8 habits that will change your life forever

What you do repeatedly determines the quality of your life

Habits can be defined as activities that we do without much effort and almost tend to do regularly. You become what you do consistently. Therefore your life is determined by what you do to a large extent.

Over the years, I have come up with a few habits which I have seen making unprecedented changes in not just my life, but in many people’s lives I have come across.

Get up early in the morning.

There is one thing that is common in all successful people. Most of them are early risers. Beginning the day early has lots of benefits and it definitely rejuvenates the mind-body and spirit.

If you are someone who is struggling to get up early in the morning, then tell your mind about the pleasure you will get by beginning your day early, the tasks that you can complete on time, the pleasantness of watching the rising sun, the fresh air, etc. These pleasures are so way more than lying on the bed for few more minutes.

Once you change the conversation that you have with your mind, about anything you will notice that breaking the inertia of not doing anything becomes easy.

Consciously consume content

I feel pity for people who unconsciously consume content and consequently find themselves in a loop of ignorance. I am sure you would have seen people extremely cautious of the food they take when want to reduce weight. I wish people could understand that cautiousness is required to feed our mind as well.

Notice the kind of search history you have on your Instagram, YouTube, Google, and other places. Notice the recommendations you are getting. And then ask yourself, can you bring a noteworthy change in your life if you continue to consume the same content.

Give time to your well being

We tend to live in the Important/Urgent quadrant. We continue doing so till we find ourselves in some urgency or setbacks.

Of the 168 hours in a week if we are not able to take out 5 hours for our body and for the mind then we are simply being careless and we are depending on the chance, we are depending on the sheer fortune that we will always be fit.

Take some time out. This life has no meaning if you are not fit physically and mentally.

Spend less than you earn

We spend money for sustenance and for our growth. Human beings over the period of time, have raised the bar of their sustenance so much that they are spending more than what they are earning and ultimately find themselves in a debt trap.

Money is just another tool to make your life the way you want. Therefore spend money consciously.

Build a skill every quarter

What’s the number one reason you have job today? It’s because of your skill. Someone values your skill and hence you are getting paid for it.

But these skills keep evolving and it comes in various forms. You get paid only for 5% of your skills remaining 95% of your skills which are not paid for, may not earn money for you but they will improve the quality of your life.

Parenting, conflict management, negotiation, cooking, hosting, dancing, singing, gardening and there are plenty of other skills. Skills make people valuable.

Therefore, have the curiosity to identify and learn new skills. It will certainly improve the quality of your life if not make you rich.

Pay attention to your relationships

Relationships have the power to make or break a person’s life. It’s becoming contemporary saying “I don’t care about people” or “No need to take relationship seriously as every one do their own things”.

This is coming for a very false sense of individualism. The myth that you can exist alone in this world.

You share relationship with everything around. And it’s important that you express gratitude for all that you are getting and becoming of all that you are getting. It would be best if you also were satisfied with whatever you have got because no one will ever get everything.

Write Journal

I have been writing Journal for over 750+ days. I write about my failures, about my plans, about my trauma, about my happiness, about my milestones and many such things.

In these 750+ days which I have been writing I have set one rule for myself -

Live my life today in such a way that when I sit and write my journal, at least I can be proud of it. I can feel it from the heart that I created a valuable today with all my heart and soul.

This rule has brought immense awareness in how I structure my day and perceive my life.

Travel

There is something intoxicating about traveling. You get to meet new people, you get to see new places, get new experiences, create memories, but apart from that the new dimension of life within you which traveling reveals is invaluable.

Traveling has contributed immensely for my own discoveries. I can very well relate to the insaneness which travellers round the world experiences and I can say for sure, that this insanity is totally reasonable and worth experiencing.

To change your habit, you need to overcome the inertia of your existing habit which you want to quit. Naturally, you want to stop doing something because you know there is a benefit in that. Still, you resist doing it because of the way our brain works. Our brain asks for predictability, safety, and assurance of gratification.

If you take any of these things away, your brain will tell you not to change and continue doing. That’s why it’s extremely important that we raise the intensity of our consciousness. It’s important to understand that human beings have layers of desires. We act on only those desires which are either urgent or which we think can give us immediate satisfaction.

Change then is just the distance you need to travel from immediate gratification to gratification in the long run while experiencing some near-term trade-offs.