10 Habits for self-improvement

In this Episode I share with you the 10 habits I developed that improved my life tremendously! You can listen or download the Episode here or read the transcript under the Episode.

Today I want to talk about 10 practices or habits that will change your life forever. Some of these are quick and easy to implement, others will take some time and practice. But remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day, good things take time. It’s incredibly frustrating to hear, I know but sadly it’s true and trying to push things forward is just exhausting so we might as well stop trying and move that energy elsewhere.

I have 10 here but that doesn't mean you have to implement all 10 into your life. Take away what works for you and leave the rest. So with that being said let’s move on to the first one

1. Self Compassion

My first point is self-compassion. We are all way too hard on ourselves. Life is fucking hard and we are all trying our best. I believe that you are trying your best. We’re all so quick to judge ourselves. Blaming ourselves for not being good enough, not having the motivation or not achieving what we want. The language that we use towards ourselves is often rude and degrading. Would you speak to your best friend like that? or to your children? Of course not because you love them and you know they are trying their best! So why is it so normalised to treat ourselves like crap? And it’s ineffective too. The language you use has a huge impact. If you tell yourself constantly that you suck or you are not good enough, you limit yourself and what you can achieve. For example, if you start a project believing that you can’t do it, you’ll probably give up at the first bump in the road.

But how do you shift this narrative? I have a couple of exercises for that. First, one is to talk to yourself as if you were talking to your best friend or in the way that you needed to be spoken to as a child. Treat yourself as your own best friend. Be your own loving parent. If an “I'm not good enough” thought comes up in your head look at the situation as if your best friend was going through it and what you would say to her in that situation. But some people find that really hard and if you happen to be one of those people the word “yet” will become your best friend. Whenever you think I’m not good enough or I don’t have the skills or anything like that just add the word YET. I’m not good enough yet. I don’t know how to do this yet. And that’s okay that gives you the opportunity to learn.

I can say so much more about this and I think I will do a separate podcast episode on self-compassion and ways to learn to be nicer to yourself. If you watch this on youtube, let me know in the comments if that is something you would like to see

Radical responsibility

Okay on to the next point which is radical responsibility. This stands a bit in contrast to my last point. But I come at this from a positive standpoint. It’s not about blaming yourself for everything that happens in your life like everything is your own fault but more so that your life is your responsibility and you can’t wait for others to make your dreams happen.

The idea of radical responsibility is that everything in your life is your responsibility. That sounds a bit toxic right? But I come at this like this: You can’t control what happens to you in your life sometimes. But you can control how you react to situations. You can also decide the direction of your life.

It sometimes is a hard reality check but it’s incredibly liberating in some ways too. Yes, it means that you’ll have to work for a lot of things but it also means that you can take control back. I’ll give you a personal example. I was working for a company where I was asked to do a lot of overtime and I felt like my work was not valued at all. I was miserable and it ended up in burnout. I was complaining all the time that I felt bad, that I had no time left for anything that I loved and so on. Sure, the company was toxic, but by waiting for them to change I gave away control over my life. Yes, they were wrong but it was my responsibility to get out. I am still young, the job market is wide open. But I played the victim card and it ended in burnout. So yes radical responsibility, if you want something in your life, you will have to make it a priority and work for it.

Creating a second brain

The next one is more practical. It’s creating a second brain. You should read the book about this by Tiago Forte. If you want of course. But the idea is that you store all the information that get’s thrown at you from all sides in this day and age. By putting it all in one place you don’t have to remember it and it will free up some much space in your brain. If you consistently use your second brain it will free up space in your own mind to think process new ideas and just relax. If you do it right, your second brain will remind you of everything when you need to be reminded at the right time so it will eliminate a lot of anxiety. And you can actually search through all your information instead of trying to remember it! It takes time to set it up but it’s amazing!

