5 Rare Habits That Will Transform Your Life in 2023 …

5 daily habits that will transform your personal and professional life.

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• Habits are a crucial part of our personal and professional lives, a set of good habits can set us apart from the pack and assist us in progressing in our careers, health, and relationships. While a set of bad habits can act like excess baggage that drags us down and completely ruin our lives.
• The basis for a good life is having excellent habits. The importance of habits in our daily lives has always fascinated me. Even while we are aware that repeating a particular activity is unhealthy for us and does not advance our long- or short-term goals, we nonetheless feel compelled to do it by our own monkey minds, which makes the topic of habits even more fascinating.
• Regardless of how beneficial or rewarding some behaviors are to our personal development, it appears that our minds somehow manage to convince us to put off or avoid engaging in them. Everyone struggles with poor habits; no one is immune. Poor habits keep us from achieving our full potential and accomplishing our goals.

“All people are the same; only their habits differ.” ― Confucius

• In this article I’ll be sharing these five rare habits that I have cultivated over the years that have helped me grow personally and professionally and, they can help you as well. So let’s get started.

1. Don’t Look Into Your Phone First Thing In The Morning

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• According to a survey from Reviews.org, 71 percent of people check their phone within 10 minutes of waking up. Most people can’t leave their phones at home without feeling uneasy. 45 percent of Americans call it their most valuable possession.
• As soon as we wake up, we pick up our phones and begin mindlessly scrolling, checking our notifications, watching the news, and replying to work emails. Do you realize the harm it does to our brains?
• According to Dan Ariely professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, the first two to three hours of the day are the best hours for your brain, once you fully wake up. So if you pop out of bed at 7 am, your peak thinking and productivity window is from 7:30 am to 10 am. Most of us hijack this window by scrolling social media and watching reels the moment we wake up.
• Reading about the success story of a 22-year-old making millions on the internet, friends going on vacations, having kids, 100 people dying in a plane crash in the middle east, and a bunch of other random information that doesn’t serve any long-term purpose and isn’t healthy for your brain in the morning. Social media unconsciously puts us in a mindset where we start comparing our imperfect real life with the perfect reel life of others on social media.
• What an exhausting activity for the brain. Even before starting our day, we are making our brains infertile for the tasks ahead.
• In the last several years, taking control of my morning has been a game changer for my productivity. By refusing to pick up my phone first thing in the morning, I’ve been able to improve many areas of my life.

This is what my morning routine looks like:

• Because I’m not glued to my phone, One of my favorite parts of the morning ritual is when my mind begins to wander as soon as I wake up. Typically, I come up with topics to write about, as well as ideas, viewpoints, insights, and tidbits that help me better understand myself, improve my writing and the world around me, I share all of it in my articles.
• I write them all down, then I read for about an hour the book I’m reading at the time, and then I take a shower. I start using my phone when I sit down for work and attend to the important notifications first and ignore the rest of them.
• This little morning routine has helped me become more productive, happier, consistently creating content, and more satisfied with my life.

2. Start Working Out

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• I’ve written extensively about my experience of working out in many articles; I owe my life to this one habit. It’s the cheapest way to solve a lot of your problems. I’ve been working out 4–5 times a week for the past 18 months, and it’s been the best decision I’ve ever made because it’s made my life so much better, stabilized my mood, improved my health, helped me focus better, and helped me lose the weight that made me feel tired and frustrated. It has inspired me to eat a balanced diet.
• The biggest mistake people do in their fitness journey is by setting unrealistic goals and starting out all guns blazing only to be bogged down by work and personal obligations later on. You should know why you are starting to work out and what your end goal is. It is easy to see someone having six packs and aiming for that goal.

Ask yourself, Do we have the same lifestyle and work obligations?

Can I sustain it for a long time?

Is it what I really want?

• If the answer is no, then don’t even think about chasing it. Define your fitness goals at the start of the journey, For instance, I wanted to strengthen my entire body, get to a weight that was right for my height, and keep up this fitness lifestyle for the rest of my life.
• I started small and build on that gradually, your goals may be different from mine, but they must be defined by you and must not come from a point of comparison.
• Moving your body, even if it’s just taking a stroll in the park or lifting weights, is the simplest approach to improving your mood and focus. The goal is to move your body; if you’re too busy to do anything, then stretch for 5 minutes every 30 to 40 minutes and you’ll feel better right away.

