Embarking on a journey of self-improvement is a profound and rewarding endeavour that can lead to a more fulfilling and purposeful life. To kickstart this transformation, it’s crucial to cultivate positive habits that contribute to personal growth. In this article, we’ll explore 10 habits that can help you on your path to self-improvement.
1. Write down your Goals
We have a habit of keeping our goals in our minds and not writing them down on paper. Often we tend to forget what we are supposed to do and what must be our short-term objectives to reach our long-term goals, this happens because we don’t have a properly structured plan and strategy to pursue our goal.
To make sure we remain on track and complete our short-term objective to reach long-term goals, we must write down our Yearly Goals, Monthly Goals, Weekly Goals, Daily Goals and Hourly Goals for a proper workflow and knowing what to do next by keeping track of our progress.
2. Wake up early in the Morning
The first step towards discipline is waking up early in the morning. It is getting out of bed the moment your alarm goes off. So you might ask, What is the best time to go to bed and wake up? How many hours of sleep do I need? This is everything you need to know regarding your sleeping routine:
- Our parents always told us about Early to Bed, Early to Rise. Yes, that’s how you build a good and timely sleeping habit. When you go to bed early, you’ll wake up early.
- The best time to wake up is the Brahmamuhrat i.e., the early morning hours before sunrise. You can read more about it here. In short, try waking up before Sunrise to utilize your early morning well.
- Number of hours of sleep a person needs varies from person to person. Some people need less sleep than others and vice-versa. It also depends on the amount of stress and exhaustion your body goes through while you are awake. Usually one should feel fresh after having 6 hours of sleep if one does a moderate amount of work(both physical and mental). If you do a rigorous workout, you need proper sleep time to recover and heal, so the best advice would be to see how many hours of sleep you need, check yourself and stick to that routine.
3. Eat the Right Food
Eating the right food fuels your system the right way and you get more energy and more nutrients(both macro and micro) than you’ll ever get from any Junk Food. Do I need to say these things? Don’t you know this already? Right food is what you need for a better quality of life, for proper functioning of not only your body but also your mind. Moreover, it is cheaper than your Pizzas and Burgers on any given day. Eating the right food is the most essential part of a good quality life.
4. Add a Workout to your Daily Routine
In earlier times, people were fitter and had better mental health because people were bust moving their bodies, doing the hard work and had no time to overthink and ruin their lives sitting on a couch eating ultra-processed potato chips. If we take an example from our daily lives, the average person today is less physically active than the average person 100 years ago and it’s a no-brainer. Technology, although helped us immensely, also made us lazy.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not asking you to go and start hunting buffaloes and live in caves just like your ancestors did, but you can at least be more active today than you were yesterday(it will only benefit you). You can join various fitness programs or if you don’t find anything, just put on your shoes and start walking. Build the habit of moving your body more often, that’s a good start. And gradually you can start doing other fitness activities.
5. Learn a New Skill
Up-skilling is one of those habits that can get you so many opportunities you can’t even think of. Skills in any field which can be monetized are worth having and it gives you an extra edge over your competition. One additional advantage it gives you is that it gives you confidence in this competitive world and removes the anxiety of being irrelevant and unemployable from your mind.
6. Start Reading
Reading includes anything that gives you insights, knowledge and wisdom. Anything form of reading material that enhances your intellect is a good point of start. You can read books, blogs(like this one), articles, research papers, or even old scriptures of your interest. The simple easy way to gain wisdom is to read(and to talk to people who have wisdom, of course).
You need to start with what interests you, then you’ll be able to move to newer genres, fields and categories. But note one thing, don’t just read stuff, Implement the lessons learned in your life. Gaining knowledge is one part and Application of that knowledge is another part.
7. Start Gardening
You might be wondering, what does gardening have to do with self-improvement?
Answer: It teaches you the importance of patience. It teaches you that beautiful things take time to happen and that building a beautiful life requires effort and dedication every single day to achieve the desired fruit of your labour.
Water your plants every day, make it a habit, they are your friends who rely on you to grow. And when you help others grow, nature will help you grow too, and in ways you never thought were possible. Plus it is good for the environment and you get a good garden.
8. Spend time with your Family
They are the ones who care about you the most and love you more than anyone else. Make it a habit of spending time with your family every day and cherish the moment of joy and happiness. Know one thing, “Strong people build Strong families, Strong families build Strong societies, Strong societies build Strong nations.”
9. Save Money
This seems like an old advice that your parents give you, and they are right about it. Our generation doesn’t understand the importance of saving money and all they care about is to impress some people on social media by showing off their unreal lifestyle with their senseless expenditure. You can become better than that by avoiding useless expenditure on things that you don’t need. Stop impressing people you don’t even know personally.
10. Pray to God daily
God is watching you and knows things that you don’t. Trust his plans, and you shall get what he wants. God wants you to trust him, to believe in him even on your toughest days. Surrender to his lotus feet and you’ll be victorious. Shriman Narayan is merciful and compassionate and tests you time and again, to see if you are strong and worthy of success or not. Be Righteous, be Dharmic and keep on working, one day you’ll reach your destiny.
I hope you’ll inculcate these habits in your life for your self-improvement journey in 2024.
Thank You.
