My Bad Habits - Self Improvement

5 Self Improvement Tips

2012-03-25T10:06:00.004-07:00

Whether it's being able to run a bit longer, learning how to be a better parent, improving your skills on a musical instrument, earning more, increasing the quality of friends, discovering more of the world by traveling, learning how to be at peace, or anything else, one of the great joys in life is knowing that you are growing in some aspect. There tons of self improvement tips that you can apply to your daily routine in order to start making incremental improvements in the overall quality of your life. The following are 5, in random order, that I find to be useful.

1. Keep a Journal

There's just something awesome about writing down your thoughts. Whether I'm feeling inspired or down, writing in my journal helps to organize my thoughts and gets me to feel better. I used to write in an actual journal but now I use a software. I don't write about things like what I had for lunch though. For the most part, I stick to writing about the progress of my goals and dreams, anything interesting I learned or notice about myself, and my challenges.

When I write about my current challenges, I also add things that I can do to help improve the situation. Even if I can't come up with anything at the moment, simply writing these things down helps to ease my mind. One of the things I love to do is to read back on past entries to see what my thoughts were at the time and to see how my thinking has progressed through the years. I often notice patterns in my thinking and actions that I haven't noticed before which I can then use to adjust my actions so that I don't repeat the same mistakes in the future. Also, being able to read back some of the things I learned at the time helps to remind me of those powerful lessons.

2. Watch Your Diet and Exercise

As we get older, our health will typically become more and more important to us. Taking care of your health isn't something you want to wait until your doctor gives you bad news. If you want to live a long and vibrant life, you're going to have to make an effort to develop the habit of eating the right foods and exercising. What you decide to put into your body on a consistent basis will have a major impact on your health down the road. Read books on healthy eating to become more educated on the subject. Often times, it's when we understand the reason why we should eat certain foods and why we shouldn't eat certain foods that we able to make a permanent change in what we eat. There's a big difference between knowing certain foods will make you gain weight and knowing certain foods will clog up your arteries and eventually cause a heart attack or a stroke.

When it comes to exercise, just keep it simple. If you're currently not moving very much, move more! In an age where many of us have jobs where we're sitting most of the day, daily exercise has become even more important. You don't need to run on a treadmill if you don't enjoy doing that. You could take a walk, move faster during the day, take up a fun activity like martial arts or rock climbing, or even get one of those desk cycling gadgets so you can workout your legs while working at your desk. If time is an issue for you and you don't mind going to the gym, try high intensity interval training.

3. Accept the Price

Since many people associate self improvement with achieving goals, then here is a tip that can help increase your chances of actually obtaining those goals. Before you start on a goal, take the time to figure out what it takes to accomplish it in terms of time, money, energy, resources, etc. From there, double or even triple those numbers. Now that you have a good idea of what it is going to really take to achieve your goals, you can decide whether or not you are willing to accept the price.

When you decide to put time into reaching a goal, you're taking time away from something you used to do. Are you willing to lose some sleep? How about cutting down your TV time? If your goal has to do with money, perhaps it's going to mean cutting down your expenses and forgoing certain things that you've grown accustomed to.

In other words, are you willing to make the sacrifices that are necessary to achieve your goals? Once you decide to accept the price, you'll have an easier time dealing with the struggles and challenges that are bound to show up.

4. Learn/Try Something New

A great way to improve yourself is to learn or try something new. Learn a new language. Learn to play an instrument. Read on a daily basis. Try an activity you haven't tried before. Take classes. Learn to cook. Step out of your comfort zone and do something that scares you a bit every week. Travel.

When you do something new, you'll likely learn something. When you consciously engage in things that keeps your mind active like learning a new skill, you'll be sharper, have better memory, and so on. If you're a bit older, then doing these things can help slow down things like memory loss.

5. Contribute

When you give, you're basically telling your brain that you have more than enough. When you have that mental state of abundance, positive things will usually come into your life. You know the saying, "What goes around comes around." Many people who give will tell you that they receive a lot more in return through indirect ways. I don't really buy into the new age mystical stuff but I do know that when you give, it makes you happy and when you're happy, it affects the way you act and of course, the actions you take will have a major impact on how your life plays out.

Contributing doesn't just mean donating money. It could mean giving your time as well. Volunteer, help brighten up someone's day, smile at people more, be kind... you don't need money to contribute. You can even start a blog to help encourage and motivate people :)

There are obviously a lot more tips on self improvement that can help improve the quality of your life. Do you have any tips you'd like to share? If so, please share them in the comments section.

Inspirational Quotes and Sayings

2012-03-03T16:52:00.003-08:00

The following is a small collection of inspirational quotes and sayings that I like. I'll be adding to the list as I find more. Feel free to add any of your own within the comments section.