Feel your emotions

This is a hard one for a lot of people, but feel your emotions! We as a generation have collectively been thought that emotions are bad and that you are weak for showing them or you are too sensitive or you need to grow up. But this is such bullshit, sorry about the language. But emotions are one of the most powerful things. They tell you so much and the idea of not listening to them is beyond me. All emotions are valid and all emotions tell you something. Emotions are not the problem, The way we react to them is. Because we have not been thought how to process emotions in a healthy way, sometimes they come out in harmful ways. But that is not a reason to push them aside. When you start listening to your emotions you will learn so much about yourself and you will get the chance to build your life a better way. Negative emotions tell you that something is not right, and positive ones tell you you are headed in the right direction. Say you are angry at your boss because they said something incredibly rude to you. If you push it aside and write it off as him being a stressed person and you overreacting, nothing will change. If you listen to that emotion you can see that your boss does not respect you and that upsets you and then you can fix the cause by having a conversation about it. Or if you are sad about something and instead of pushing sadness away as bad emotion lean into it, listen to it. It has so much to tell you.

With that also comes that you can teach yourself how to process your emotions in a healthy way instead of lashing out when you are angry or going on a bender when you are sad. It might be hard in the beginning but you will feel so much better in the long run

Turn your goals into habits

Okay, the next one is a practical one again. It’s tuning your goals into habits. If you are listening to this podcast you probably love setting goals. I certainly do. I love goals they give you direction. But they are a what, not a how. And this is where many people fail. Maybe you even set really vague goals like “ becoming fit” or “ becoming financially independent” These are great goals, but if you leave them like that it is unlikely you’ll reach them. To actually reach your goals, you want to dig deep into the how questions. Let's take becoming fit as an example. First, you want to think of what being fit looks like to you. Then how you will achieve that. Say you want to be able to run 5k and to be able to do 10 pull-ups and squat 100kg. It’s just an example. How will you achieve that? You might say by going on runs twice a week and going to the gym 3 times a week. Great but how are you going to do that? You go run on Monday and Wednesday and to the gym on other weekdays. Great but then what will you do at the gym? When will you go? Do you see where I am going with this? Break down your goals to the smallest possible actions and make those your habit. So you want to get fit? Then you will go on runs on Monday and Wednesday before work and you’ll follow the coach to 5k plan. Once you’ve completed the plan you will go on a 5k run on those days. Then You will go to the gym 3 times a week after work. On Tuesday you will do a full body day, on Thursday leg day and on Friday it’s upper body day. Now stick to those habits and you will reach your goal. When you have a goal create a plan and make it into a habit. That is how you see progress.

Strive for imperfection

I once heard a quote that really resonated with me. “Everything worth doing is worth doing badly.” I’ll say it again: “Everything worth doing is worth doing badly.” It’s such a powerful mindset. We often strive for perfection but if you really want to move forward and constantly take action, you are better off striving for imperfection. I don’t mean you should do things badly on purpose. I mean that done is better than perfect. “Everything worth doing is worth doing badly.” Say you are starting a podcast if you wait until the time is perfect and you have the perfect equipment, the perfect topics, the perfect mindset, perfect guests and so on. You will probably never start the podcast. But if you strive for imperfection and you just do your best and push your podcast out, you’ll learn by doing and you’ll have a podcast. being perfect is a lie anyway. Because in school you could get a 10/10 we have adapted this idea that you can be perfect at a skill but outside of school, that’s. not really true. And you learn so much more by taking imperfect action that you might even get beyond the point that you believed to be perfection. Stop learning, stop preparing, and start doing

Journaling

The 7th habit I want to talk about is journaling. If you are like my boyfriend and you are completely in touch with your thoughts and emotions, maybe journaling isn’t for you. But for most of us, I believe journaling is life-changing. The right prompts can help you dive deep into who you are, what you value and where you want to go in life. Journaling is like a guide for thinking about whatever subject you desire. You will gain a bigger understanding of yourself and that means you can live your life more intentionally. But I do know that finding the right journaling prompts can be quite difficult that is why you can find weekly journaling prompts on our Instagram page every Sunday so you have a prompt for every day of the week. Every week has some kind of theme that you’ll work around so you gain a lot more clarity by the end of the week. So be sure to follow. I’ll link it in the show notes. If you want a little more guidance then you can also subscribe to the Studio-I membership. For just X euros per month you get coaching sessions, personalised journaling prompts and the whole Studio-i life upgrade. Little self-promo there but it’s such a great subscription if you want to start building on your dream life.

