“Life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.”
Change is said to be the law of nature. It is said the only thing constant in our life is change itself. But it is easier said than done. People are usually overwhelmed by any sort of changes in their life. But bringing some positive changes in your life and inculcating good habits daily can pave your path for a better future and help you in achieving life goals. Having colossal goals in life is both exciting and exhilarating and sometimes extremely terrifying. However, if some good daily habits are instilled, you will have a very strong foundation to take risks to succeed in your life. Everything we do and say is a result of some deep-seated routine and habits that are etched on our minds. These habits either help us move forward in life or stop our progress. In fact, the condition and state of your life right now is a direct reflection of your daily habits. Ready to know how to live a happy life? Read on.
How can you develop positive habits?
You might be tempted to inculcate more than one positive habit at a time, but it is easier said than done. If you work poorly on one habit, a domino effect can take place on other habits as well. Everything will topple and leave you feeling discouraged.
Below mentioned is habit building procedure that will work for most people:
• You should focus on instilling one habit a month
• It doesn’t really matter how much time you take to build a habit as long as you do. Hence, don’t give yourself a time limit or a deadline.
• Commit to doing this fully and never give up.
• Don’t be hard on yourself. In case you stumble, give yourself time to get back on track.
• Write the habit on paper and also mention the strategies that you are employing, your motivations and the obstacles that you face in the way.
• Keep your progress logged.
• Keep a tab on your progress.
• Make sure you have some support for when you stumble or falter.
• Reward yourself for every little success.
• In case you fail, try to understand the reason why, plan and strategize again and try once more.
10 habits to make your life happier and increase quality of your life:
1. Develop the habit of positive thinking
This is mentioned first because this is a very important habit which will help you in incorporating other habits in a much better way. Positive thinking won’t bring you success but it will definitely motivate you to do better in life. If you let negative thoughts prevail in your mind, you will end up failing in everything you do. Learn how to squash your negative thoughts and fill your mind with positive ones. Keep practicing this habit, keep thinking positive over and over again, till it become a nature and not a habit.
You should first focus on developing this habit and the rest will come easier to you. Become aware of your negative thinking and negative talking. Keep a tab every time you notice yourself getting a negative thought. It will seem like work at first, but with time, you won’t even realise when you are crushing those negative thoughts with positive ones. It is very difficult to stay motivated for a longer period of time. But positive thinking will help you do that.
2. Exercise daily
Daily exercise is healthy and is also life changing. Exercise make you confident and makes you feel good about yourself. This will affect your personality which will lead to success and more positive changes in your life. You need a lot of motivation to exercise daily and positive thinking will help you do that. Exercising daily will help you relieve stress and improve the quality of your life.
Exercise makes for a better mental wellbeing. Daily exercise has also been known to help with creativity. It helps you brainstorm well and come up with better ideas and strategies. Exercising daily is not about running for miles or doing some serious heavy weightlifting, it is all about oxygenating your blood and boosting your body endorphins. Exercise is known to release serotonin, oxytocin and dopaminine into your system which gives you extra energy that will last the entire day.
3. Stop multitasking
Multitasking is an extremely bad habit. You need to let go of this one and develop the habit of doing one task at a time. This way you will get more work done in a small amount of time and the quality of your work will increase by manifolds. It becomes very difficult to get your work done on time when you keep on switching and paying attention to different things at once.
Single tasking helps in reducing your stress level and ultimately improving the quality of your life. A very less percentage of people in the word have actually mastered the art of single tasking. The rest are switching and fidgeting between tasks. To successfully develop this habit, choose one task from your daily to-do list and then hide the list till that task is done. Keep doing that with other tasks on the list. This is a very tough habit to develop but once done, this clears your head, makes you feel relaxed and improves your work quality.
4. Keep your focus on a single goal
This is as important as focusing on a single task at hand and at a single habit at one point of time. Focusing on one goal at a time is a very important habit to develop. If you want to achieve your goals quickly and effectively then focusing on one goal is the way to go. Energy and focus are two key components required for achieving your goal.
When you focus on more than one goal at a time, you are distributing your focus, time and energy to all of them and hence might not be successful in achieving, or even if you do it might take longer than usual. Some goals become ongoing and daily ones, like exercising and blogging. In such cases, it would be better if you turn them into daily habits. Even then, you need to direct your focus on converting one goal to habit and then the next one.
5. Eliminate the less important and non-essential
The process of letting go off something that is not important or required is called minimalism. To develop this habit, first you need to identify what is important to you and your life, sort out the essentials and then eliminate and let go of everything else. Minimalism helps you in focusing on what is important and keeps you from other distraction. This is a process of simplifying your life in this fast paced world like ours. This minimalism process will work with a lot of things in your life, with you, with your work, with the tasks in hand, with your emails, with your life in general. This habit will help you develop and lead the life that you want and aspire to. External clutter in your life will lead to a mental clutter. The feeling of knowing that whatever is left in your house and in your life has meaning and is important for you.
6. Practise kindness daily
This is one habit that people often overlook, but which can significantly improve life quality. But practising kindness daily is a habit and a beautiful one at that. And this habit can be developed and cultivated. Focus on developing this habit for an entire month and you will witness profound changes in both your personal life and work life. You will start liking yourself as a person and that is very important to improve the quality of your life.
People will start reacting positively to you and that will have a positive impact on your day. It is very easy to develop this habit. Make it your goal to do something good and something kind for one person every day. The number of healthy relationships you will foster will increase. You can either figure out the act by the start of the day or just go with your emotions. Remember to be compassionate, amiable and kind with everyone whom you interact with. With time, try to do bigger acts of kindness, relieving someone of difficulties and take the initiative to relive someone from their suffering.
7. Wake up early
Getting all your important work done at the start of the day relieves most of the stress and gives you confidence to take on the rest of the day positively. Developing such changes for lifestyle will make a huge impact and difference to your life. Accomplishing most of the tasks at the start of the day is an indescribable feeling. You won’t have much to lose even if you get distracted during the day from your work. You can achieve more and get your work done before time once you develop this habit.
People who are not a morning person will find it considerably difficult to develop this habit. But what is needed is focus and positive thinking. Practise waking up early for a month. Don’t chastise yourself on the days you can’t. Set your alarm and try again the next day. What is important is to not give up. Keep setting your alarm 15 minutes before you wake up currently and keep increasing the time until you wake up 2-3 hours before you are doing now.
8. Eat a healthy breakfast
Breakfast tis the most important meal of the day. Yet, a lot of people skip breakfast nearly every day. If you are very serious about having a better and successful life, then you need to practise eating a healthy breakfast every morning. This is one habit which won’t take a lot of effort to implement but will give back a lot in return. All this habit needs is some planning and time management. If you are the type of person who is late to work every day, then you need to practise waking up early first and then focus on making this habit your daily ritual.
9. Drink lemon water every morning
This habit has huge health benefits. Lemons are known to be a natural source of Vitamin C. Drinking one glass of water with lemon zest will boost your immunity system, help with your digestion and keep your body hydrated. Drinking only water in the morning itself has loads of health benefits. It will help you by flushing out your body toxins and with time drinking lemon water has also been known to result in weight loss and boosting your energy for the day.
10. Keep a daily journal
Keeping a daily journal to pen down your thoughts is a great way to reflect where you are in life and what you have been doing. We often forget minute details of most of our days, journaling them helps us recall and also adds purpose and clarity to our life. It reminds us of life’s joys and lessons.
Stop wondering how to make your life happier, adopt these tips, and see the difference.
