Small daily habits lead to long-term growth.
The key to your success or your failure lives in your daily habits.
Personal growth is about continuous trial and error.
On the journey to becoming your best self you must test your strengths and reveal your weaknesses.
Expand yourself, glow up and become your best self!
Here are some of the best personal growth habits to start improving your life and yourself today:
Quick Access
Be kind
It costs you nothing.
Everyone you meet is writing their own stories and fighting their own battles.
You don’t know where you walked in and you never know what a massive impact your small act of kindness may have.
Cultivate discipline
Discipline is important because you won’t feel motivated and inspired all of the time. Sometimes the easiest promises to break are the ones that we make to ourselves.
I know I said I was going to do that thing, but I just don’t feel like it..
Stop. Do what you say you’re going to do even if the only person you said it to was yourself.
Make yourself proud.
Even if you can’t do as much as you’d hoped get into the habit of at least showing up.
No zero days.
Having discipline will help you stay consistent.
Try new things
Expose yourself to new ideas and experiences.
You may even learn something new about yourself and grow as a person.
I love routines, but sometimes it can be helpful to switch up your routine in big or small ways.
Fill your life with many experiences instead of many things.
The best personal growth habits involve stepping outside of your comfort zone.
Read
Reading can improve your memory and exercises your brain to reduce mental decline as you age.
Reading fiction in particular heightens your empathy and your ability to relate to others..
But all reading builds your vocabulary, can reduce stress and potentially contribute to a longer life.
Remember that your mental fitness is just as important as your physical fitness.
Manage your time
I have not one but two posts on time management tips for productivity – but managing your time isn’t just about being productive.
Its about making the most of the time that you have and filling it intentionally.
Not spending it mindlessly or procrastinating on things that you really want to do.
Get out of your own way
Your present has a direct impact on your future.
What you do today affects your tomorrow.
That’s something that we all know logically, and yet will still continue to make the easier choices today making things harder on our future self.
I already wrote a whole post about why we do that and how to stop.
But I wanted to add that most of you being in your own way is based on fear.
It can manifest as avoidance, procrastination or even rejecting yourself before someone else gets the opportunity.
Like with imposter syndrome, where you convince yourself that you “aren’t good enough”.
Know that there will be plenty of obstacles in your path – don’t make one of them yourself.
Turn off social media notifications
There is no post, no video, that requires your or my immediate attention.
Alerts and notifications can be very distracting.
Even if you don’t check them right away it will still divide your attention.
There will be that little voice in the back of your mind wondering what it said.
Be the boss of your phone and your time, not the other way around.
Sit up straight
Posture check – are you slouching right now?
It can be really easy to do when we get used to it.
Especially if we spend a lot of time sitting at a computer.
But slouching can lead to aches, pains and more serious problems in the future.
Slouching actually compresses your lungs, giving them less space to expand.
Good posture also makes you appear taller and more confident.
Get into the habit of checking your posture.
Stand up every hour
I think at this point we’ve all heard about research showing that sitting all day is bad for our health.
We know this to be true, yet it’s so easy to be a couch potato.
Although it can be annoying at times, I am grateful that my smart watch goes off at 10 minutes to the hour to let me know if I have taken less than 250 steps.
250 steps is really not a lot.
If you don’t have a smart or fitness watch, try setting an alarm to go off every hour so that you can get up and move your body a little bit.
Laugh more
Ok. Laughter is not always the best medicine.
Usually medicine is the best medicine.
Still, laughter is actually surprisingly good for you.
Of course laughing releases endorphins and can help with reducing tension and lowering stress levels.
But you may not have known that it can also have an anti-inflammatory effect that helps with your heart health.
So make sure you’re laughing every day!
Go outside
Getting outside and into nature doesn’t just boost your creativity, it can help with a lot of things.
Like reducing stress levels, boosting vitamin D levels and even potentially reducing the risk of chronic illnesses.
You don’t just want to go outside, you want to find a nice, peaceful green space without your phone.
If you aren’t big on the outdoors – I get it. (The mosquitoes are terrible all year round where we live!)
All you need is 10-15 minutes spent in a green space to reap these benefits.
Eat healthier
I think we all know the benefits of eating a healthy and balanced diet.
But we also know how delicious pizza is.
Like most things in life, the key is of course balance.
You don’t have to cut out any foods entirely, there are no “bad” foods.
Eating healthier may not always taste as good (sometimes it will!) but it will make you feel better.
Most of us don’t get the recommended amount of fruits or vegetables we should be eating daily.
Judge less
Judging other people can be a difficult habit to break for many reasons.
We see it constantly through our media, it’s almost unavoidable.
Also because it’s a knee-jerk sort of reaction.
But you don’t have to trust the first thought that pops into your head.
No one is perfect and the truth is that your judgments say more about you than the person you’re judging.
While you’re at it, stop judging yourself so harshly too.
Recognize when you’re speaking to yourself in a judgmental way because you’re always listening to yourself.