"Do, or do not. There is no 'try'." - Yoda

"Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed." - George Burns

"The consequences of today are determined by the actions of the past. To change your future, alter your decisions today." - Anonymous

"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." - Steve Jobs

"Nobody gets to live life backward. Look ahead, that is where your future lies." - Ann Landers

"What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you do now." – Buddha

"20 years from now you will be disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the one’s you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

"The only reason we don’t have what we want in life is the reasons we create why we can’t have them." - Tony Robbins

"Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change." – Jim Rohn

"So long as there is breath in me, that long I will persist. For now I know one of the greatest principles on success; if I persist long enough I will win." - Og Mandino

"Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything." - Napoleon Hill

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." - Thomas Edison

"Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses." - George W. Carver

"Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever." - Lance Armstrong

"I am not discouraged because every wrong attempt discarded is a step forward." - Thomas Edison

"When you feel like giving up, remember why you held on for so long in the first place." - Anonymous

"To be a champ, you have to believe in yourself when nobody else will." - Sugar Ray Robinson

"Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to become successful." - Zig Ziglar

Our Habits Create Our Destiny

2012-02-22T08:10:00.000-08:00

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

If you want to know why your life is where it is today, look at your past habits. If you want to know where your life will be 10 years from today, look at your current habits.

If you have a habit of eating junk food, it's going to affect your health. If you have a habit of procrastinating, it's going to affect your level of success. The difference between those who are successful in life and those who are failures in life comes down to what they do on a daily basis.

Is it hard to go to the gym just once? Of course not. Is it hard to do it consistently for the rest of your life? It will be at first, but once that action becomes a habit, it's easy. Ask anyone who's working out for years if it's a struggle for them to hit the gym and they'll tell you it's like brushing their teeth, it's automatic.

The point is simple. If you want your life to change, look at your habits. Create the necessary ones and eliminate the counter productive ones. Once you've done that, let time do the rest.

Become a Dreamer Again

2012-02-21T15:32:00.001-08:00

Most of us have grand goals and dreams. We want to truly believe that we're capable of great things. We all, at least at one point in our life, were confident in our ability to make those dreams a reality. Along the way, many of us experienced something that took that confidence away, life. We are told of all kinds of limitations from authority figures.

We may have mentioned our dreams to people and all we got back were discouraging words of doubt. This happens over and over until we start to believe that perhaps those people were right. However, we want to prove them wrong so we set a goal and go out to accomplish it only to be dealt with a setback. We try again. And again. Just once more. We now have the experience of the pain of disappointment and failure. Coupled with the laughter of those who told us to get our head out of the clouds, we naturally shrink our dreams down to an uninspiring size. We spend the rest of our life wondering if we were meant for more.

The illusions of what is impossible is true until it's revealed that it's possible. How many stories have we all heard of individuals who defied the odds and ended up doing the seemingly impossible? Although the reality is that not everything is possible, most people don't come anywhere near their true potential so greatly underestimating ourselves is just as "foolish" as setting an impossible goal. Dream big dreams but just make sure the daily tasks that are required from you is within your ability. Remember that there's only 24 hours in a day.

The dreamers of the world are the ones who make life inspiring. Dreamers help to open the eyes of those who have gone through more pain of disappointment than they can handle. The accomplishment of dreamers helps to give the rest of us hope and gets us to question our limitations.

Believing that you can do more and become more and thinking about setting up a plan to make it happen can be scary. The possibility of pain will always be there but who said accomplishing great things is easy? It takes courage to follow your dreams despite past failures and ridicule from those around you. It's why the phrase, "Dare to dream" exists. It's not easy but the more of us who go for our dreams anyway, the more eyes we will reopen.

"It is better to shoot for the stars and miss than aim at the gutter and hit it."

Isn't it about time you stand up for your dreams and protect it?

New Year, New You

2012-01-02T08:31:00.000-08:00

If you want to make this year a great year and have basically been setting the same resolutions each year, perhaps it's time to do something a bit different. Instead of focusing on a resolution, focus on developing the right habits.

One of the reasons why many people give up on their goals is because of disappointments, they don't get the results they were expecting fast enough. This could be due to a lot of things such as an unrealistic timeline or circumstances not within their control. If you instead focus on developing habits that will lead to the accomplishment of your goals, the results will be completely under your control. You'll either follow through or you won't. The beauty of it all is that once the habits are developed, it'll just be matter of time before you reach your goals.

For example, instead of setting the goal of losing 50 pounds, focus on developing the habits of exercise and proper diet. When those habits are a part of your everyday life, not only will it become easier as time goes by, you'll also keep the weight off as well. This is the power of habits, whether good or bad, the actions are near automatic.

If you can align those habitual actions towards an outcome that you want, slowly but surely, your life will change.

So drop the resolutions and pick up some good habits.

Eat Radishes but Stay Away from Those...

2012-01-01T10:22:00.000-08:00

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Good Conferencing Habits: Or, How I Learned to Have Fun and Still Get Some Sleep

2012-01-01T10:16:00.000-08:00

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What Went Right? You Focused On One Habit!

2011-12-01T10:10:00.000-08:00

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What Roy Halladay Can Teach Us About the Importance of Habits

2011-11-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

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