Develop Good Habits: Personal Development Mastery

Effective leadership flows from effectively leading yourself. Our empirically dominated culture places all focus on the external and physical world, blinding the importance of the internal and mental. Self-mastery is being in control of the internal thought processes that guide your emotions, habits, and behaviors. The former is done with intention and awareness, the latter is visceral and without reason.

General Skills to Learn (The FUN and USEFUL Skills)

It seems counterintuitive, but being selfish and focusing on enriching yourself will lead to being selfless and enriching the lives of those around you. The first crucial step in developing self-mastery is to become an observer of your thoughts—to become self-aware, self-reflective. To think about your thinking.

Throughout history, psychologists and philosophers have presented theories on the multiplicity of the human mind. Plato divided the psyche into appetitive, logical, and high spirited. Freud categorized into the Id, Ego, and Superego.

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Modern theories continue to be presented and debated. Self-mastery is about creating inner congruence—an agreement and peace between an external stimulus, our internal interpretation, and our emotional response. A lack of mindfulness will respond to external stimulus immediately with an emotional response. Self-mastery causes a pattern break and allows for an internal interpretation to take place. Stop, fully observe the emotions welling up inside you and the thoughts that present themselves.

Self-mastery requires this observation and recognition. Label the emotions and thoughts as they present themselves. A personal example, I made peace with my father and our lack of relationship: Acknowledging the post-war trauma he was no doubt affected by, and that he had to play the father role in light of a difficult script. Self-mastery meant not allowing past negative experiences the power of emotional collateral to spark present and future fires. Making peace with your past allows you an untarnished and more objective approach to the present, ideally resulting in a positive future.

It means to let go, forgive , and as humanly possible, to forget. But we can change the story we tell ourselves about it, and by doing that, we can change the future. Challenging your thought patterns and reasoning will help with self-mastery.

Develop Good Habits in 7 Simple Steps

A more critical mind will result in making better decisions. Debate with yourself, have a spirited argument. You may be surprised at some of the insights you come up with. Author Susan Sontag highlights the transformative power:. In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself.

People tend to spend the majority of their days sitting, especially those who work in office jobs. Our bodies were not made to be sedentary all day, so it is important for your overall health to get up and moving as much as possible. Exercising outside of work is crucial, and is an important starting point. However, limiting yourself to only moving for that one hour a day will not make up for sitting or lying down for the remainder of your time. You can even do some office deskercises to combat the dangers of sitting all day, or you can build a daily walking habit to help you lose weight.

Regular exercise, in whatever form you enjoy, can help you live a longer, happier life. Find a friend to help keep you accountable for your exercise. If you are able to work out in groups, this will also help add some social time to your day to make your exercise more enjoyable. Use products, eat food and perform activities that will not harm your body.

You have one body for your lifetime, so it is imperative to take care of it along the way. Avoid harmful substances, such as alcohol, cigarettes, and processed foods. Instead, work with your body to provide it with the fuel it needs to achieve optimal health. Eat whole foods as part of a plant-based diet, and make sure to allow your body to get the restorative sleep you need to stay healthy. Additionally, talk to your doctor to see what kind of vitamins or minerals you may need to add to your diet. It is best to get most of your vitamins from your diet, but it is also important to take supplements if you are deficient in something that your body needs.

Although the term "self-care" may sound indulgent, it is critical for one's overall well-being. Stress and exhaustion from working too much have toxic effects on the body. While it is important to work hard during times when you are trying to be productive, it is equally important to take care of yourself and your body so you are always on top of your game.

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Mindful eating is all about focusing on the way you eat. Research has shown that practicing mindful eating helps improve digestion, decreases your appetite between meals, and helps you enjoy your food more. Focusing on what you eat can be enough to help you make better choices, avoid overeating, and savor your food. Not only is this good for your gut, it is also an effective way to control the amount of food you eat. To be your best self, you need to make sure you are allowing your mind and body to recover when they need it. Balance your working hours with breaks and down time to give yourself a chance to recover.

