Promote good habits to enhance your well-being.
Maintaining a good life balance and the energy that comes alongside it are crucial for all of us. However, this is easier said than done — in fact, it can be surprisingly difficult to even identify what prevents us from accessing these.
Life balance
In everyday life do you find yourself questioning yourself or your goals? Perhaps something has changed in your life that you have yet to adapt to? You can perform a simple exercise to serve as a tool in identifying where you are presently and more importantly, where you want to be. Use simply a scale of 1–10, from worst to best for marking. Here some areas.
Self-esteem, relationships, family, work/career, finances, time management, home/surroundings, sleep, nutrition, exercise and well-being.
Pay attention to areas of satisfaction, thriving or what you are really pleased about. Pay attention to what you like to have different, areas that welcome change. You can consider each area by thinking what thoughts, feelings and actions have contributed to this?
Then, ask yourself
What changes I can do myself ? What do I need for it (input of time, practice, money)? Who can support me (friend, colleague, coach)? How have I made successful changes to my habits in the past (model from them) ? What is my first step that I can do now?
Realize this, as you make positive changes or take up a new habit, it will create inevitably changes in other areas too.
Energy
Identify what influences your energy levels, from areas such as food/drink, sleep, exercise, family, friends, travel, commuting, places and time management. Also, look into if you live according to your values? What kind of thoughts arise there? Are you in conflict with yourself? Are you good at holding your boundaries?
Like we did previously in regard to our life balance, make a list of actions, activities or surroundings that nourish you, and accordingly make a list of actions, activities or surroundings that deplete you.
These two lists, representing your life balance and energy levels respectively, form a foundation for seeing your life as it is, more authentically. That is good, as when you live your life authentically you find everything happening with ease and purpose. It is apparent how creating and promoting good habits influences your overall well-being.
“There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under the jurisdiction. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I read and eat and study. I can choose how I’m going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life-whether I will see them as curses or opportunities. I can choose my words and the tone in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts.”
– Elizabeth Gilbert
Originally published at medium.com