When you want to achieve certain goals in life, you usually have to change some things you’re currently doing. Sometimes it’s a matter of time management. Other times, it’s making sure you have more energy to do the things you need to do in order to get closer to your goals.
Whatever it is you need to do, making small and gradual changes – consistently – will work out better for you than trying to make a complete and drastic overhaul of your life all at once. Just little habits that you practice can turn your life around.
Doing too much, too soon can be intimidating and put a lot of extra strain on you when you’re already a little worried about whether or not you can succeed by changing things in the first place.
But with micro habits, you’ll be able to begin the process of change without suffering any major stress. There are ten simple baby steps you can take toward reaching your goals and see lasting improvements over time.
Consistency with Sleep
There are many studies that prove that those who have a good sleep schedule can more easily achieve their goals in life. Sleep is a time when your body and mind repair themselves.
As you relax, your body is working to support you on a cellular level. These physical changes are what keep you healthy and capable of going throughout the following day. You may have noticed that when you lack sleep, you feel lethargic and unable to do as much as you can when you have ample rest.
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Your mindset suffers when you don’t have enough sleep. You may instantly feel irritable and unable to focus on your tasks. Instead of trying to do a major overhaul on your sleep schedule, take baby steps to get on a schedule you feel will work best for you.
For example, start with one positive sleep hygiene change, such as replacing old sheets or bedding with newer, soft ones. Or, go to sleep 15 minutes earlier each week until you are going to bed at a time that you are happy with.
electronics
Another thing you might do to make micro changes to your sleep quality is to begin turning off all electronic gadgets one hour before bed. You may also want to take a relaxing bath using lavender bath salts before bed as well.
Making all of these changes at once might be too difficult if you are already trying to change other things in your life. However, making one new change in your habits or routines each week will eventually lead you to the exact place that will serve you best in terms of getting the rest that you need.
Fueling Your Body for Energy
While sleep is one habit that will provide more energy and focus in your day, nutrition is another. Many people, especially when they are short on sleep, will turn to processed, high-sugar foods in an effort to boost their energy so that they can complete a task.
What often happens is that a cycle begins to form, where the sugar boost causes a crash in energy later, so the individual eats more food that is bad for their body. Eventually, they may begin to pack on weight or suffer from other health problems, and this causes an even bigger lag in their energy.
your nutrition
You don’t want to try to make a complete change to your entire nutritional menu in one day. While this is easy for some people to achieve, it’s very frustrating for others. Instead, make micro changes to your nutrition so that you began to fuel your body for energy throughout the day.
For example, you might make a commitment to eat some sort of protein for breakfast, paired with a healthy carb. You might want to have two scrambled eggs as your protein, paired with a slice of whole-grain toast to start your day.
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This way, instead of heading to the vending machine at work to grab a high sugar pastry so that you can complete your tasks, you will be fueling your body the right way. Another micro change you might undertake is to pack your lunch or make it at home each day instead of eating fast food.
You can also do things such as trying to make sure you get at least one fruit and one vegetable each day, if it was lacking before. Keep making the micro changes until you have changed your entire nutritional menu to a place where you feel it will support you in fueling your body throughout the day.
Decluttering and Organizing
One thing that holds people back from achieving their goals is living or working in a messy environment. While there are some people who are creative in nature and tend to have a messy work desk, for most people, it serves as a hindrance.
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You want to slowly and methodically declutter your living and workspace. Don’t try to do an entire house or office all in one day. This will leave you exhausted and frustrated. Instead, take one area, such as the top of your desk, and work on developing a habit to keep it clear of clutter each and every day for a week before moving on to the next micro habit.
The next micro habit might be to organize your paperwork so that everything is in a place where you can find it easily. Instead of just stacking it up and straightening it so that it is neat, you want to develop some sort of filing system that you can use to keep clutter at bay from here on out.
Setting Boundaries
One of the most shocking things many people discover in their journey to achieve more in their life is how intrusive other people can be without them even realizing it. Once you understand that it is okay for you to set boundaries with certain individuals, for a variety of reasons, your life begins to take a whole new path.
There are many different people you may need to set boundaries with, from a well-meaning spouse to children living in your household, neighbors, friends, bosses, and other family members.
There are also a variety of reasons why you may need to set these boundaries. For example, if you are a work-at-home entrepreneur and you have friends or family dropping in on you because you are at home, then you may need to set some boundaries during work hours.
To make micro habits in this area, you can either start with one individual or with one type of problem. For example, you may have a friend and sibling who both constantly ask you to watch their child while they run an errand because you are home.
They don’t respect or acknowledge the fact that you may be working from home. Therefore, you need to implement a strict rule that you will say no to anyone who wants to drop their child off with you during your work hours.
