Addictions need not only be negative. While substance abuse would be harmful, many positive activities and habits can prove to be a very beneficial addiction for our life.
None of us can deny having addictions. While it might not be something as severe as alcohol addiction or that of any substance, but there would surely be at least one thing. People are addicted to caffeine, to Netflix, to music, to love or sugar or video games, etc., the list is endless. But it doesn’t always have to be a bad addiction. This addiction need not be something that ruins your life.
Humans seem to be addictive in nature. People with a successful mindset take advantage of this human trait. They get addicted to things and activities that are bringing them closer to their goals and dreams. They look for addictions that are only going to push them towards a better version of them and help them lead a productive as well as a fulfilling life.
We always look at successful people like Elon Musk, Roger Federer, JK Rowling, or Beyoncé and we wonder what we would need to do to reach where they are or to even achieve half of what they have. And not only for success, for more complex things like peace, happiness, and good health, there are some behavior and actions that make everything attainable. And when we get addicted to this behavior, we no more need to search for motivation; we no more need to force ourselves to work. When we get addicted to doing these beneficial behaviour, instead of feeling that the work is a burden, we start looking forward to it and because we have fun doing them, we become regular and way more efficient.
Some of the common beneficial and healthy activities that we all NEED to get addicted to:
Waking up early
This is the toughest and yet the most important one. Getting up early gives you those extra hours to boost start your day. Not only would you start feeling fresh once you get used to this behaviour, but you would also get a lot more of your tasks completed.
People who wake up early shows increased energy levels, a decrease in the amount of time needed for different tasks. We get to start our day on an optimistic note, and we don’t need to rush ourselves into doing any work.
Rising early allows your body to adapt to a better inner clock. People who rise early are bound to sleep on time which results in a better sleep routine as well as quality.
Waking up early increases our productivity, gives us the proper environment to get more focused on our work.
Getting into a habit of waking up early daily, the feeling you would acquire, that of positivity and energetic, the feeling of accomplishment after having done most of the task early in the morning, you are bound to automatically get addicted to waking up early.
“Wake up early and tackle the day before it tackles you.”
– Evan Carmichael.
Regularly working out.
Exercising has numerous benefits that change our life for the better. It improves our immunity, strengthens our heart, and clears our arteries; it also reduces the chances of diabetes. It reduces and maintains body fat, gives us a very impressive body, and people are known to become physically elegant after they start regularly exercising. It is known to be a great de-stressor and boosts one’s self-esteem and confidence. It also improves our memory, reduces the risk of cancer, and disturbed blood pressure.
People who are regular in working out would witness that on days that they work out, they have elevated mood, a calmer mind, and less stress. They even have better digestion and appetite on their workout days. Working out increases production of neurochemicals that promote brain cell repair, also induce new connection, and also helps in improving the old connections between neurons. It boosts decision-making skills and most importantly, increases our will power and attention span.
Getting addicted to exercising is the best thing you can do for your body and your life. When people do it correctly, right from the start, though working out could be difficult and tiring, they would start getting habituated to working out so much that going without it would become harder and more hectic. And when we start seeing how much working out has been benefitting our life, body, and mind, we are bound to get addicted to it.
“Pain is weakness leaving the body.”
― Tera Lynn Childs.
Meditating.
This is another activity that is going to be extremely beneficial for all areas of your life. It is known to increase our attention, reduces stress from our mind. It brings peace and makes us calm. Becoming calm allows us to have more emotional stability and we get into fewer conflicts with other people. It lowers our blood pressure, increases our pain threshold. It improves our breathing and respiratory tract. It improves our brain concentration, allowing us to be more focused and attentive to our daily tasks. It also brings physical relaxation.
Meditation makes you grateful for your life; it allows you to have a new and widened perspective. It improves our sleep cycle, improves metabolism, and also reduces ageing.
Doing this after working out has shown several benefits. It helps us calm down before we get into a shower or dwell on doing other tasks for the day.
