9 Habits that changed my Life!

If you’ve read my book, you know the core of the Flower of Fulfillment model is Awareness, and then Habits. Even in the last blog, we reminded ourselves the same. Awareness—> Choice —-> Action —-> Habits. In this blog, I’ll be sharing 9 habits that have made massive impacts on my wellness, wisdom, and work.

9 Habits that can change your Life:

1. Waking up Early. Early rising can be the best keystone habit one can have. I’ve already mentioned that in the blog: Keystone Habit that changed my Life!. And that in general, it’s better to know your sleep archetype and then plan to get extra waking hours – i.e, one may rise early or sleep late. However, in my experience, waking up early has more benefits than sleeping late. Not just the energy, vibe, etc, but mainly, your day will be influenced by the first hour. If you’re someone of the owl archetype, then, you’ll not have control of the first waking hour. Especially if you’re part of an Indian family. However, if you’re an early riser, you can own your first waking hour. You get to do whatever you like, without any disturbance before anyone else wakes up and commands you with an obligatory chore. And once you own the first hour, you can own the day.
2. Consume Mindfully. Healthy and INTENT aligned. This habit was installed through the realization that our body and mind are just the accumulation of what we’ve gathered. Whatever goes in will influence the tendencies of your mind and body. So, try to become mindful of what you consume. Even whatever goes into your mind. This one habit comprises various micro habits. Some examples: Drink water instead of Tea or Coffee. Mute statuses /stories and notifications of general content that is not useful to you in any way or that you can find anywhere. After every piece of content you consume, observe how you feel, if you do not feel good or inspired, and mainly if it is irrelevant to your life, then stop consuming that type of content. [ Read the blogs: LIFE Alignment and INTENTional Living to know more about aligning your lifestyle with your intent].
3. Gratitude & LOVE. This is the habit that was born out of necessity in my lowest times. Everyone who’s suffering from an existential crisis must know this. This should be the first habit they must install after the habit of reflecting for awareness. Daily, write what you’re grateful for. I usually write about 3 aspects of my life that I’m grateful for. On my worst days, I may write just one aspect that I’m grateful for. At my best, I may write up to 5 or 6 aspects of my life that I’m grateful for. And the second part of this habit is LOVE. When you’re grateful, you’ll naturally Love. And when you’re in love, you’re naturally grateful. Loving involves loving your parent, sibling, your pet, your work, nature around you, and eventually everything. [ The word “loving” may be misleading. It’s not something you do. It’s the way you feel within. ]
4. Write. I’ve already written two blogs regarding the same [ Reasons to write every day and Write, Write better! ]. There are types of writing through which one can utilize the habit to its fullest potential. One, To know yourself. These are the notes where you write about your own tendencies, intent, etc all observations of yourself. Two, to know the world. These are the notes where you write the facts you’ve realized about life. Three, your journal, to document your life and through it become more mindful. Writing in all these forms is a great tool for reflection. And you might know through my book or through my other blogs that, there can be wisdom and awareness only through deep reflection.
5. Read. Reading (books, and blogs) is a great tool one must have. Especially, non-fiction. Reading has a lot of benefits. As mentioned earlier we tend to become what we consume. The more greatness we consume, the more we get to become greatness. Reading provokes thinking, acts as a reminder, and much more ( read Blog: Reading Books 101 ).
6. Yoga (Move). Even though, To be honest, this is my most recent habit (2 years), yoga has been part of my life since my childhood. And I’ve been receiving benefits from it since then. Thanks to Sanathana Dharma, yoga is intertwined into Bharath’s household culture. And thanks to Modiji, I can presume that I need not mention the benefits of Yoga.
7. Meditate (Be still & aware). There are ways and levels of meditation. In the beginning, one might feel the need for guided meditation, then some sounds, then one will move to need ultimate silence, and eventually, none of these will be needed. One may start by struggling to stop the voice in one’s head. Then move to a stage where one can pause the thoughts but will not be aware when his/her mind starts to wander. Then comes the stage where thoughts are naturally less but the meditator is trying to move to an even more advanced stage by noticing the emerging thoughts. And meditation is not something you do, it happens, so some days are great, and some days are not (considering one is meditating only once a day). There are a lot of aspects to this that are hard for me to explain everything here. However, there are a lot of benefits to meditating daily. And the key is ‘Daily’. By consistent practice, one can train the mind to be more mindful, calmer, sharper, and all that we aspire for our minds to be. And of course, the benefits of meditation are not limited to body and mind.
8. AnushTAna (non-negotiable habits): AnushTAna is a habit you do daily without fail regardless of at what time you wake up or how much work you have. It is a non-negotiable habit. AnushTAna can be multiple habits. Because one might be a musician as well as a spiritual practitioner. So he/she may choose to have AnushTAna for each aspect of his/her life.
9. Work on what you Love. This may sound cliche but this is better advice than “Love what you do”. Love what you do is a piece of good advice if what you’re doing is aligned with your INTENT, with how you want to live your life. However, for example, if your intent to is to love animals and probably to make an animal care Centre in the future, you cannot “love what you do” now if your work is butchering animals for people to eat. Right? Moreover, when your work is aligned with your intentions, loving what you do is automatic. Btw, “love what you do” also has limitations. It’s when, if one’s loving work is poison for another person’s life, then it is a crime. And at the core, that won’t be what you love. Anyway, working on what you love will bring an immense sense of fulfillment in your life. “What would people think of this/me” is something you’ll have to leave to do this and it is also something you’ll leave once you do this. All you’ll be concerned about is being in that state, in that lifestyle, results don’t matter. That is the way to live a life of fulfillment.

These are the habits that make up most of my lifestyle and most importantly, these are the high-yielding habits. Now it’s your turn. Go back to the top and reflect on whether you’ve already similar habits or if not, reflect on how you can install them into your lifestyle.

Thank You

Sanath Kumar Naibhi