Table of Contents
“If you stand up in the morning, consider what a precious privilege it is to live – breathe, think, enjoy, to love.”
Marcus Aurelius
The alarm bell is going. You slowly open your eyes.
A new day is in front of you.
A day of unexplored potential and opportunities. How can you make it more likely to be a positive and good day?
Today I just want to share 7 habits that I used to make my mornings and whole days better.
1. Have a reminder of your bedside table.
How do you start your very first moments and minutes of the day?
A good way to start well is to have a note, a reminder on your bedside table that will be one of the first things you see after you are awakened.
A few suggestions for what you need to write down on your note:
A low bar for happiness.
Write down: “Today I lay a low bar for happiness”. Read it and try to keep it in mind during the day.
This helps me to appreciate things more.
The food, my work, the weather, the people and the small events of the day do not become daily things, but something I feel happy that I have. The little things or something can be that you naturally consider, becomes something that I often pause to take and appreciate.
Your top 3 priorities in life at the moment.
To keep your attention in the right place, it is essential to remind yourself every day of what is really the most important thing.
So what is the most important thing for you this year? A project at work? Your family? Improving your social life? Your blog, photography, football or debts?
Think about it and reduce what is important in your life to the top 3 of the most important priorities.
2. Give a real compliment.
Giving a real compliment to your partner, a family member, friend or colleague during your morning can not only lift his or her day, but also make yours a little brighter and happier.
So use what you can appreciate for a person in your life. Then tell him or her that.
If you can, make something that might be a bit unexpected and something that person has heard a hundred times before.
A compliment about her great taste of music or its beautiful way with animals, for example, can become more appreciated and more powerful than a compliment about appearance and other more superficial things.
3. Positive information -intake during breakfast.
Instead of seeing the news or reading the papers and getting a negative and perhaps depressing start of your day, do something that will inspire you.
- Read one or a few new messages from positive, funny And uplifting blogs or websites.
- Read a chapter from a book that inspires you (or a handful of quotes that motivate you).
- Or just have a nice and warm conversation with the people around your kitchen table.
4. Start your working day with your most important task of the day.
If you do that, the rest of the day will feel lighter and easier. You will feel better about yourself and more confidently if you continue with other tasks.
If you have trouble getting started with the most important task, just make a deal with yourself to work on it for 3 minutes. Then you can stop if you want.
But you may not want once you have started. That usually seems to be the case for me.
Getting started is usually the most difficult part. So make that part easier for yourself.
5. Go slowly.
If I go a little slower, it becomes easier to fully concentrate, to keep the stress low and I usually do better work with something the first time.
I work with more clarity and I don’t often get stuck in doing busy work.
It can feel like I can’t get enough done, but at the end of the day I usually get more quality work done than if I tried to maintain a high speed during the day.
Partly because the lower stress levels keep my mind fresh and energy up in the last few afternoon hours of the working day.
Try to go a little slower. See how it works for you.
6. Train.
Often mentioned and for a good reason. It has many positive benefits.
I train several times a week and with that I encourage my energy, inner doubts and tensions, I feel more decisive and my mind is becoming more optimistic.
And all that makes the rest of the day lighter.
I strongly recommend doing a kind of exercise in the morning. If you can’t go to a gym or work out from home early in the day, you might walk or cycle to work or school.
7. Do the right one in a small or large way.
This increases your self -respect. It takes a spring in your step and it makes me happier.
So do what you think deep inside, is the right one.
A few examples that can resonate with you:
- Perform a random act of kindness. Hold the door up or point on the road for someone who seems to be lost.
- Help someone practically or just by listening.
- Get started with placing a dent in the most important challenge in your life.
Build just a small step, a small thing if you want. Start building an upward spiral of positivity and good feelings inside. And then take further steps up.
On the way to what you know you really want and you know that you are the right things for you in your life.