3. Practice Gratitude

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• No matter how much the universe has given us we always want more, it is how we are wired. It is one of the reasons we have progressed so much as a species, but in the pursuit of bigger and better things, we have given up control over our time, freedom, and happiness.
• It is easy to get consumed with all the work and life obligations, and not acknowledge how far we’ve come and how many blessings the universe has showered on us.
• If I had to tell you one thing that will help you in maintaining tremendous joy throughout your life. Then that would be to remain grateful for everything in your life. Ungratefulness is a poison that contaminates every aspect of our life.
• Thank the universe or god or whatever creative energy you believe in. For the ones who left you, the people who are still with you, your struggles, all the joyous moments, the things you haven’t gotten, and the things you have gotten. Be thankful for everything because the universe will not provide us with experiences, people, or things that we are not ready for because it knows better than we do.
• A 2003 study published in the journal of personality and social psychology found that Gratitude leads to more positive emotions, people who feel grateful experience more happiness, joy, and pleasure on a daily basis.
• Gratitude improves social lives, grateful people are more willing to forgive others and they are more likely to help other people and behave in a more generous and compassionate manner.
• People who feel gratitude have a better immune system and report fewer aches and pains. They take better care of their health, sleep longer and even report feeling more refreshed upon waking.
• So you’ll be rewarded in more than one way for truly feeling grateful every day.

4. Devote Time For Deep Work

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• We are constantly juggling multiple things each day. Scrolling Instagram while walking, sending a WhatsApp message, and cooking at the same time. Checking our Facebook while we are in a meeting. Watching Instagram and TikTok videos for hours on end and procrastinating on things that are actually important for our well-being. The constant stream of endless notifications, and we somehow find the time and attention to address each one of them.
• By continuously engaging in these unworthy activities, our brains have been wired for distraction, we almost crave distraction after every few minutes, and we find it difficult to concentrate on a single task for more than a few minutes.
• Your life isn’t going to improve by addressing all of your notifications and mindlessly consuming content.
• In this information age, every marketer, advertiser, content creator, and social media application is after your attention. They want you to spend time on their apps, products, and services so that they could make money.
• But to create something that is rare and valuable we must treat our attention as if it's our most valuable currency. One approach to do that is to schedule time for the activities, jobs, and projects that are important to you. We can’t create or learn something valuable in a state of fragmented attention.
• Keep your phone on airplane mode for a while and set aside some time during your day to work on any task, skill, or project that is meaningful or important to you. It teaches your mind to be disciplined, focused and rewires your mind and increases your attention span as well.
• In a distracted world, the ability to concentrate on a single task for a few hours is a superpower.

5. Start Reading

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• If it weren’t for reading books, I wouldn’t be here writing this post; during the past few years, this habit has completely changed my life. My quest for self-improvement began the day I picked up my first book. Reading provided me with a sense of purpose, and comfort, and helped me become a lifelong learner.
• When you read books, it can be anything from philosophy, psychology, self-help, mental health, autobiographies, business, or anything of your liking.
• You’re going to pick up new knowledge and viewpoints, which will alter the way you perceive the world and how you think about it. Additionally, those new thought patterns will assist you in making smart and practical decisions throughout your life.
• It improves your understanding of the numerous aspects of human behavior, and as a result, your chances of better understanding your fellow humans increase.
• The new thinking patterns will assist you in updating old beliefs and old methods of doing things, as well as in helping you toss out outdated beliefs that were not benefiting you. Through those revised ideas, you are able to view the world in a new way.
• Your ability to focus and concentrate is an added benefit of reading books and it’s one of the healthiest ways of consuming content.
• One of the best ways to learn anything is through reading books, a lot of successful people such as Bill gates, Warren Buffett, Ray Dalio, Oprah Winfrey, Barak Obama, Priyanka Chopra, Mark Zukerberg, and countless others attribute a huge chunk of their success to their habit of reading books.
• If you are not a reader then in the article below I’ve shared 5 practical tips that will assist you in getting started with reading books.

The Ultimate Guide To Help You Build A Reading Habit In 2023 …

Final Advice:

• Whenever you decide to inculcate any habit in your life, always start small. Making a significant change in our lives, routines, or habits requires mental toughness. It requires self-control, patience, time, and discipline. Small steps take out fear from the equation. In hindsight, small steps will turn out to be big steps that will change your life.

Small Steps for these habits:

1. Don’t Look Into Your Phone First Thing In The Morning — Do it for the first five minutes every day for the first 2 weeks.

2. Working Out — Take a walk or stretch in your living room for 10 minutes.

3. Practice Gratitude — Write one thing you’re grateful for each day.

4. Devote time for Deep Work —Spend 15 minutes each day working on something important to you.

5. Start Reading — Begin reading 1–5 pages per day.

That’s it from my side. Do share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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