10 Things you can do everyday to become a better person.

1. Wake up early — Waking up even just an hour early everyday will give you a great head-start to your day. You can utilize this time to set your priorities and plan your day head. “Failing to plan is planning to fail”.
2. Make Your Bed — “An object remains in rest unless and until acted upon by an external force.” Inertia and Momentum, these two terms might seem vaguely familiar if you paid enough attention at school. What is your aim everyday, to get things done. Why not start with the easiest of things first and set the ball rolling in motion, this will give you momentum to do greater and harder things. If you do not already have a to-do list, See point number 5, otherwise add two things at the top of your list — Wake Up and Make your Bed. Check these two things off as soon as you get up and you have already accomplished two things within the first two minuted of your day. Whoa, imagine if you could keep that momentum through out the day.
3. Meditate — Meditation has been proven to be effective in putting a check on that annoying and incessant mind chatter. What better way to start your day with a clear, open and receptive mind. Remember, your mood in the morning sets the tone for your entire day.
4. Affirmations — The subconscious mind is a mysterious and an extremely complex piece of machinery but it works on very simple principles. The subconscious mind blindly follows orders that it takes from your conscious mind. If you wake up thinking about how awful your life is, how tiring your job is, and how nobody loves you, and how you are just a middle class guy from nowhere who can never become anything, well guess what, your subconscious mind will make sure that all those beliefs turn into reality. The subconscious mind has no filter, it does not know what is real and what is imagined, it accepts everything that the conscious mind feeds it raw. Remember the computer science concept of “Garbage In, Garbage Out”, well your mind is the most powerful supercomputer that exists. Take 5 minutes and think about what you want to become, how you want to improve and remember to always focus on the positives and use positive words.
5. Be more Grateful — According to evolutionary psychology, we humans learnt to concentrate on harmful or negative things in life because that is what kept us alive in the ancient days, you had to be constantly aware of predators prowling around you, you had to be aware of the poisonous mushrooms that might kill you, this is no longer a necessity for us, it is a sad way to spend your entire day complaining and thinking about things that went or might go wrong.There are a hundred things that go right every day, do you know how many miraculous inventions and discoveries make it possible for the elevator to come when you press the button, when you get your morning cup of coffee, it was only possible because of all the people involved in the process from growing the beans in a remote village in South America to your barista, you should be thankful to all of them. There is an affirmation used in the Zen Buddhist practice “Thank you for everything, i have no complaints whatsoever”, repeat this to yourself as often as possible and see your state of mind and energy change.
6. To-do-List — We already have a million things to think about everyday, do you really want to put a bigger burden on your already overworked brain ? Keeping a to-do-list makes organizing and prioritizing your daily tasks much simpler. It is similar to when you take down notes during a lecture which helps you distill information and retain the most important parts. When you put something down in writing, it is the first step in taking that abstract thought and converting it into something concrete, and when you do this action follows consequently.
7. Read every day — There is an infinite wealth of knowledge available to us at our fingertips today through the miracle of internet, which, again is something you should be thankful for. Take advantage of this privilege, you don’t have to go through a book every day, you could even just read a one page blog post that could change your life like the one you are reading now *wink. Reading is a habit of the most successful people on the planet. It has been scientifically proven that reading stimulates your mind and improves your memory, improves not only your vocabulary but also your analytical thinking skills, increases focus and concentration to name a few.
8. Listen to a Motivational Podcast/Ted Talk — Motivation like every other thing on this universe doesn’t last forever. Motivation is like any other emotion that comes and goes, after watching an inspiring movie or an amazing Ted talk, you might be brimming with motivation ready to take action, but all of us have experienced it fizzle out, soon we fall back into our comfort zones, get distracted by other things or are constrained by our limiting beliefs and negative and repetitive thought patterns. The only way to stay motivated is to make it a habit, make it part of your morning routine, sneak it somewhere into that to-do list i mentioned earlier or every time you make a cup of coffee, make sure that you also fill your cup of motivation. Just to make it a little more easier to get you started, here are two awe-inspiring podcasts that i listen to:
   www.thenewmanpodcast.com/
   https://unmistakablecreative.com/podcasts
9. Physical Exercise — Numerous studies have shown that no matter how much you exercise, sitting for excessively long periods of time is a risk factor for early death. Physical Exercise leads to a number of chemical changes in your body that make you happier. As we age, we are constantly losing our stores of Dopamine, the chemical that is necessary for feelings of pleasure and happiness, one of the easiest ways to increase your dopamine levels is Exercise. When you exercise, you’re actually subjecting yourself to a low-level form of stress by raising your heart rate and triggering a burst of hormonal changes. When you subject yourself to the stress of exercise enough, your body will eventually get better at handling the rest stress in everyday life. “A Healthy body means a healthy mind”
10. Write down 10 Ideas Everyday — They say ideas don’t come cheap, they actually do but most of them are bad ones. It’s all a numbers game though, if you can come up with enough ideas, once in a while at least one of them is going to strike gold. Even J K Rowling was rejected 12 times before she could get her book published. There is also this bullshit idea that creativity is something people are born with, not at all true, It is just another limiting belief and excuse people throw around because they don’t want to put in the work. “Creativity is the brains invisible muscle that when used and exercised routinely becomes better and stronger.” So make it a habit of using that muscle and treat it like any other muscle you would in the gym, start small and progressively overload, write down at least 10 ideas, it doesn’t matter how absurd they are, what matters is the effort you put in.

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Published November 13, 2018November 13, 2018

Originally published at unravelingexistence.wordpress.com on November 13, 2018.