These Are The Best Habits For Your Health And Career
I have written about habits many times before and for good reason.
Habits are founded on routine, which again is based on consistency, which I wrote about last week here. This month of August is all focused on the theme of building consistency and the power that lies behind functional routines.
The magical thing about habits is that once an activity becomes habitual, it is drastically easier to execute and perform since it's already part of our regular routine or repertoire. Habitual actions require much less willpower and discipline to keep up, meaning that if we keep up that activity, we can successfully start reaping the benefits coming from that activity.
The habits which I talk about below are not only extremely beneficial when practiced over a long course of time but are in a large sense also universally applicable in various areas of our life. These habits have been split into two categories: habits which are beneficial for your career or work life and habits which are foundational for keeping up good health.
My intention today: Discuss 20 different habits in relation to your work and health and to discover how such habits can transform your life if applied as a regular practice.
BEST HABITS FOR YOUR HEALTH
Quitting smoking
Smoking is a seriously harmful habit which, if done regularly, can drastically increase your chances of lung cancer, stroke, dental issues, and other respiratory-related breathing issues that can greatly hinder your quality of life. Even though, as a frequent smoker, one of the hardest decisions you can make for your own health is to quit smoking, it is surely one decision and lifestyle change that is bound to have the best lasting effects on your health and well-being.
Wearing sunscreen regularly
The daily use of sunscreen greatly helps in the prevention of the development of skin cancer and sunburn while also preventing premature aging of the skin. If you are less concerned about the appearance of your skin as you age, then it is recommended as the bare minimum to at least apply sunscreen during the months of highest sun exposure and UV intensity (on the warmest and hottest months with most sun exposure) instead of every day or on cloudier days. Otherwise, dermatologists recommend wearing sunscreen every day, even on less sunny days, and in those instances, using a lower SPF is sufficient. Some time ago, I previously wrote about the importance of wearing sunscreen, which you can read here.
Daily movement
The benefits associated with moving your body are plenty: from better cardiovascular health, joint health, flexibility, improvements in posture, and increasing your overall physical strength and endurance. It is super important to stress that movement comes in many forms and doesn't only include the standard exercising such as going to the gym and running. Please move your body in whatever way feels best to you, whether that is walking, dancing, climbing, swimming, cycling, etc., you name it. I have written about the importance of exercise previously here, so if you are interested, consider checking it out.
Limiting or avoiding alcohol
Although an occasional drink or glass of something will not be the end of the world, alcohol, if drunk in excess, can also greatly harm your health. Excessive drinking of alcohol can cause various cancers such as those of the mouth, throat, and breast, while also predisposing you to stroke, heart disease, and liver damage. While you can have fun while drinking alcohol and every so often is no problem, please do not overdo it. If you want to read more about how to keep a more moderate relationship with alcohol, I have also written about it here and its effects on the body.
Drinking more water
This is rather common advice nowadays, but sometimes we are simply so busy or out of touch with our bodies that we do not drink enough water throughout our day. The standard advice is to drink 2 liters of water per day, but of course, that depends on your age, activity level, and also the temperature of the climate where you live. Making an effort to drink more water, of course, keeps your body and the cells of your body properly hydrated (the osmotic balance in check), which helps with your body's metabolism and energy production, improving the healthiness and appearance of your skin as well as improving the functioning of your kidneys and bowel movements.
Practicing mindful eating
Mindful eating is a rather underrated habit; however, if practiced regularly and with attention, it can have extremely positive outcomes with your relationship with food and other aspects of your health. When we say mindful eating, we refer to eating that is done in a controlled and generally slower pace, where we pay attention to what we are actually eating in terms of its taste, texture, and flavor. This style of eating makes it easier for us to sense our hunger and fullness cues, which can aid in weight-loss goals while also directly improving your digestion and overall satisfaction with the food we eat. Here you can further see the importance of this style of eating.
