#GrowYourLife
As I pointed out in my last blog post, our minds often prevent us from accomplishing our New Year’s resolutions and after while, whether from procrastination or lost focus, our resolutions fall by the wayside. For those of you out there who set new year’s resolutions vs concrete goals, I have an experiment for you to try this first quarter of the year: rather than set new year’s resolutions, why not aspire to new habits in each of the seven life areas? After while they will soon become a lifestyle…a happier, healthier lifestyle… by doing little things every day.
The 7 Life Areas
As a reminder, the 7 life areas are:
Physical Relational
Financial Personal
Professional Philanthropical
Spiritual
Try these examples, and choose ones of your own. Comment below your different ideas and let us all know of your progress:
Physical:
Buying a gym membership at the beginning of the year isn’t always a good idea. While you might have the best intention at the outset, keeping the traction as the year goes on may be more difficult, especially when your calendar gets filled up with work and social events. Instead, use a calendar app, such as Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook, to block out time every day for fitness. It can be as little as 15 minutes where you get up from your desk and take a walk outdoors.
Professional:
Become a lifelong-learner. Get in the habit of reading, watching YouTube tutorials, or taking an online webinar regularly. Whether in an area of interest for your present job or business, or for the future job or business you want to have, learning a little everyday compounds eventually to expert level. Personally, I listen to audio books on Audible.com while I work out, that helps me kill two birds with one stone. Sign-up today and receive your first book download for free. If you can’t shell out the monthly membership fee to Audible, please remember every library these days has free audio books you can download to your smartphone for a period of time.
Relational:
Everyone’s busy, I get it, but if you don’t carve out time from your busy schedule, your relationships will soon suffer. Calendar a once-a-week date night (and if at first that seems impossible, start with twice-a-month). Switch back and forth which partner does the organizing, reservations, etc and that way it doesn’t become a burden to one and an “appearance” by the other. When you finally can make it weekly, I recommend that only one of the four date nights a month be devoted to logistical conversations around calendared events, upcoming kid’s activities, vacation planning, etc. Make sure the general purpose of these date nights is to HAVE FUN TOGETHER.
Personal:
Start the habit of creating some “me” time. Begin with once-a-week, and build up to a daily meditation or prayer practice, alone time reading, or a hobby just for you. I try to do a “Power Hour” at least 4 times a week to start my day including journaling, visualizations, and a 10 minute meditation (be looking for my soon-to-be-released FREE 7-part meditation audio series and a future blog post on the benefits of mindfulness). Hal Elrod of the The Miracle Morning podcast and author of bestselling book The Miracle Morning advocates a morning routine of S.A.V.E.R.S:
Silence
Affirmations
Visualizations
Exercise
Reading
Scribing (journaling)
Well, you get the idea, start small and build. Soon your habits will become subconscious, the same way we learned to brush our teeth, and after while they become a lifestyle.
Please share your ideas and progress with the SuccessSeries Community by leaving a comment below.
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