Lifelong Learning.
Nobody in this world could be a know-it-all. Even Google fails at knowing a lot of things. Having a growth mindset and allowing yourself to always look at yourself as a student instead of a person, who is perfect in everything, can widen your horizon to unlimited areas.
Everything is developing. With new technologies being made, with updating the existing ones, things are moving forward, and if we decide that we already know it all, in no time the world would be too ahead for us to ever comprehend.
In any field at all, continuously learning about new things can enhance your understanding of the old concepts as well as the new. It is known to bring both personal and professional development in our life.
They stay motivated for life, they are always curious and they always know more than the people who think they know it all.
“Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.”
—Anthony J. D’Angelo.
Reading.
Reading has many benefits. From improving our vocabulary and semantic memory, it also reduces stress. Reading strengthens our brain and opens our eyes to new and mind-blowing perspective of other people. It increases our empathy. It improves our memory, focus, writing skills, and also enhances our imagination. It elevates our mood, makes us calmer and more in control. It gives us space to introspect and think, improving our decision-making skills.
It brings forth ideas that we might find very creative and useful for our life. It is also known to stimulate our brain and also our creativity, allowing us to ourselves come up with very great and useful ideas. It entertains us without being harmful to our eyes as much as TV or laptops could be. It brings emotional stability and we become more controlled than impulsive.
Reading a book before going to sleep can make it easier for you to go to sleep. Researchers suggest that reading a book before sleep time has helped many combat insomnia. It also improves our quality of sleep and with lessened stress and more imagination, we sleep peacefully.
“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”
—Jhumpa Lahiri.
Being organised.
Being organised is a habit that saves a lot of your time and makes completing your task a whole lot easier.
When people fail at organising their day and their tasks, they come short in being able to find time for all the tasks. It is bound to be hard, one needs a lot of discipline to become organised, but the effects our just life-changing!
Having a mess results in people getting stressed, and when there are many things lined up and you don’t have a plan as to how to work with them, you are bound to procrastinate, put it for later. And when later comes, you would get overwhelmed because of the lack of time and increased pressure you have to work in.
Being more organised would make a person more focused and allow them to see what tasks need to be eliminated from their to-do list. It makes us more productive and lets us save a lot more time than usual. It reduces stress, anxiety, and pressure looming at our heads, making us more efficient. It helps us in sleeping better and feeling accomplished and satisfied with your day. It gives us more time to bring more activities in our life. We become more self-disciplined, with improved will power and determination. It makes us more grateful and happy. Being organised also helps in stopping us from wasting time as well as money.
Hard work.
Getting addicted to working hard could change your entire life. Hard work is very motivating and not only does it benefit us in one aspect of our life, but it also benefits all. It allows us to experience more gratitude, leads us to a path of never-ending self-improvement. It improves our will power and focus, increasing our self-discipline.
You are more likely to succeed and achieve your dreams when you work hard. You feel accomplished and there is a sense of satisfaction after you complete your decided task. It saves a lot of your time, lets you have time for other important stuff. It boosts our mood, self-esteem, and also our energy level.
Hard works build confidence like no other. We become more competitive and more open to challenges. We find more opportunities when we are working hard. Working hard allows us to dream big, to believe in your dreams and your capability as well as makes you achieve them.
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
– Stephen King
All these behaviour brings to our life all those needed elements that would make us reach our goals and dreams. We cannot achieve our dreams if we don’t bring changes in our life. From being healthy in the future, mentally and physically, these healthy addictions bring us a lot closer to the life we want to live. We achieve a lot more than just success. We achieve mental well being, gratitude, empathy, and confident self. We have improved lifestyles, improved health, and improved relations.
Getting addicted to things that are going to harm you is easy, anybody can do it. But for those who want to achieve what only a few people can, doing what other people find hard and fail to do is necessary. These healthy addictions are what define who would win in life and who is okay with spending their life in mediocrity and with their dreams never met.