Habits are hard to create. Hard to break. However, if you create habits that are enhancing your life, they will pay off like no other. In this article, I will share five habits that can change your life and boost your self-development.
1. Reading books
Reading books is one of the best habits to change your life. By reading books you can not only acquire knowledge, but you can also gain insights and see things from a different perspective. Besides that, reading books will improve your memory, imagination, focus and concentration.
Create the habit of reading and it will surely boost your self-development. The best way to create the habit of reading is to plan out a time-block every day. For example, you can make it a habit to read the first thirty minutes after you wake up. However, if that does not work, find what works for you. The only thing that is important is that you create the habit, the daily routine, of reading.
There is only one thing you need to be cautious about when you create the habit of reading: do not read for the sake of reading. Read purposefully. Reading is not only about acquiring knowledge, it is also about retaining and applying the knowledge.
The best way to retain and apply the knowledge you acquire, is to ask yourself questions while you are reading. What does this knowledge mean to me? How can it impact my life?
Another great way to retain the knowledge is to write notes about what you read.
2. Practice Gratitude
Gratitude. This is a part of the self-development industry that sometimes gets frowned upon, because there is so much nonsense involved around it. However, practicing gratitude is still an important habit to create.
By practicing gratitude daily, life gets easier. It is hard to be thankful for things in life when you are not aware of what you should be thankful for. That is why you need to make it a habit of practicing gratitude.
Practicing gratitude can be as simple as writing down a few short things where you are grateful for right after you wake up. It makes you aware of the many things in life you are actually grateful for. This can also put the rest of your day in perspective.
If you create the habit of practicing gratitude, your mindset will even change during the day. Stuck in traffic? No worries, I am glad that I have a car. Meeting got cancelled? Fine! More time to prepare for the next meeting. Practice gratitude and make your life easier.
3. Doing something you hate every day
In our society, we focus a lot on being happy and do things that we love. It is honestly great that we focus on that. However, I advise you to also do things you hate. Every day. Sounds weird, doesn’t it? Well, let me explain.
To be happy and be doing something that you love, you need to have the self-discipline to maintain that. When it comes down to developing self-discipline, there is no better way than to do something you hate every day.
When you get used to doing something you hate, all the other things become easier. It sets your life in perspective. So, take that cold shower. Or go for that run even though you hate running. It will develop self-discipline: the root of all good qualities.
4. Track your progress
We set new goals all the time. Then we get after these goals. Sometimes we achieve them, sometimes we do not. But, how did the process of working towards that goal go? What did work well? What did not?
Those questions are a key element of your personal development. A lot of people constantly hunt their goals, but never track their progress. They do not reflect. That is one of the main reasons why you could plateau in your personal development.
Make it a habit to track your progress. Write your goals down. Formulate the strategies around them. Track your progress. Reflect on it. Find out what worked really well. Keep applying that. Find out what did not work at all. Change that. Repeat.
5. Journaling
Last but not least, journaling. Journaling is one of the habits that can provide you with a lot: tracking progress, becoming more self-aware, goal setting, emotional relief, becoming more organized, etc..
Journaling is the end all be all, in my opinion. Keeping a journal will give you a helicopter view over your life. It will give insight on what you are doing and why you are doing it. Which will result in a stronger sense of self-awareness and makes everything feel more meaningful.
You can make journaling as basic or as extensive as you want. You can keep a journal by just writing down your most important tasks of the day, how you are going to do them and why you are doing them.
But you can also extend it by adding more aspects of personal development to it. You can, for example, implement the things I wrote earlier about in this article: writing down the insights you have gained from reading, a practice of gratitude, and you can track your progress in your journal as well.
The best thing about a journal is that you can personalize it to your needs. Try to figure out what your needs are. Then, make your journal around that and create the habit of journaling.
About Our Guest Contributor
“My name is Wesley, and I run a blog that is dedicated to helping you to master your discipline with the best self-development advice.
You can find my blog at https://whatdisciplinemeans.com or you can visit my Instagram profile: https://www.instagram.com/whatdisciplinemeans/.
Have a productive day!”
