“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The Secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”
John C. Maxwell
Change can happen overnight, or it can happen over time.
When you change your job or move to a new location, you initiate instant change. This is an obvious way to change your life and the way you live.
However, there is another type of change that most people neglect but has a huge impact on their lives – micro changes.
Micro changes don’t happen immediately. It happens over the long term.
Imagine hitting the gym. You want to get back in shape and build 6-pack abs. It will not happen overnight.
You can’t exercise in the gym for a day or a week, and then expect to get a 6-pack ab, right?
The same goes for most things you want in life, especially when it comes to achieving success.
James Clear, the best-selling author of Atomic Habits, a highly recommended book, wrote:
“Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.”
If you want to improve and change your life for the better, start with developing these 10 micro habits…
1. Find Out What Kind of Life You Want to Live
“The people who get things done, who lead, who grow, and who make an impact… Those people have goals.”
Seth Godin
Yes, most people live through their life without knowing what kind of life they want to live. If you want to improve your life, you must make it a habit to find out what you want, and then constantly making conscious decisions to get there.
If you have no idea what kind of life you want to live, you will end up like a lost sheep, following wherever the crowd is going.
Knowing what you want allows you to make decisions to get there. And this is why goal setting is important. Your goal will work as a lighthouse guiding you through the dark and stormy seas.
I love this quote from Bill Copeland:
“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.”
Therefore, find out what kind of life you want to live. And then make it a habit to constantly align your life towards your ideal future.
Here are some additional resources to help you find out your perfect life:
- Ultimate Goal Setting Guide: How to Set Goals and Achieve Them
- The Power of Having a Purpose Driven Mission
- How to Find Your Purpose in Life
2. Plan Your Day and Create a Task List
“Nobody ever wrote down a plan to be broke, fat, lazy, or stupid. Those things are what happen when you don’t have a plan.”
Larry Winget
The next micro habit you want to build to change your life is the habit of planning.
Most people don’t plan their lives. They only plan their weekends, their dinners, and their leisure time, but they don’t plan their life.
This is a big mistake a lot of people make.
Without planning, you will live a reactive life. You will go through life influenced by your surrounding.
When you have no plan, you will end up becoming a part of other people’s plans. But when you have a plan, you will live a proactive life.
You know what you need to do and you don’t wait for things to happen. Instead, you make things happen.
Think about how you spend your weekend if you have no plan at all. You will waste most of your day in front of Netflix and scroll mindlessly on Facebook and YouTube.
However, things will be very much different when you have a plan. For instance, if you plan to read a book on Saturday morning, guess how your day will look like?
Perhaps, you will set an alarm to wake up early. You will then prepare yourself and go to your local café, order your breakfast with your favorite latte, and enjoy your morning reading a book.
As you can see, you become proactive rather than reactive.
This is because you have a plan, and you know what you need to do. You become conscious of the things you want.
And that is why this micro habit of planning is so important. If you want to improve and change your life, there is no way you can do it without planning.
So, plan your day, week, month, year, and even your life. Check out these guides:
- 10 Tips How to Plan Your Day and Live a More Successful Life
- How to Create a Life Vision Plan that Drives You to Success
- The 13-Step Master Plan How to Achieve Your Goals and Dreams
3. Take Action and Push Through Even When You Don’t Feel Like It
“The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.”
Tony Robbins
Yes, develop the habit of taking action. You don’t have to resolve to take big and bold actions, but what you must do is to commit to taking one small step, one at a time.
A lot of people are living in mediocrity because they fail to understand that success is created through small, continuous actions.
Most people got it wrong to think that success is created through one big decision or action. No, this is not true at all.
If you study all the extraordinary people like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Richard Branson, etc., you will notice that all of them did not achieve their success overnight.
They did it over time, one step at a time.
And this is why you want to build the action habit. You don’t have to work 20 hours a day, but you must make sure you take small and actionable steps every day.
You want to commit to making consistent progress each day.
Always keep this quote from Confucius in your mind:
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
No matter how big your goal or how huge the success you want to achieve, you can get there by taking one small step at a time.
Apply the Rule of 5: Take 5 small actions that will get you to your goal every day.
4. Live an Active Lifestyle
“Exercise not only changes your body, but it also changes your mind, your attitude, and your mood.”
Exercise. One of the most important keys to success is to have a healthy body.
Too bad most people don’t take care of their health until it is too late.
One more thing, exercise doesn’t just improve your health, it also improves your mood, attitude, and mental power.
According to this article from MayoClinic, exercise boosts your energy and allows you to have better willpower to get more things done.
Laura Vanderkam, the best-selling author of What The Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, interviewed extraordinary people and concluded in her book that most successful people spend their mornings exercise before they go to work.
Do you know that people like Barrack Obama, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Mark Cuban, etc., exercise on a regular basis before they start their day?
In her book, Vanderkam wrote, “These are incredibly busy people. If they make time to exercise, it must be important.”
Hence, develop the habit of exercise. Live an active lifestyle so that you will live a better life.
5. Improve Yourself and Read Even for Just 15 Minutes
“If you improve by 1% every day, within a year you will have improved by 365%.”
When was the last time you picked up a book or enrolled in a course? Most people can’t remember that.
You see, if you want to improve and change your life, you must adopt the habit of constantly improving yourself.
And the easiest way to do so is to read books.
Do you know that most highly successful people are readers? Check out this article: Why Do You Need to Read Books and the Benefits of It.
This article from Inc.com shared how reading can change your life. The author wrote:
“Reading taught Elon Musk to build a rocket, and showed Tony Robbins how to build a better life. How reading makes you a better leader too.”
