determine everything I work on that day. It will serve as your guide you throughout the day. For this, I will either use Momentum(chrome plugin) or use the old school pen and paper tools.
Enable the diffused mindset
In her book A mind for numbers, Barbara Oakley talks about the focused and diffused modes. These are the two modes our brain switches between. The focused mode is pretty straightforward, it is when we focus on a particular subject.
The diffused mode, on the other hand, is really where the magic happens.
It seems to be able to work quietly in the background on something you are not actively focusing on. It allows you to suddenly gain new insight on a problem you’ve been struggling with and is associated with “big-picture” perspectives.
Diffuse-mode thinking is what happens when you relax your attention and just let your mind wander. You activate it by simply taking breaks. Good ways to activate it are: going for a walk or taking a shower (this is where shower thoughts come from).
Diffuse-mode insights often flow from preliminary thinking that’s been done in the focused mode. You first make bricks in the focused mode which are then used in the diffused mode to create a wall.
Learn from Someone
I truly believe that we can learn something from anyone. Learning from others allows us to change our perspective. Paying attention to experts can enrich our life. Experts spend their entire life pondering about certain concepts. Concepts we can adopt in hours, minutes or even seconds.
I want to spend every day learning something from someone.
A fool never learns.
A smart man learns from his mistakes
A wise man learns from others
This article is part of my 168 series
Each week has 168 hours. I have the ability to make the most out of these hours. However, I often regret how I spend my time. How can I give more to those things I value and less to those I don’t?
