When you think about life what picture comes into your mind? Do you think of your life as a struggle? Or a burden? Have you seen people who stroll through life as though they are having fun? Nothing bothers them, they seem in control.
Well, as you know, I believe that most of life is about habits. There are positive habits and negative habits. If you want to improve your life, cultivate more of the positive habits. This is the simplest equation in life. If you are interested in more of my articles about habits – there are a few recommendations:
- Habits for a Happier Life at Home
- How to Adopt a Journaling Habit
- The Habit of Embracing Change
- How to create a routine of habits for winning?
By the end of this short article, you will have a list of ten positive habits as ideas which you can use to improve your life. Don’t take this as the end of your journey, this is just the beginning. Keep reading and keep discovering other positive habits.
Personal experience
This week, I am again drawing inspiration from “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff … and it’s all small stuff” (link to Goodreads). I am very deliberate about the positive habits which I am developing and, in this book, I found a lot of ideas I have already been exposed to, but formulated in an outstanding manner.
What I really like about the ten positive habits below is that they are quite simple (but not easy) to develop. As everything else, you need to keep reminding yourself about them.
Ten positive habits
- Be patient. This is an essential skill for inner peace. It adds a layer of ease and acceptance in your life.
- Allow yourself to be bored. This way you will learn to replace the feeling of boredom will a feeling of peace. Sit and look through the window, noticing your feelings. It will be difficult in the beginning but you will get better at it.
- Seek first to understand then to be understood. This is not about who is right, this is a philosophy of effective communication.
- Expect disapproval in your life and you will be pleasantly surprised when you receive approval. Accept that most people are different than you and that they have their own agendas.
- Be genuinely interested in other people’s lives and choices. Especially, when they are very different from you. Judging others takes a lot of energy
- Learn to breathe before you speak. This will create a nice pause between the end of what the person you are talking to is saying and your response. It will give you an opportunity to hear and process everything that other people say. And it will make you a great listener.
- Spend some time deliberately reading books and articles with different point of view than yours. This way you will learn to keep an open mind and not be rigid in your opinions.
- Treat your problems as potential teachers. Learn not to struggle against them but to embrace them. What is the problem going to teach you? How can you better respond to it?
- Define your most stubborn opinions and try to soften them. This will teach you to be gentler. Most of your options are about “small stuff”.
- Love. Love is its own reward. Be a love source and do not try to get love.
One action
If you take only one thing from this article, allow yourself to be bored. Take it one step further, teach yourself to be bored so that you can learn to turn boredom into peace.