Getting good quality sleep
It is no secret that sleep is critically important for our functioning and energy throughout the day, along with a myriad of other functions such as boosting memory, helping with your immune system, and being beneficial for your cardiovascular system. By ensuring that you have some sort of evening or sleep routine which works well for you, you make it much easier to ensure good sleep that night. If you would like to know specifically how to improve your sleep or what the benefits of sleeping are, click here.
Time for meditation and stillness
Finding a couple of minutes throughout your day for silence or quiet meditation can also have profound impacts on your health, both physically and mentally. A regular practice of meditation can help with your sleep, anxiety management, as well as improving your emotional intelligence and stress management. Although it is not the easiest habit to begin practicing, I have previously written a blog post with tips on how you can begin practicing meditation and how a sustained meditative practice can help with your well-being. You can find it here. Additionally, a rather underrated way to add value and peace into our lives is to try spending a couple of minutes in complete silence each day while we are awake. Oftentimes, in this busy and fast-paced world we live in, we are exposed to so many sounds and disturbances in our environment that it is hard to truly find the peace of mind to calm down and be able to think clearly. So whenever you can, as during a walk or the first couple of minutes when you wake up or before going to bed, try spending a bit of time in complete silence, even if at the start it is rather uncomfortable.
Adopting a morning routine
Nowadays, there is a lot of talk about the power behind routines, especially morning routines, and for good reason. Although many morning routines that you can nowadays find online are, for most people, completely unrealistic and far too complicated, instead a morning routine should be both enjoyable yet simple and practical enough for you to actually be able to do it more or less every morning. It doesn't have to be long or tiresome, just something that makes you feel good and makes the start of your day feel right and on track. Next week's post will be focused exactly on this topic of routines, why they are actually a fundamental part of our day, and some ideas for what you can include in your own morning routines.
Moments of self-care and time for yourself
Finding some time every day or every week dedicated just for yourself and your own needs is extremely important in the long run for your own personal growth and general well-being. Here I don't mean just time spent relaxing or booking a massage appointment (which if that is what time for you means, then by all means go for it), but I also mean time for you in a more broad sense where, for example, you could read up on a book or article you find fascinating to increase your understanding of a certain topic, or to spend a bit of time every week learning and practicing a new skill you are trying to acquire. All of these activities are extremely beneficial since, at the end of the day, knowledge, experiences, and skills are the raw fuel that fuels whatever you want to do and produce in life. I have also written on the importance of practicing self-care here.
BEST HABITS TO BOOST YOUR CAREER
Practicing deep focus
In a world with so many constant distractions and things to get done, it can be hard to get any proper work done throughout our day. This is why it is essential to be able to block out some time during our workdays where we can truly focus on the chosen tasks at hand and do some actual deep-focused work. Whenever you can, try to make time for work such as this, which will allow you to not only work more efficiently but also the work you produce will be of greater quality. One way to implement more moments of deep-focused work into your routine is to create distraction-free zones in your home which are only meant for focused work and where all other distracting devices will either be completely omitted or put onto silent mode. Similarly, removing as many possible notifications and other unplanned distractions from your environment is also an effective approach to this. Here you can read more about how you can improve your focus abilities
Learning something new every day
As a person, it is really important that we never stop learning and that we continue going through life with an almost childlike state of curiosity to drive us to learn and grow. As a rule of thumb, try to learn something new every day. It doesn't have to be a very big or challenging concept or skill, but in this way, you can day by day become better by 1% which can over time add up to major improvements and growth in your knowledge bank. You can learn such knowledge via reading or watching an interesting video or doing a course or even an in-person workshop for a more hands-on experience at something.
Planning your day in advance
The main advantage associated with planning your day in advance is that the following day when you begin your day, you already exactly know what you have set out to do in that day and waste no more time or precious mental energy to decide what you will dedicate that day to. We actually use a lot of mental energy for making very menial decisions throughout our everyday such as what will we wear, what task should we start first with, how will I get from place A to place B etc., so if we are able to put some energy into thinking this the day before, the following day flows much more easily and efficiently.
