15 Things You Should Do Every Day to Improve Your Life

Simple changes can improve your life drastically, fast. Here are 15 things you should do every day for a happier and more fulfilling life.

15 Things You Should Do Every Day to Improve Your Life

1. Keep Your Thoughts Light and Clean. Practice Meditation

Our emotional health influences how we feel and, behave in our day-to-day life. It also affects our ability to cope with stress, deal with challenges, build healthy relationships and bounce back from any setback.
Emotional Clearing meditation, for instance,  deals with those strong emotions that can erupt during the day, e.g. fear, anger, blame, anxiety. A daily emotional clearing process helps you to control your emotions so they don’t control you. Emotional clearing also develops the muscle of emotional composure.
There are many many kinds of emotional clearing processes out there. Select the one
that works best for you. I do this once a day – either in the morning or in the evening before falling asleep.

2. Avoid Watching Too Much TV

I used to love watching TV. I was a binge-watcher too. What I didn’t see, or didn’t want to see, was that instead of facing strong emotions and dealing with issues I was hell-bound to distract myself with whatever was there on TV. I mean, why dealing with actual problems if I can just hit pause on the world and numb my mind with endless episodes of this show and then the other.

It took me years to realize that avoiding problems won’t solve them. Something had to be done. Fast.

If cutting TV out of your life sounds like a bit of a stretch, start off small by limiting TV viewing. If you consider yourself a heavy TV viewer, why not place a limit to 1-hour a day first? Then go down to 40 minutes, then slowly to 20 minutes. Soon enough it will be easy to just stop watching TV and see how the quality of life would improve dramatically.

Whenever I feel the urge to watch Netflix I stop and ask myself these questions: What is it that you choose not to see? What is it that you don’t want to deal with? Would watching this movie or a show add value to my life right now?

3. Nourish Your Mind = Read. Read. Read.

I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me. ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Luckily for me,  my love towards books has been always stronger than my past love of watching TV.

Nothing can nourish your mind quite as much as reading a great book and getting immersed in the world of author’s most sacred private thoughts and perspectives on the world.

4. Have a Strong Discipline

Discipline equals freedom – Jocko Willink

Tim Ferriss: I interpret this to mean, among other things, that you can use positive constraints to increase perceived free will and results. Freedom days might seem idyllic, but they are paralyzing due to the continual Paradox of Choice (e.g. ‘What should I do now?’) and decision fatigue (e.g. ‘What should I have for breakfast?’). In contrast, something as simple as pre-scheduled workouts acts as scaffolding around with which you can more effectively plan and execute your day. This gives you a greater sense of agency and a feeling of freedom. Jocko adds, ‘It also means that if you want freedom in life –– be that financial freedom, more free time, or even freedom from sickness and poor health –– you can only achieve these things through discipline’ – Tools of Titans, page 413.

5. Work Smarter. Be Strategic. Use the 80/20 Rule.

Follow Pareto’s Law that can be summarized as follows: 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs. In other words: 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort and time.

Ask yourself these two questions that Tim Ferriss often asks himself:

Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness? 
Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?

6. Only Put Great Work Into the World

Whenever I feel like slacking off and not delivering the best work I know I am capable of I ask myself to do this: Think of a person you admire the most.

Is it Sir Richard Branson? Is it Oprah Winfrey? Is it Peter Thiel? Okay. Now imagine this, how would they feel if they saw *this* story in their news feed and went to check it out? Would the thought of it made me cringe or would I be okay knowing that it was a world-class effort on my part at creating and putting the best work out there? The choice is always mine.

7. Always Be Kind to Yourself and Others

In the world where you can be anything, be kind.

8. Fuel Your Life by Eating Well

Taking control of your health is the most powerful way to influence not only how long you will live on this planet, but also how well you live.

Our body is a complex machine with many interconnected parts that run nonstop for years. In order for it to work properly and thrive, it has to be filled with the appropriate fuel.

When we supply our body with healthy food and drink, not only do we have fewer health problems, but we also tend to feel better, have more energy and live longer. For some delicious recipes feel free to pop here.

9. Surround Yourself With Wonderful People

Someone once told me that we are the average of five people we most associate with.

Take a moment to think of the five people you spend time with the most. Are they good influence?

Do they make you strive for more, work on self-improvement, moving forward, breaking new grounds and defying limits?

Do you feel lifted up as if you can walk on air after every interaction with them?

Always strive to surround yourself with wonderful people you can learn from and who inspire the best version of you to emerge.

Surround yourself with the dreamers and the doers, the believers and thinkers, but most of all, surround yourself with those who see the greatness within you, even when you don’t see it yourself. – Edmund Lee

10. Wake Up Each Morning & Be Grateful = Be Happy

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. – Marcus Aurelius

11. Work on Self-Improvement 24/7

At the end of each day, I take a moment to reflect and ask myself this simple question: What did you do or learn something that made you a better version of yourself?  We have about 86400 seconds in a day, that is 86400 of opportunities to improve the quality of life on all fronts if we choose to.

12. Keep Your Heart and Mind Open for Wonder

Give yourself permission today to reclaim your sense of wonder, to take in a few deep breaths and stand in wonder at the magnificence of life, at the people you meet along the way that impact your life, at the wonder of mother nature, and at the miracle of being alive. As Louis Armstrong sang, “What a wonderful world.” Indeed, it is.

13. Love Freely + Find Good in Everything

There is always something good in each and single day, no matter how bad and frustrating it seems at first glance.

It took me a while to re-train my mind to seek and find good in everything and it all started with digging deeper into Stoicism.

Whenever I am faced with a tough situation I ask myself this: What is this here to teach me? What learning opportunity is disguised as a setback or an obstacle overcoming which would only make me wiser and stronger? 

14. Spend Time in Nature & Be More Like The Thames*

Spending time outdoors is good for the mind and the heart. Depending on your location, look into some parks or trails that you can either go for a long walk on or run. Should your budget allow it, you can also travel to another country to visit some of the most breathtaking hikes on the planet!

Now, what did I mean by ‘Be more like the Thames’? Glad you asked.

I currently reside in London and it happens that for the last 10+ years I haven’t lived further away from the river than in a 5-10 min walking distance.

Being next to any body of water is hugely important to me. And so on one of my walks to catch a glimpse of a sunset, I stopped to sit down and stared into the river for a while. Then an interesting thought occurred in my mind. And it went something like this: Be more like the Thames. Be more like the river that doesn’t hold all of the water that passes through it… and so learn to let go of the things that are holding you back from moving forward.

15. Pay it Forward = Practice Random Acts of Kindness

The phrase “practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty” was written by Anne Herbert on a placemat in Sausalito, California in 1982. When you extend love, compassion, and kindness out into the world, trust me, these sentiments will find their way back around. Practicing random acts of kindness lifts us up to a whole new level of existence in this world.

Instead of a conclusion, here’s a quick summary that was taken from my notepad

yes, I was always famous for my gracious handwriting*
Please, make sure to share this with your friends.
They’ll thank you for it later 🙂
With a ton of Love❤
Lesya.

image sources: pexels +
the personal library of Lesya Li