And do you know…
- Warren Buffet reads 500 pages a day
- Mark Cuban reads 3 hours a day
- Bill Gates reads 50 books a year
Thus, make it a habit to read every day, even if it is just 15 minutes a day.
6. Make Time for Your Hobby and Passion
“All work and no play makes jack a dull boy.”
To live a more fulfilling life, you should make time for your hobby and passion as well.
I believe we all need time to recharge and refresh, especially when we are on our journey to success. Why?
Because success is a marathon, not a sprint.
Thus, you want to make time to recharge yourself by doing things that will make your heart sings. You want to make time to enjoy and indulge yourself in your passion.
Improving your life is not all about work and business. It is about living your life according to your own terms.
Do you know why you should have hobbies and pursue your passion? Here why from PeaceInnovation.com:
“Hobbies are a great way to decompress after a long day at work or on your day off. When life becomes too overwhelming, your hobbies can help you relax. Doing something you enjoy outside of work can be beneficial for your mental health. Having hobbies can lower anxiety, lower your stress level, and help cope with depression.”
7. Schedule Quality Time to Build Relationships
“Saying hello doesn’t have an ROI. It’s about building relationships.”
Gary Vaynerchuck
I bet you have heard it many times over… You become who you spend the most time with.
Yes, you are the average of the five people you mixed with most of the time. Therefore, if you want to improve and change your life, change the people you spend time with.
If you want to fly with the eagles, you have to stop swimming with the ducks.
As harsh as it may sound, but it is true.
This is why you want to schedule a time to build relationships, whether it is with people you care about like your family members, or with people who will benefit your business.
This article on Mindtools.com says that people who have a best friend at work are seven times more likely to be engaged in their jobs. The article went on to say…
“…people who simply have a good friend in the workplace are more likely to be happy. What’s more, good work relationships are linked to better customer engagement and increased profit.”
Hence, schedule time to build and grow relationships with others. Spend time with your family because success starts at home. And schedule times to build professional relationships because it will make your work more fun and enjoyable.
8. Spend Time Daydreaming and be in Solitude
“Solitude is the place where silence allows us to listen.”
Greg Robinson
Here’s another micro habit you should build – the habit of daydreaming and being in solitude.
But don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should spend your entire day daydreaming. Instead, you should schedule a time to be alone and away from distraction, and then spend time thinking and dreaming about your life.
In one of my favorite books, The Buddha and The Badass, the author Vishen Lakhiani wrote that there were 2 modes of operation:
- Acceleration – This is where you take massive action.
- Navigation – This is where you recalibrate your direction.
You have to understand that your direction (navigation) is more important than your speed (action).
There is no point to take massive action on the wrong goal or project.
This is why navigation is important. And this is also why you want to spend time in solitude, reflecting and navigate through life.
Most people don’t spend time reflecting on their life.
- They do whatever comes to them.
- They are influenced by their surroundings and the people around them.
- They lack the vision to influence the world.
Here’s an inspiring saying from George Bernard Shaw:
“Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.”
I strongly suggest you get the book, The Buddha and The Badass, it is one of my most recommended books. I was inspired by the book so much and I want it to change your life too.
9. Remember Your Why and Celebrate Your Wins
“What’s your why? When you know why you do what you do, even the toughest days become easier.”
Make it a habit to remind yourself of your purpose in life.
- Why do you do what you do?
- Why do you want to accomplish the goal?
- Why do you want to be successful?
- Why do you want to change and improve your life?
Think about your reason.
Too often, we are often distracted by trivial issues, and we forgot about our bigger purpose in life.
When you have a strong and emotional purpose for the success you want, nothing can stop you.
And this is exactly why you want to make it a habit to constantly remind yourself of your ‘why’.
Read: Why Clarity of Purpose is Important to Success and How to Get It
Besides, always celebrate your wins, no matter how small they are.
Develop the habit to feel great and praise yourself for all the progress you have made. The more you celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.
Read: 13 Ways How to Celebrate Small Victories and Make Progress
10. Appreciate and Be Grateful for Your Life
“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”
Eckhart Tolle
Finally, the last micro habit you want to build is the habit of appreciation. In other words, you want to feel grateful for everything that life has provided you.
You want to feel ‘enough’. Why? Because when you are grateful, you are happier.
In this article published on Harvard, “Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.”
There was a study conducted by researchers from the University of California. They discovered that those who were grateful were more optimistic and felt better about their lives.
Isn’t that the ultimate result every one of us seeks in life?
So, make it a habit to practice gratefulness. Appreciate everything you had in your life.
But, how do you do it?
Simple, you can express your gratitude by simply thinking about the things you are grateful for, or you can also choose to write them down.
Create a gratitude list or journal and write down all the things you appreciate in your life.
If you do this every day, you will slowly see your life changes and improves for the better. Want to know what are the benefits of keeping a gratitude list? Check out this guide from PositivePsychology.com.
Conclusion
These are the 10 micro habits you can develop to improve and change your life…
- Find Out What Kind of Life You Want to Live
- Plan Your Day and Create a Task List
- Take Action and Push Through Even When You Don’t Feel Like It
- Live an Active Lifestyle
- Improve Yourself and Read Even for Just 15 Minutes
- Make Time for Your Hobby and Passion
- Schedule Quality Time to Build Relationships
- Spend Time Daydreaming and be in Solitude
- Remember Your Why and Celebrate Your Wins
- Appreciate and Be Grateful for Your Life
Build these tiny habits one at a time, and you will see your life started to change, improve, and slowly but surely shift to your ideal life…
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