Habits you should have
- The glass is half full – Look for the positive in yourself, others, and your situation
- Be mindful – Ever feel like the days, months, and years pass by and you don’t know where the went? Perhaps you need to focus on experiencing the moments as they happen? Being mindful of yourself (feelings, place, context) and the world around you will tether and anchor you to the time you’ve been missing.
- Smile – It costs you nothing and will make you and everyone else you encounter feel better. Seriously, it is that easy!
- Exercise – Time to look yourself in the eye and admit you could use 30 minutes to an hour more a day doing some sort of strenuous activity. Preferably outside, and even better with others.
Habits you should kick
- Skipping breakfast – Skipping the first meal of the day robs you of energy during the hours you’re most productive and messes with your metabolism.
- Negative thoughts – the antithesis of the first habit above. Negative thoughts are the cages we build to incarcerate ourselves. There’s only ever going to be one person who will always be there for you and that is you. In your life there are going to be innumerable people who are going to bet against you and pull you down, why add to that crowd?
- “Body Farming” – You touch your face two to four times every minutes, 91% of people pick their noses, 39% bite their nails, and people are constantly picking, scratching and irritating their skin. These activities are unsightly and unhealthy. Stop it!
- Eating “fast” food – Companies know that Americans are a hurried and overworked population and they’ve gone out of their way to provide easy, cheap, and calorie rich food for them. While this might seem a blessing for Americans this food is largely heavily processed and consists mostly of corn, soy and oil. Calorie rich and nutrient poor. Stop it!
Habits you should cultivate
- Learning something new – Are you expanding your horizons? What are you doing to expand your personal, professional, and creative toolbox?
- Get up early – Think of a great person? Got one? I don’t know who the person you picked was but I knew they got up early. Before everyone else was up their were up practicing, studying, honing and working on becoming great
- Practice empathy – Empathy is the ability to put oneself in some one else’s shoes, and the willingness to respond to that person’s needs. Empathy will help you see the glass half full, it will help you smile, and it help bring you closer to everyone around you.
- Read more – My own biases are showing with this last one. But, reading will help you grow as a person in every aspect of your life. It will help you go to places you can never go, understand things you never could, and know people you could never know!