Stick to the schedule you create, and do not look at this action item as being optional. You have to rev your body up so you can achieve success for the rest of the day. Taking regular breaks not only increases your productivity, it also helps you make better decisions. After taking a break, you will have more energy and be better equipped to tackle the work you are doing. If you try to work without taking a breather every now and then, you will start to fade, and will be more likely to make mistakes. Get some water, go outside for a short walk, or just grab a snack to help reset your mind.

Most people don't drink enough water. But drinking enough water every day helps improve your health, fitness, weight control, mood, and even your energy levels. When you don't drink as much water as you are putting out, you can become dehydrated. This may happen even more if you are in a warmer climate, doing strenuous exercise, hiking in high altitudes, or elderly. Drinking water helps balance and maintain your fluid levels, so it is important to be mindful of how much you are drinking each day. If you are not a fan of drinking plain water, add some lemon to it to make it more flavorful.

You can also infuse some fruit or cucumber into your water to add vitamins, minerals, and flavor. There are a lot of creative ways to add more water to your day and stay hydrated. Mindfulness is the practice of giving all of your attention to the present moment, and accepting it without judgment. Mindfulness has been found to be an important factor in stress reduction and overall happiness.

Practice mindfulness throughout the day, and enjoy the benefits to your physical and mental well-being. Mindful Listening helps you stop your running thoughts so you can hear the message that is being shared with you, and so the speaker can feel understood.

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This will help you make deeper connections with the people that you meet, and it will make you feel better about yourself. It will also help you develop empathy, listen to your speaking partner for longer, and retain information. Mindful listening can help you build better relationships with your loved ones. Taking some time each day to really pinpoint the things that are going well for you can help lift your spirits and let you feel a new sense of appreciation.

Keeping a gratitude journal is a good way to start practicing gratitude. This may seem like a tough thing to do when everything around you seems to be negative. But turn towards your own thoughts and experiences to recognize the things in your life that are helping it to be great.

An affirmation is a good tool to use because it can program your mind into believing the things you are telling it. This is because the mind can't tell the difference between what is real and what you are making up. Reciting affirmations is a good way to start your day.

Practices That Make You Better Every Day

The affirmation you recite depends on what you want to achieve. Some affirmations include those for:. When you mindfully journal, you are no longer passively experiencing life as it goes by. Instead, you are taking the time to engage with the thoughts, feelings, and ideas that come your way.

Doing this forces you to be in the present moment and take in the details of your surroundings. This will also help you reflect on things that happened during the day that you may not otherwise think about again. Think back on the moments that really made your day happy, and stop to consider how those moments made you feel at the time, and how they may have had a lasting positive effect on the rest of your day. This applies to both your real life and online presence. Positive people will help you stay more positive about your own life, and their energy will radiate into how you view your world.

You want to limit the negativity in your life, because if you are not careful or conscious about it, negative thoughts can seep into your own mind and change your outlook on your day. How do you talk about yourself to other people? Also, how do you talk about yourself to you? Your negative self-talk is a form of self-sabotage that you need to correct. The way you talk about yourself to you has a huge impact on how you think, behave, and make decisions about your life. This will make you think and feel more positive as you go through your day.

It is important to learn how to forgive and forget so you can let go of burdens and live a freer life. Forgiving people who hurt you, and forgiving yourself for your own shortcomings is one step to living a happier, less stressful life. Letting go of the past will allow you to live a happier life that is free from negative thoughts. It will allow you to be content with living in the here and now. To live a more meaningful life , you have to be kind both to yourself and other people. Treat yourself with kindness, and treat other people with that same amount of kindness that you would expect to receive.

Remember, it is important to work on your self-improvement every day, so that you are continuously becoming a better person. This isn't something that you can visit once every few months. You need to always be focusing on areas in your life that could use some improvement. Start by picking a few of these practices and doing them on a regular basis until they become a habit.