Setting daily or weekly goals
I am a big believer in setting goals and setting yourself a general direction in which you want to grow or improve. On a more long-term approach, it can be very useful to set more long-term goals such as goals you aim to achieve within a year, however what often helps to make reaching those larger goals is to set smaller goals on a weekly or daily basis that will get you towards those bigger goals. For example, it is a perfectly reasonable goal to want to save a certain amount of money within 3 months, so to achieve that, you can put a certain amount of money aside each week for example to bring you closer to your goal. Similarly, if you have a goal to lose some weight in the next couple of months, making a daily goal of doing some form of movement for 30 minutes a day can with consistency bring you closer to your goal
Prioritizing your tasks
This goes hand in hand with planning out your day, whereby it is always useful if possible to begin your work with the most difficult or time-consuming task first which will then make all other slightly easier tasks go through more easily. Additionally, it is also important to note that each day, pick out 1 or a maximum of 3 main things which you want to get done, which is far more realistic than picking 20 different things that you want to do but not fully finishing even one of them. Dedicate each day to the completion of something, whatever that may be, whether it is to finish something for a deadline or to take 3 hours in the evening for your family.
Journaling and time for reflection
Journaling or the act of writing out our plans, thoughts, or experiences can be extremely useful in many ways. In terms of your career, journaling about your current successes and goals and areas to improve on can be both very motivational as well as giving you a clearer overview of where you currently are on your journey and where you are heading towards. Making the time to look back on your past work and progress can also be very informative to see what mistakes you had done, what you can learn from them and how to prevent the same mistakes from happening in the future. Essentially, through the process of writing or journaling you are able to distill your thoughts and almost view your thoughts and emotions through a more objective third-person perspective.
Investing in your social life and relationships
I have written about this in one of my recent newsletters where I mentioned that one of the best investments you can make in our life and especially when it comes to your career, is to invest time into the current relationships you have and also in adding new people and new connections into your life. Relationships of all kinds, if functional and sustained, should have mutual effort and time having been invested from both sides to ensure that a trusting bond is built. A variety of strong yet diverse social connections in our life can make our life drastically more meaningful and of course more enjoyable, since at the end of the day, humans are social animals. This doesn't mean that you now need 100 friends, but even if you have a handful of people with whom you are close by with, those relationships can be extremely rewarding.
Expressing gratitude
Although it is rather seen as a cliché nowadays but by intentionally instilling the simple habit of stating a couple of things which you are really grateful for, it can have a very positive outlook on how you see the world. Similar to meditation, you become more in tune with your thoughts and emotions and are able to step back for a little before saying something. Additionally, through gratitude you can reflect on just how many amazing and positive experiences you are able to have in your everyday and by acknowledging them, you genuinely become a more positive person which can help in further attracting new people and opportunities into your life.
Asking for help when needed
Sometimes we have the stubborn mentality that the goal is to be completely self-sufficient and to need to be able to do everything completely by ourselves which could not be more false. Stepping out of your comfort zone to ask for help or to admit that you are still learning about something and would need a hand with it, will save you a lot of time and energy in the long run. Additionally, by becoming more vulnerable with someone about what you require support with, you not only improve your relationship with that person but also up a mutual support system because everyone needs a helping hand with something eventually - and that truly is a sign of strength.
Asking for feedback and critique
If we want to continue striving for growth and progress, it can be extremely beneficial to ask for constructive feedback and critique from someone in the field of what we are working on. When given critique or feedback from someone you trust on something you produce, you shouldn't be sad or angry at the person offering you the critique, but should instead be grateful and try to take into account their ideas or recommendations to further fuel your growth. The exposure to external opinions and viewpoints can be extremely healthy in letting you know what you can still add or improve on which can bring your work and ideas to a completely new level of greatness that could have never been achieved if you just settled with your own view of your own work.
I hope you found some of this advice useful :)
