If you have somehow come across this article, then it means you want to improve your life in a meaningful way but you just cannot figure out where to start from or perhaps even how to push yourself from that initial starting line. In this age of internet, we sometimes have access to too much information and so we think that we know everything but it is precisely because of this false belief that we actually implement nothing of what can improve our lifestyle. How many times have you come across an advice which seemed very obvious to you? or a habit that you know can improve your life but is still not yet adopted? Most likely more than once, right? Now ask yourself how many times have you actually considered whether this self-evident truth was also something that you actively tried to implement in your daily life as well? For me, I have come across many such motivational videos and quotes that resonate with what I believe but rather than taking note of it to “actively” try and live my life out according to it, I keep scrolling away to the next interesting thing until I completely forget about the former one. So, with this article, I wanted to try to give you some small habits as well as some possible challenges to accompany them so that you can try to actually practice these habits and see whether they have any impact on your life or not for yourself.
Before I begin listing them out, make sure you note down whatever habits you like in your sticky notes or on a piece of paper that you can see almost as soon as you wake up. I know that it is a very daunting task but please trust me and do this as I understand that it will be very difficult to revisit this article again. Even if you wanted to, the internet just has so many more distractions to offer you that will prevent you from doing so. With that out of the way, lets see what we can try to do today to improve ourselves.
1. Foolish Accountability
Do not let the name confuse you as it was deliberately chosen to be that way. The thing that we have to realize is that our mind is very capable at coming up with reasons to justify our shortcomings even when we realize what those shortcomings are or what the possible solution to overcome them is. We always seem to have one reason or another to keep ourselves from doing the things that we know to be beneficial to us but not feel bad enough about it to stop ourselves from repeating it again the next day. To counter that, I want you to try not just simple accountability based on reasoning but “foolish” accountability for at least a day. What it entails is to simply start with the singular conclusion that everything that happens to you today will be entirely because of your current or previous actions. You have to start from this predetermined conclusion and work your way with reasons to justify it and believe it just for today no matter how stupid it might sound. While doing this exercise, make sure you keep the conclusion in mind rather than just mindlessly going down the rabbit hole of reasons only to come up with another thought entirely.
While it sounds excessive, it is actually a very good training for you as it opens up a whole new perspective on things that would have otherwise been invisible to you at all times. To give you an example, imagine it started raining just as you were about to head to the gym. Now you might normally skip going to the gym by blaming bad weather but if it had to be you fault then you could have gone to the gym earlier or perhaps even with an umbrella or hitch-hiked your way in a car etc. While these reasons sound foolish to you on any other day, they do also lead you tot hink that perhaps you should have checked weather forecast everyday to plan your daily activities accordingly. This solution gives you the power rather than the weather and only takes less than a minute of your time.
2. Curb Your Judgement
Today is all about listening rather than voicing out your opinion and expecting others to respect it. Think of it like a day to give back rather than just receiving things from others.. Just for a day, I want you to listen to whatever someone is saying to you earnestly without focusing on whom that person is. It doesn’t matter if it is your 6 year old nephew or your 100 year old grandfather. It might even be someone you know or someone you do not know. Even if it is someone you deemed stupid on any other day of the week, you should force yourself to let go of that presupposition for today and just listen to the thing that is being said rather than the person saying it and come to your new conclusion for it.
What it does is to allow you to develop more patience for others and also prevents you from making some blunders that you would have otherwise attributed towards your “carelessness”. Also, it will also be appreciated by the other people around you to have a person around them who genuinely listens to their issues regardless of whether or not you provide any solution to the said problems.
3. Nibble At Your Fears Every Single Day
A lot of us like to put on our bravery masks and think that there is nothing that we are afraid of in our lives. We have an ideal image of ourselves in our mind that tackles every problem head-on and yet, we leave numerous things undone each and every day. Rather than identifying the underlying cause for it, we have come up with an awesome term called “procrastination” that flies in like a knight in the shining armor to take away all of our worries. We can comfortable blame it on procrastination and continue to let the unfinished tasks pile up while thinking how courageous we are. If you were to remove the term procrastination in your mind and actually think why you run away from doing the difficult yet important tasks daily then it will be fairly obvious that you are indeed afraid of facing them head-on. I know that this damages your ideal image of yourself but it also doesn’t have to completely break it. It only means that you have to work harder to maintain that image of yourself and even better, turn it into a reality.
