Start Here

With all of staying home like the good humans we are, I figured we should at least have an idea of what habits have the most impact and what can make the most changes in our lives. It’s about growing from what we were to what we can be. Granted, if you’re still adjusting to the new ‘normal’, take your time, it’s not going to be the end of the world if you stay in your pajamas.

But you might feel better if you get out of them.

All right, here’s a list of five things that take no prep to start.

Now, because I also believe that things build on each other, don’t try to do all five today and expect it to stick. 

1. Drink Enough Water– If you are feeling a little stuck and just not feeling good, especially since we can’t just go and do things like we’re used to, start by drinking enough water. The recommended amount is about half your weight in ounces. If in doubt of what you weigh, start with eight eight-ounce glasses. Or if you only have beer glasses at home, four of those. See if you feel your mind moving faster or at least a little less sluggish. 
2. Start walking around your place. Don’t keep a jug of water near you. Get a little glass and drink from it pretty regularly, take your phone with you and it’ll usually have some sort of health app that you can see how many steps you took during the day. The recommended amount is at 10,000 but more than 5,000 can be the ticket in this mess of the economy. I would say workout or do yoga also count, but not everybody has that stuff at home. We’re working on the stay at home for your health projects right now. 
3. Journal. I’m talking the boring, write what you did today stuff. Document your done list. Feel that accomplishment as you get another thing off your own honey-do list. We might also have a day and age when they don’t know what something we use is, and your journal might just tell them. We still don’t know what the third thing they had besides salt and pepper in the Victorian Era. Make a historian happy.
4. Gratitude on four things. I know people preach the power of three things on your gratitude, but man, pushing it to four means that you have to come up with something. It can’t be a pat answer because you already used those. 
5. Study something new. Learn. There is something to be said of getting further on a project because you finally sat down and did it. I’ve found that a chapter of some book a day is enough to make sure that I am getting someone’s thoughts on a subject instead of just my own. You can also watch an educational thing. I like TED talks. They can be on any topic. But a recommendation is that you find something happy. Don’t go looking for the nitty gritty stuff. We’re working on making a better life right now. You can study the dark stuff later.

These things build on each other. But when you see what you get done each day even though it doesn’t feel like much, it can add up. If you want you can just have a running list for the week, that usually looks a little more impressive and helps set the tone for a week.  This is also a strange time, I’m not going to tell you to eat healthy, be active, and practice all the normal self development stuff.  I’m just giving you steps to get you on the tracks. 

The thing I learned from implementing the water thing, which was actually the last of these habits I implemented, is that all bits and bobs of myself worked better with the water. I stopped practicing bad habits because I could literally feel the difference. I finally quit drinking the daily soda that I used as a method of waking myself up. It wasn’t something that I enjoyed drinking anymore, but something that I relied on. It wasn’t a pretty picture. My family has history of osteoporosis and thyroid issues so basically, I was making everything worse than it could have been.

So the point is to start small and see what makes the biggest difference. This change in our lives can be a good thing. It might not look like what we thought it would like when we changed habits that don’t make us happy but we sure can come out of this a better person. 

Because that is the point of life, is to be better than we were yesterday.