Positive habits Archives - from Gnome to Goliath

Ten Positive Habits to Improve Your Life

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:

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.

How to create a routine of habits for winning?

Whether you like it or not, your life runs mostly on habits. In this article, I will show you a way to define positive habits for winning.

Today I am going to explore one of my favourite topics – habits. In this article I will walk you through the steps I took to create a winning habit for winning at my favourite sports – tennis.

In 2019, after I moved to a new neighbourhood, I joined a local tennis club. I have always been into tennis, but it is so hard to keep playing the sport when you are moving all around the world. But this time, I was set upon becoming part of the community. I signed up for all events, which included playing as a sub in the C-team for the local inter-county doubles league. Now, three years later, I am member of the board and I continue to play on the C-team team.

Playing tennis competitively, even as an amateur, is very different than playing tennis for fun. In 2021, inspired by reading about Michael Phelps (in the book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg – link to Goodreads), I created a small routine for myself to repeat before every point. It worked! This year, as soon as the inter-county started, I happened to be reading another book on the same subject (Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg – link to Goodreads) and I decided to create a full match-wide routine for playing tennis.

Here, I will show you how I did it. I hope that you will be able to extract the learnings and apply it to your personal life.

How to Improve Book Retention

Stop reading non-fiction books only to forget them after you close the last page. Increase your retention by following three simple steps.

Today I am going to teach you how to improve your retention when reading non-fiction books. After all this is the only reason why we read such kinds of books, right?

I have gone over several methods that do not work. From passive reading (i.e., I just read the book and then I take the next one), to highlighting quotes and important passages, and all the way to extracting my highlights and creating a mind map organized by chapter. But when I read a great book like Adam Grant’s Think Again, I will find myself unable to generate a thoughtful review about it or remember even one important idea from the book.

Here, I will show you my latest method for improving retention. It is based on the book How to Take Smart Notes (link to Goodreads).

The Art of Taking Feedback

Feedback is the magical thing that we all want to give (but we don’t know how) and we are never ready to receive (because we still don’t know how). Between October and March, a lot of us will be getting their annual performance evaluations, while some of us will be giving annual performance evaluations to their direct reports. There are many ways to do it (on either side) and none of them is correct or wrong.

This article is not about giving feedback but rather about getting feedback. This is the article I wish I had read before I received every single piece of feedback in my life.

Habits for a Happier Life at Home

Developing positive habits at home can actually impact your mood with positive effects. Here, we’ll help you create household habits that will help you build a framework for a happier life.

Building and maintaining good habits can provide our lives with a positive framework, but these habits don’t simply happen by chance. It’s pretty easy to fall into bad habits that impede life around the house. A happy routine can support a happy mood, so if we stick to positive routines around our homes, we stand a good chance of keeping negative habits at bay.

There is some psychological evidence behind the power of routine to support contentment, even happiness. Although adventure and spontaneous action can lend spice to our lives, they can make life seem a bit chaotic, and that can prove stressful. Many people become bothered and decidedly unhappy when their pleasant routines are disturbed. While we always want to leave some space for change and flexibility, we can certainly protect our positive frame of mind by promoting positive habits.