No matter if it is that assignment for the course you do not like or an interview that has so many impossible questions that you do not the know the answer to, you have to realize that they are your challenges to deal with. Sooner or later you will have to face the music and giving up on them will only hurt more as it will compound with the regret of the lost time that will never turn back for you. What I want you to do is not to face everything today but rather start with just a small nibble at them today; do one thing, no matter how small, that is uncomfortable or what you are afraid of every day for a week and then compare your accomplishments with the previous week. It is supposed to be hard, I know, but rather than running away, you should just aim even lower but still face it head on for this week.
4. Pardon Your Sins To Walk the Way Of Buddha
I can guarantee that everyone has at least once tried to make a timetable and failed to follow along with it or tried to develop another habit that they liked very much but failed to be consistent with it. Maybe it was to study at a particular schedule or perhaps it was just going to your morning runs every day. The exact thing doesn’t matter and neither does the reason for your inability to stay consistent with it. What I want you to try from today is to learn to accept that things will not go according to your plan sometimes. Even if it is the small habits I mentioned above or it is something else that you decided to do daily on your own for this week or this month or even this year, you will sometimes mess up and miss out. It is definitely not good but it is also expected to happen. You are bound to fall sometimes when you decide to tread a difficult terrain. It is certainly not bad enough for you to emotionally berate yourself to the point of you giving up entirely on this this habit. I have experienced this many times as well where I just felt bad about the fact that I had broken my continuous streak of going to the gym daily or studying a certain book only to have this guild slowly build up until I completely zoned it out. And once you become indifferent to it, you realize that this habit doesn’t matter as much as you thought it did to you. Why just miss one day? Why not 2 days? Why not even a week?
Thus, in order to avoid falling into this slippery slop, I decided that I would accept that initial guilt and not only will I learn something from it, but I will also let it go once I do. If there was a lesson that I learned from it then that mistake or the break in my daily routine was acceptable. If I was to look back at it, I will only look back at the lesson I learned from it and never at the guilt that was associated with it. Learn to forgive yourself and move on as that is the only way for you to actually live in the present.
5. Bathe in Gratitude
Last but certainly not the least is to be grateful for something, anything and everything. Just like you wash your face or bathe everyday, you have to be grateful everyday as well. A lot of you have perhaps already heard this before somewhere and are beginning to tune it out from your mind as you are reading it, but I still want you to ask yourself when was the last time that you actually expressed this gratitude with your actions rather than your thoughts and prayers alone?
For just a week, I want you to think about the things that you are grateful for as soon as you wake up or when you are about to go to sleep. For those wondering whether they have something worthy of gratitude or not, if you can think of someone who is in a worse condition than you, than you definitely have things to be grateful for whether it be health, wealth, relationships or any other skills etc. After listing out the things you do feel grateful for, I want you to take one practical action for each of the item you listed to express that gratitude. If you have a good relation then maybe call them or arrange a meeting with them. If it is your health then try to feel your health rather than just thinking about it – go to your roof or a park and feel your senses and imagine what it would have been like if you lacked them to express your gratitude for them. This simple imagination followed by small actions that act upon it leads to a content lifestyle. You do not realize what you have until it is taken from you and similarly, you do not realize what you can have until you do not go after it.
Conclusion
To sum it up, all of the above listed habits are what I find very helpful in my daily life and I hope that they can provide some value to your as well. All I ask is that even if it is small, you do take the step to give them a fair chance rather than just skipping ahead to the next best thing and forgetting about them. If you can do a week then do a week but even if it is just a day, commit yourself fully to it and not only when you feel like it to see the benefits in your own life. Please feel free to let me know whether you find them helpful or not and also mention any other habits that you find useful in your day-to-day life. Thanks for reading and have a wonderful life!