As humans, we often fall victim to assuming that the grass is always greener on the other side and that in order to improve our lives we need to make big changes such as changing our job. However, there are many seemingly tiny changes we can make to our daily schedule to get much more out of our current job and our current circumstances. Heres a few small changes that can make a huge difference.
Cut out all sugar and snacks
Rather than go through the stress and hassle of trying to follow a strict diet regime. Simply stop snacking on chocolates and crisps. This small change will decrease your bodies dependence on low quality energy sources and when combined with exercise will significantly reduce your body. You will be sharper from the better diet and healthier from the reduced calories. All by resisting that snack that you already knew was a bad idea. Also, an added bonus is that reduced sugar intake has numerous considerable health benefits, all as easy to reach as cutting out chocolate bars.
Exercise everyday
Bare with me before you say this is cliche, the point here is not to start exercising or exercise more but to force yourself to do something everyday. Cycle or walk to work, go swimming every other evening even if only for 30 minutes. So common is the excuse that we dont have time, however, we can easily make time for exercise by doing exercise, our body can then naturally adapt to do more with the time we have remaining to compensate for lost time and we get healthier and sharper in the process.
Meditate
Its no coincidence that many of the worlds successful people all meditate. From top CEO’s to legendary public figures. Meditation can seem daunting to those that are not used to the concept. Put in layman’s terms. Meditation is simply focussing your mind. The simplest meditation to get yourself started is to sit down. Close your eyes and focus solely on your breathing in and out. Each time you think of other worries and thoughts, you dismiss them and focus only on the single task of breathing. By training your brain to stop worrying about multiple things at once your body becomes more focussed. Stress is relieved and your ability to solve problems and be peaceful and happy greatly improves. Practicing for 5 to 15 minutes each day will have huge benefits on your work ability and your whole life.
Cut all monthly direct debits you can live without
Money makes the world go around and having extra money can help us feel more secure and give us more autonomy over our own destiny. Its so easy to subscribe to another TV package or buy a better car on monthly insurance. However, none of these things are important. They dont matter at all in reality. Nobody cares about the age of the car you own and you will get no additional happiness from watching an extra TV series. This is because they are superficial pleasures. By removing them from ourselves we allow more money for ourselves and less dependence on superficial pleasures.
Live simpler
This is really the result and merger of the previous four tips. The biggest pattern between happiness and contentment is how complicated your life is. As we go through life we pick up increasing distractions and complications that spoil our happiness and add anxiety and pressure onto our otherwise wonderful lives. Cutting out refined sugar, Netflix subscriptions, noisy thoughts in the mind and automation such as driving to work in a car takes us closer to our natural selves and simplifies our lives, reducing the burdens and stresses of our modern lifestyles. So frequently we strive for complicated solutions to complex problems when the real solutions are cheap, easy and right under our noses. Give it a try for one week and see the huge differences these tiny changes will make.