Mapping Out Minor and Major Goals
If you want to achieve more, then you have to know where your path should take you. Too many people try to work without a map in place, so they end up floundering every day.
Instead of being frustrated that you wasted time each day, try to work out a schedule where you have written out both your minor and major goals in life. These may be work goals or health goals, relationship goals or otherwise.
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This should become a routine process for you. You will want to get in a micro habit of checking your minor goals daily or weekly to ensure that they are still accurate for where you want to be a later date.
With your major goals, you can check in on those less frequently, such as once a month or once per quarter. You will also want to have a certain date that you check in for a yearly analysis.
Adhering to a Task List
Adhering to a task list is sometimes a difficult thing for some people to do. They lose focus and get distracted by numerous things throughout their day. You need to develop micro habits that support you in crossing off as many items on your task list as you can each day.
For example, start with the process of making a task list the night before each workday. That way, you wake up in the morning and hit the ground running, ready to tackle your to-do list.
Next, you may want to implement a micro habit where you give yourself a certain number of tasks that need to be completed each day. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself by putting too many items on the list, but you don’t want to make it so easy on you that you are able to lose focus and waste time once again.
You may want to create a micro habit where do you check in with yourself once every half hour. This will allow you to see if you have strayed from your task list or if you are adhering to it so that you can achieve the completion of certain projects.
Learning to Prioritize
When you have these tasks list, goals, and other items, it’s important that you learn how to prioritize them. Not all tasks or goals have the same level of importance in your life. For example, you may have a goal to run a marathon, but the goal of losing 100 pounds may be more pressing and may also need to occur first so that you can easily achieve the other goal.
Whenever you have a task list or goal list, after you brainstorm it, you need to sit down and implement a habit where you prioritize it according to what is logical and what is most important to you.
think logically
Start with what is logical first. For example, it doesn’t make sense to have a goal to earn $100 a day if you haven’t even earned $10 a day. Likewise, it wouldn’t make sense to have a goal to sign up for that marathon if you are unable to walk or run at your current weight and need to first shed some pounds.
Once you have organized everything in a logical manner, create a micro habit where you are then rearranging things according to what’s most important in your life. For example, you may have certain financial goals as well as certain parenting goals.
You may have a goal to increase your earnings to $500 a day, even though you are currently able to live on $200 a day. However, another goal you may have is to be able to spend more time with your children.
Maybe you are only able to spend two hours per week total with them, while your spouse handles everything else. While it is admirable to be working on your business to better things for your family, you can prioritize your children first because it is important for them to have you in their lives.
Mastering Time Management Skills
Many of the goals you want to achieve can be accomplished simply by learning how to manage your time better. Many people need a lot of help with this because they are just bad with time management skills.
You can implement some micro habits with this, such as having a set work schedule instead of just working whenever you feel like it. Once you have mastered that, you can utilize certain tools that can help with these micro habits, such as using a simple egg timer that gives you a certain number of minutes to work with high focus before taking a break.
Another micro habit you want to undertake is to become more aware of how much time everything takes you. It’s important that you know how long it takes you to write an article, to create a video, or even to make lunch and eat it so that you can schedule your day accurately.
You don’t want to have to guess and have your entire schedule thrown off course so that you are put in a pressure cooker situation with deadlines, or wasting too much time that could be spent helping you achieve your goals.
Increasing Knowledge Consistently
One great micro habit for you to implement in your life is to gain more knowledge. You need to have a set time each day to work on this simple task. It doesn’t have to be a lot of time that you devote, but it does need to be consistent.
Make it a habit to spend at least 10 minutes a day learning something new that will help you achieve your goals. If you have a goal to be in better shape, then you might research a nutritious recipe or a specific exercise that you want to integrate into your routine.
If you are leading a niche as an online entrepreneur, then you can spend those 10 minutes a day learning something new that you can share with your audience. You might read just one page of a book, watch a three minute video and take notes on it, or even conduct some keyword research to see what it is your target audience needs from you.
Learning to Let Go of What Isn’t Beneficial to You
The last micro habit that can help you make incredible changes in your life is to let go of things that don’t serve you well. While boundaries can be set with people, you can also let go of things that steal too much of your time and energy emotionally or physically.
For example, if you notice that you spend far too much time binge-watching mindless reality TV instead of working on your goals, you might cut out those shows or watch them only during non-work hours.
Or, if you can honestly recognize that you are wasting too much of your life arguing with individuals on social media, this is a micro habit that you can change to let go of a habit that is not serving you well.
There are many small things you can do each day that will add up to a big shift in your ability to achieve the goals that you want in life. Whether it’s related to your career or your personal life, finding little ways to do things differently will go a long way in benefiting you.