Create systems

But now on to the next topic! And that is creating systems! If you have read atomic habits, or even if you haven’t you will probably know about the idea that systems of small habits are way more effective than setting goals. This comes back to my previous point of translating goals into habits. All these habits together create a system that helps you move toward a better you. My idea of systems is based on this too but it’s slightly different. What I mean with systems is to create multiple different habit streams that will lead you to your goals. You can create systems in your work and in your personal life. A system is kind of like an automated part of your life I guess. It’s a little hard to explain. I’ll give an example. I have a household system that consists of batched habits that keeps my apartment clean and makes sure we eat healthily. So I go grocery shopping on Saturday (or I have them delivered if I’m busy) Go to the market on Sunday morning and spend my Sundays meal prepping while doing laundry. That way we have food for the whole week and I don’t have to worry about it for a whole week. During the week I fold laundry and on Friday I clean the house so it’s clean for the weekend so I can cook in a clean kitchen. This is what I call a system. It all works together. I’m used to this. My morning and evening routines keep my mental and physical health in check. Systems go beyond your habits and they stack them together in smart ways to really make life operate smoothly. This is another thing I teach in the membership btw. Since I have set up my systems my life has changed and I can’t live without them anymore. If you set up your systems you’ll see a lot of chaos and decision fatigue ceases to exist

Spending time by yourself

Point number 9! Learn to love to spend time with yourself! No matter if you are an introvert or extrovert. Spending time with yourself allows you to spend time with your own thoughts and feelings. And I know that is probably what you want to run away from, but we talked about feeling or feelings already. But getting comfortable with your own company will help so much with self-acceptance and love. It’s so much easier to be nice to yourself when you are used to being your own best friend. If you learn how to give yourself everything you need first, you will be far less likely to accept bullshit from other people. We often sustain toxic relationships or friendships out of the fear of being alone. But there is no point if being on your own is actually enjoyable. There is nothing wrong with spending time with other people when it actually brings you joy but it becomes that much more enjoyable when it’s because you want to, not because you are trying to fill a hole within yourself. I. don't believe that you can’t be loved if you don’t love yourself. But I do believe you will set higher standards for the love you receive. And you don’t have to do everything alone like you sometimes see, if going to the movies alone does not seem fun to you, why would you? But if you really want to go to a museum or a coffee shop why would you wait for somebody to come with you?

Life first, work second

And then we have the last point and in my opinion, one of the most important mentality switches you can make for a better life. Put your life first and your work second. and that is one of the boldest moves you can make in a society that values us on our productivity. But we don’t live to work. There is no happiness at the end of overworking yourself. The only thing that awaits you is a big nasty burnout. There is nothing wrong with working hard but it should never be the only thing in your life. In the end, we work to earn the money that we need to support our lifestyle. it’s been proven that we function the best in a 25 hours workweek, 25! You probably work a lot more than that. Now I know if you are not an entrepreneur or freelancer it’s probably not possible for you to reduce your hours, and that’s okay. But you do need to start setting boundaries at work. Overtime should not be a regular occurrence if you do not receive compensation and even if you do it should not be the standard. So how do you put your life first when you have to show up to work 40 hours a week. I think starting your morning by doing something for yourself is really powerful. Instead of rushing out the door and getting ready at the last minute, get up a little earlier and work on your goals before you leave for work. That way you still have the energy to do what really matters to you. If you have flexible hours, plan your work around life events that you want to attend. Leave your work at work, close your laptop in the afternoon and spend your afternoon doing things that will make you feel good! Now If you do work for yourself it’s a little easier. Then you really have the flexibility to plan your work around your life. To do this plan your life events first every week, even if they fall in the middle of the day. Then plan you work around that. Maybe 25 hours isn’t realistic right now but maybe scheduling in 1 hour per week to work on a passive income stream so you can work less in the future probably is. But in the end, it all comes down to a mental switch. Valuing your own life and enjoyment more over work is already a big step, even if you still work many hours right now.

And that’s it! Those are my 10 tips for levelling up your life. Like I said in the beginning, implementing all these at once is a little overkill but start with the ones that resonate with you the most and go from there. Most of these won’t happen overnight and they will take some inner work, meditation and journaling to really make them your own. It took months for me to shift my mindset. I journaled every day, repeated some of these as affirmations in my head and slowly made all of these a habit. It was hard work but it did really change my life. If this all seems a little overwhelming and you would like some guidance along the way the Studio-I membership could help you with that. You’ll get access to guided journaling exercises, meditations and weekly coaching calls.

I hope you enjoyed this episode an I’ll see you next week