Negative things will still cross your mind, about both others and yourself, but you need to recognize those negative thoughts and re-calibrate.
Learn Daily
Always, always keep learning and trying new things.
Opening your mind and exposing yourself to new experiences is only going to help you grow as a person.
It’s very important to keep a growth mindset.
Everyone was a beginner once.
Take action
I am a planner – I love to plan.
I am all about that quote “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
However, planning can become a problem when you can plan and research and calculate indefinitely.
But nothing will actually happen until you take some real action.
You need to do the thing before you feel ready, because you’ll never feel completely ready.
Rest when you’re tired
There is a time for action, but that time is not 24/7.
You are not a robot.
Stop pushing yourself so hard and instead take care of yourself.
Life is about balance.
There are times of hard work and hustle, but there are also times of rest.
You need both, or you risk burning out.
Be Mindful
When you read that, the first thing that probably popped into your head was meditating.
While that is one way, being mindful is just about being here now – actually present in the present moment.
Not dwelling on the past, or thinking about the future, but noticing, savoring and appreciating where you are at this moment in time.
Mindfulness can be difficult because it’s so easy to distract ourselves with technology.
Even when we put technology away, our minds continue to race.
That’s why mindfulness is truly a practice – something you have to work at.
The goal is not to control your thoughts – but to stop your thoughts from controlling you.
Prioritize
Prioritizing can be as simple as putting stars next to the top 3 most important tasks on your to do list.
It can also be very intricate and complicated.
The first step, no matter what, is to write things down.
Put your priorities on paper and make a plan.
There is something called the Eisenhower Matrix.. it sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is.
In this case a picture really is worth 1,000 words:
As you might have guessed from it’s name, this method was developed by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
It’s a relatively simple way to decide what must get done and what’s ok if it doesn’t get done.
Journal
There are numerous studies that show journaling is especially good for your personal growth.
While action is great, reflection is also an essential part of growing as a person.
It gives your brain the opportunity to untangle your many experiences and the things you’ve learned.
Often it is easier to see things logically when reflecting back on them instead of when you are in the moment itself.
Further research shows that those who reflect perform better across the board than those who don’t.
I wrote a whole post on how to keep a journal if you’ve tried to keep one in the past but haven’t been able to stay consistent.
Track your habits
We often think that we are doing better than we actually are doing.
Yet we are what we do on a daily basis.. The only way to truly know how you’re doing is to keep some sort of log or tracker.
There are apps for this, or you could use paper.
I actually have a habit tracker in my vault! You can print it out, or upload it to an app like Good Notes and fill it out digitally.
Subscribe to gain access.
If you’re interested in the best personal growth habits, you’ll definitely be interested in my newsletter!
Personally I hate having to break a daily streak of something and I know I’m not alone in that.
Just being able to actually see your progress can be a powerful motivational tool.
Love yourself
Before you can give love, you have to feel love – for yourself.
You have to be the first person to support yourself and your personal growth journey.
You will always have you.
So make the relationship with yourself a good one.
Self-care isn’t selfish.
Take care of yourself first and you will be able to give the world what’s best of you, instead of what’s left of you.
Set boundaries
Boundaries are the limits between you and another person.
Having healthy boundaries is a good thing, they are crucial to many of your relationships.
Communicating these boundaries is also important – the other person may not even realize that they crossed the line of your boundary.
It is important to respect other’s boundaries as well.
Remember that “No” is a complete sentence – whether it’s coming out of your mouth or directed to you.
Budget
Are you surprised to see this one on the list?
The truth is that money matters.
It pays for our shelter, transportation, food and luxuries.
If you have a bad relationship with money, even thinking about making a budget can be stressful.
But understanding how much money you’re earning and where your money is going is so important.
I am not a financial expert, but I do have a budget.
The first step that I took in creating my budget was tracking my expenses.
Learn what your fixed expenses are (things like rent, utilities, insurance, subscriptions etc) but also on average how much you spend on non-essential expenses.
You have to know how much you’re spending before you can set any reasonable limits upon it.
You might find after tracking your spending that you’re spending more than you thought.
There are apps that can do this for you, or you could do it for yourself on paper or in an excel spreadsheet.
It doesn’t have to be complicated.
I could go on, but I digress.
If you’d like me to go into a little more about money management please let me know in the comments below!
For now I’ll leave you with this: if you have to charge it to a credit card you can’t really afford it.
Be Confident
To be confident begins with believing in yourself.
It can be difficult to remain unbothered by the things that others say, but it’s most important that you know your worth.
Stop focusing on what you lack.
No one is perfect but you have so many good qualities and talents.
Confidence is a skill and like other skills it can be learned and honed.
It’s a process but I do believe that this is one skill that it’s ok to fake it til you make it.
Mistakes and failures will happen, but nothing is over until you stop trying.
In conclusion…
Growth is something that you should constantly be doing, it’s a never-ending journey towards becoming your best self.
These are some of the best personal growth habits to help you do just that.
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