Micro habits for a better life

reading time - 5 minutes

I'm not the most disciplined person you'll find out there. In fact, I've always been the opposite. I grew up in an environment shaped by my parents' routine, who, in addition to not having much knowledge, also didn't have much patience or time to think about optimizing habits or having discipline in their daily lives. We ate what we had easiest, whenever we could, and almost everything else followed the same rhythm.

Honestly, I had never stopped to think about building the life I wanted. I used to think a lot about how other people (rich, beautiful, smart, athletic) were lucky to have been born with gifts or just a lot of money. This thought was not initially mine either. I remember hearing my parents often say: “Ah, but it's easy for so-and-so, he was born...” - insert anything here: “rich, handsome, intelligent, strong, in an advanced country, in a different reality... .”.

I was only recently “introduced” to the idea of ​​becoming my own project. Much through my husband's ideas, but also through books or influential people like Jocko Willink, Gisele Bündchen (yes, the model), Rafael Grata... So I started to see myself as my own project, in which I decide what I want and how I want to live today or in ten years, how I want to think, eat, or how healthy I want to be, my mind exploded.

Am I responsible for myself? Can I improve, or simply change some things about myself that I don't like? The owner of my own life – sometimes this concept seems a little strange to me. In the same way that I can get worse, I can also get better, and that's when everything made more sense. But how?

Some things are impossible to change, but almost everything else is a daily job, for which you need to study and improve yourself every day. Amazingly: the person who speaks 5 languages, one day only spoke one, and had to acquire knowledge daily to go from fluent in one language to five, gradually.

Wow! Does this seem obvious? Maybe for you, but for me it was a shock to understand that the only person who could lift me closer to a better version of myself was myself. Literally waking up early and going after each of the things I would like to have/be/do. And all this great change starts with HABITS.

The first thing I decided I should change was learning how to eat. I was inspired by Gisele's book, "Nourish", and started researching and making new recipes - bread, healthy homemade pasta, and other ways of cooking healthy meals.

I've just started. I don’t say this from a place of arrogance to say “Look what I did, do it too because my way is better”, I speak from a place of excitement for myself, an uplifting feeling that you too can experience.

This small change in daily dishes made me realize that I don't drink much water during the day. So, I've been focusing on drinking at least the recommended amount and always leaving my bottle in a visible place.

Linked to this new habit of eating healthy foods and water, which is the basis of a healthy life, I realized that sleep is an extremely important pillar. I noticed certain patterns of sleep hours related to my mood. I researched this and discovered that I should sleep a few more hours to feel good. This information was also related to cycles, and thinking about my menstrual cycle made me realize how ignorant I am about events related to this topic. I also researched this. It seems a lot? For me, it was like an avalanche of information trying to make connections in my brain.

The power of a positive habit (there's a book with that title, I know) to motivate you to make changes to your routine, for the better, is impressive. But I also found myself thinking about negative habits, their impact, and how we are responsible for ourselves and others. In my case, with a six-year-old son, I am basically a mirror for him. I'm still at the beginning, working hard every day to improve things like my health and domestic skills, for example. But today, I humbly hope to inspire you.

With that in mind, I summarized below tips that I am using to introduce a change in habits:

• Start with a short, realistic list of things you want to change for the better - your health, read more, exercise.

• Make it easier to maintain your habits - if your goal is to read more, download some books to have easy access when you're idle, for example, or buy a bottle of water and always leave it within sight.

• Be patient with your process - there are days when I find it more difficult to eat healthy and I order a pizza, or I don't really feel like exercising. Sometimes I go to the gym anyway, but other times I stay at home, and that's okay. The goal is to gradually introduce the changes so that you don't start to hate that new habit.

• Talk about your change with friends, or read and share about it - I think it's very important to *develop* the idea with other people, in addition to inspiring other people, talking about your new routine helps you have different opinions
  

• Enjoy! - my results are starting to appear sneakily - my skin and hair look brighter since I started drinking more water, I feel less bad mood and feel more energetic with my new time to sleep, and more satiated with healthy foods. Being proud of small achievements helps to build a routine of stronger habits. There's still a long way to go before I reach that better version that has been talked about so much lately - in fact, it's never complete, and we always have something new to improve in ourselves. But in the meantime, I'll share my ideas and progress here. Have you ever thought about what you can do new today?

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Here some content you might like to see:

Jocko Willink - for self development

Nourish: Simple Recipes to Empower Your Body and Feed Your Soul - Gisele Bündchen - book for healthy recipes

Rafael Grata - instagram page for mental & body health

Carlo Guaranga - Yoga

Pedro Pacifico - Bookster - for book reviews and ideas