The 5+ Essential Habits We Need in Real Life
They're all simple actions of our daily life that we already know
We are educated, from childhood, through simple disciplines such as saying good morning, brushing our teeth, and even helping with cleaning tasks. We have learned all these disciplines for both our moral and physical benefit.
Throughout our growth, we lose the value of those simple practices, which are generally the fundamental basis of our behavior — remember that behavior has a lot to do with habits.
In adulthood, we begin to look for those precious habits that will give us confidence, productivity, and above all, success in life. Yet we skid in the same mud.
To cheer you on the good news, I will share the five essential habits that have helped me stay healthy physically, mentally, and at the same time productive.
They are so simple that I realized I already knew them from my childhood. All I did was rediscover those habits.
First of all, I share this paragraph from the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. It is so that you have a starting point to understand the power of habit.
(Let’s make clear that I have no affiliation promoting any links).
“Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day, yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent.” — James Clear
The essential habits.
Get enough sleep. There is no use having good intentions to be productive if you spend your life fatigued from lack of sleep. We have heard it repeatedly, but we give little or no importance to the benefits of rest. Seven or eight hours of sleep are essential to recharge our human batteries. Energy is important.
Make the most of the day. Plan your schedule from the day before. Build the habit of getting up early, so you will take advantage of every day of your life, implementing and improving your skills. Life is too short to be wasted, and believe it or not, you have what it takes to be successful in life.
Have enough goals. We wake up every day to waste time, wandering through life half asleep with no purpose. We wait for the lucky shot, the winning ticket that will get us out of the status quo. We want to see fruits without going through the task of planting the tree. Figure out the actionable steps that will lead you to get what you want in life, turning those steps into accessible goals.
What you eat is what you are. We must pay special attention to our diet. Some foods take longer to digest, and it is necessary to manage our mealtimes. Breakfast, for example, is the most important meal of the day. Lunch is what gives us energy for the rest of the day, but let’s not overdo it so as not to have a heavy afternoon. And dinner should always be on time so that digestion does not interrupt our sleep. Digestion uses energy from our body, and we must learn to balance where it goes.
Personal hygiene. We need habits that improve us and make us feel good and have a domino effect on the rest of the areas of our lives. “A healthy mind in a healthy body.” If your mind is full of wisdom but neglects your hygiene, it will be like taking a bath and wearing the same dirty clothes again.
The + of the essential habits in this article to apply in daily life is nothing more and nothing less than “SLOW DOWN”: There’s something beautiful or divine about taking things at our own pace. It gives us the freedom to take it easy; after all, it is our path, and it will not resemble anyone else's.
In addition, there is power in the habit of taking things easy, sitting still, and reencountering our thoughts that ignites the internal energy of our body and the creativity of our mind.
Please take note of how the energy of our body, well managed, makes us more productive.
We are profoundly habitual and rarely make our own decisions. We want to think that it is, but 95% of what we do is entirely automatic, unconscious, and does not require thinking, and the other 5% is consciously selected.
Let’s influence 95% of what we do unconsciously using 5% of what we do under our control. Over time, 5% of what we do in a controlled way filters into the other 95% that we do unconsciously and automatically program our behavior.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle.
Thanks for reading.
TOGETHER WE CAN LEARN BETTER.
To live a better life: discover keystone habits that create a ripple effect, whose benefits expand to other areas of your life and, over time, improve it as a whole.
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