Life changing habits: Focus on yourself

Probably the most obvious life changing habit of all, yet in this society with the prominence of social media in our everyday lives it can feel almost impossible.

How do you engage with the content of strangers without getting sucked in and forgetting about you?

I find that disconnecting is key, as in closing the app or logging out.

But it is also useful to make time to ask yourself the important questions like: How does this make me feel? Or is this a valuable use of my time?

The balance between focusing on yourself and what others are doing should always heavily be tipped in your favour.

I feel much better doing hand embroidery, going for a walk or drawing than I do focusing on the lives of strangers.

It doesn’t better my life to know that you had poached eggs on avo toast for breakfast or that you just bought another pair of Manolo Blahniks.

But don’t get me wrong I enjoy that kind of content a lot but I shouldn’t be focusing on others more than myself.

The same way you could with great ease spend an hour watching YouTube videos or 30 minutes scrolling Instagram should be the same way you spend time on yourself.

Losing a good habit

It’s a gradual thing.

One day you have a solid morning routine and the next you’re running down the street with half your shirt undone hoping you have don’t miss the bus and that you have everything you need.

But it’s not as simple as that, the loss of a habit takes time.

It starts with pressing snooze, then skipping meditation and moves on to not even prepping the night before.

Some routines are hard to keep and sometimes we think that we want to bend away from what we know serves us, just to see what happens.

And sometimes we do it to remember why we implemented the routine in the first place.

That is so funny (but it wasn’t five years ago)

The art of learning to laugh, at yourself.

Imagine you’re at a comedy show and the comedian is making a joke about someone in the crowd, you’d probably laugh along with everyone else (granted it was funny).

But what if the joke was on you, would you squirm or would you laugh.

So often many of us are unable to find the humour in our lives. It was something I used to struggle with but I’ve found that life is a lot smoother when you’re not so serious.

Even the other day I found myself laughing at something in my life that I’d have been really serious and furrow browed about 5 years ago.

And I could choose to remain furrow browed but it’s not as fun. I don’t think life should be taken so seriously to the point where you’re wound up like a super tight spirally thing.

I’ve tried it and it was terrible. That’s why I had to find another way.

If your skeptical, try it once and see how it feels.

Plus laughing releases endorphins, the brain chemical that makes you feel good.

The right time to quit

Perhaps there is no right time.

It’s easy to quit in the early stages but gets harder over time. After 3 years once you’ve invested time effort and energy quitting, even if it’s for the best feels like giving up.

And so, it’s hard to know the right time to quit. If you’ve been working on something for a while and that could just be a few months (it depends on how much you’re putting into it), if you’re thinking of quitting don’t make what you’ve put into it so far be the only reason to keep going.

But some questions to ask and things to consider are:

Do you still believe in what you’re doing?
If you knew what you now know, would you still start today?
Are you doing this for yourself or because you feel you have something to prove?
Do you enjoy doing the work?
Will the end result bring you joy?

Habits of your future self

If you’re not doing anything to bridge the gap between your present and future self, ask yourself ‘how do I expect to get there?’

Maybe you want to read more, wake up earlier, be more productive, write a book, start a podcast it could be anything.

But let’s take be more productive. How do you go from unproductive to productive?

I’d start with identifying the gap.

Is it procrastination, lack of commitment or focus?
What can you do to overcome that?

Trying the ‘do it now approach‘ for a month or so is a great way to combat a variety of issues. It reduces procrastination, encourages commitment and overtime will probably make you more productive.

If you don’t know about the do it now approach its fairly self explanatory but it’s origin lies in the desire to get things done instead of putting things off.

It’s replying to emails instead of flagging them, doing small tasks when they come up instead of adding them to your to do list.

If that sounds like the kind of person you want to be then challenge yourself and give it a go.

When life comes together

How does it feel when you realise you’re living your dreams.

I’d consider myself to be a bit of a dreamer. I daydream, I can be idealistic and I love stories.

I daydream/visualise about my future on a regular basis sometimes intentionally and sometimes on accident.

I often find that months or years later that thing I was daydreaming about is part of my reality.

And it can something like the kind of person I want to meet or an aspect of my lifestyle.

It fascinates me that you can have days where you’re happily going through life and then you suddenly realise that last year you’d been dreaming about being where you are right now.

When life comes together

How does it feel when you realise you’re living your dreams.

I’d consider myself to be a bit of a dreamer.

I daydream/visualise about my future on a regular basis sometimes intentionally and sometimes on accident.

I often find that months or years later that thing I was daydreaming about is part of my reality.

And it can be something like the kind of person I want to meet or an aspect of my lifestyle.

It fascinates me that you can have days where you’re happily going through life and then you suddenly realise that last year you’d been dreaming about being where you are right now.