“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”

-John C. Maxwell

Small habits make a big difference, they can be the catalyst for the greatest change in your life or the catalyst for your biggest downfall. If you’ve never read the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear I highly recommend it. He writes all about the power of habits and habit stacking and how creating and sustaining these habits changes your life.

A habit, according to the Oxford English dictionary is “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.”. Habit stacking is defined as gradually incorporating new lifestyle habits into your routine by associating them with an already-established habit. Habit stacking is a great way to encourage you to start incorporating new habits by attaching them to habits you already complete and stick to.

Why start incorporating habits into your day?

First, you already have habits every single day that you perform nearly on autopilot. You wake up, have your morning coffee, brush your teeth, get ready for work, etc.. These are all daily habits. Incorporating new, more meaningful and beneficial habits into your daily routine can have profound impacts on, not only your future, but also the way that you view and experience your present life.

Second, adding in habits that actually force you to be more present and to take more time for yourself or more time to appreciate your life forces you to slow down. Habits should also be things that you enjoy doing or that add something to your daily life. Meditating is a great example, some people hate meditating but they make it a habit anyways, it adds immense benefits to your day to day and once it’s a habit it feels amazing to do it every day.

5 Small Habits

Taking a walk outside daily

This doesn’t need to be a long walk, there’s no pressure for it to look like anything at all, as long as you make some time to get outside, breathe in some fresh air and clear your head you will still feel the benefits of this habit. Not only is walking good for your physical health but being outside is so good for your mental health. It has been shown to reduce cortisol levels (the stress hormone) and breathing in fresh air increases the amount of oxygen in your brain which increases serotonin levels which alter your mood! Sounds like a no-brainer to me. Start incorporating a 5 minute walk outside every day or even just 5 minutes of spending time outside, no walk necessary.

Seeing the good in everything

Since we were young the things that were harped on the most were always the negatives, the not so good stuff. Your parents complained about not having enough money to get you that toy you wanted, your teachers focused on your bad grades over your good grades, the adults around you complained about anything and everything as long as someone had ears. We are taught from a very young age to look at the things that aren’t going well in our lives and fix them. We are taught that there is always something we could be doing better. We are taught that we should always be striving to achieve more.

No one ever teaches us to pause and look at all we’ve accomplished in our lives. We’re not taught to love and appreciate every step of our journey because we’re too busy thinking we need to be doing better and achieving more. We hardly ever see the good in our lives because how can you if you constantly think you’re not where you need to be? Being able to see the good in things is a practice and it takes time and consistency and effort but it will change the way you live your life. Take a moment every day and give yourself credit for at least 3 things that you are doing well, that you are proud of, or that you are grateful for in your life.

p.s. If you are recognizing 3 good things every single day but the rest of the day you are complaining about anything and everything and putting yourself down, this habit will not get you far. Make a conscious effort to be more positive AND drop some (or hopefully all) of the negativity that you spew on a daily basis. 😊

Daily missions

I started this recently and it is actually such a game changer. I’ve never been very good at being able to write down my goals. I know where I want to go, I know, generally, how I’m going to get there, but I’m not great at seeing the vision in the longer term. If that sounds like you daily missions might be a great habit to start incorporating. This is not my original idea and I cannot remember where I got it for the life of me but I want to share because it’s so impactful.

Every single day write down at least 5 things you want to get done for that day. These 5 things ideally are bringing you closer to your greatest goal, the thing you want to achieve the most. That goal does not have to be crystal clear but you should always have a general idea of it in the back of your mind. My ultimate goal is to help people live their best life possible, that goal is not crystal clear in the sense that there are SO many ways to go about living your best life possible. However, I know that every single day I want my daily missions to incorporate helping others in their personal development journey, creating helpful content to teach people how to live better and being my truest, most authentic self every day in every way.

Romanticizing self care

Self care is not only a practice for your physical self, it’s not only something you do to look better, it can also be a beautiful practice for your mental and emotional self. Self care can look like 100 different things so this habit is really up to you. You are the only one who knows your body and your mind and knows what will make you feel loved and special. For me, really spending time on my skin care, making sure I practice self love and gratitude, and creating my space exactly how I want it are the things that make me feel the best.

Figure out what makes you feel the most loved, not by someone else, by yourself. Figure out not only what makes you feel good physically but also what makes you feel good mentally and emotionally and be able to give that to yourself without relying on someone else or something else to provide that feeling for you.

Keeping my space clean

Having a chaotic, messy home, car, or office is one of the quickest ways to guarantee that your mind and your thoughts are going to be scattered. I know some people find solace in a messy space because it is what they’re used to and it’s how their mind feels but I think it’s important to find comfort in having a neat, organized space. I used to be someone with trinkets everywhere who would just throw stuff around the house and I wouldn’t say it was chaotic but it definitely was not calming, neat and tidy. Having your space in disarray directly translates to causing chaos in the mind and vise versa.

Cleaning as I go and dedicating a morning of one day a week to doing a full reset has been one of my favorite habits I’ve incorporated into my life. You will actually feel such a difference mentally stepping into and being surrounded by a neat and tidy space that is satisfying to look at and easy to find things in than you will in a space that is hectic and cluttered. It actually has a direct correlation to the state of your mind. Start cleaning as you go and taking one day a week to do a full reset… oh, and girl… you don’t need anything from (insert your favorite home decor store here).

Conclusion

You can take my habits and roll with them or see what habits you’d like to start incorporating into your daily life. The key is to choose ones that you like, that you can sustain, and that feel impactful for you. Don’t just pick something I said if it doesn’t resonate one bit with you and your life. Take these habits and start incorporating them by habit-stacking, utilizing a habit you already practice every single day and adding your new habit to the front or back end of it. Remember, it’s not that serious, do what makes you feel good and live your life the best way you possibly can.