HOW TO START WORKING ON YOURSELF

 BUILDING BETTER HABITS

An excited man celebrating after working on himself /Credit/Vlad Chetan 

Summary

Several research findings report that adult Americans are more anxious than they were a year earlier. According to American Psychiatric Association, 39 percent of adults in America reported feeling more anxious in 2018 than they were in 2017. And the number is rising, especially with the just concluded global health crisis. One of the contributors of anxiety is the misplaced interpretation of self-care. People are interested more in data than getting to the real issues that need attention. It is even interesting following what Journal of Consumer Research found out. That Americans associate stress and busyness with status and prestige. Put simply, people celebrate not having time to take care of themselves. This is also the reason why anxiety has been growing among adult Americans. Because people no longer care.

In modern society, a typical professional juggles a lot. A professional does not just practice his or her profession. He/she has two or three more other things he/she does apart from the main occupation. Therefore, time to focus on the needs of the body, soul, and mind is missing. In fact, most people don’t think about it. The care of self, which focuses on the mind, body, and soul has been neglected. And as a result, more people are ending up stressed than they were two or three years ago. Busy has become the new normal. But you need to be really careful. If you don’t care about yourself, you could become sick. The lesser time you spend on you might impact your health. And that would be very unfortunate. But I will shift gears and tell you how to start working on yourself. I have four things you can start working on to better yourself.

Disrupt Your Comfort Zone

You have known your current routines for a long time. It is time to interrupt them. You need to break from your old habits by introducing new habits. You need to start doing new things that make you less stressed and anxious. Forget about the fun that other people draw from being busy and stressed. You also need to break from that mentality. There is no fun in being stressed. I don’t see how people associate stress and busyness with status. It is really good that people have found things that they love and enjoy. However, the idea of getting obsessed with our hobbies and occupations is not healthy. You need to rein on this perspective. You need to find healthy ways of living and carrying out your operations. You need to remember a very important fact. You need your body to function for you to do anything at all.

Start working on your comfort zone. Introduce something new that you have been thinking about. Something that you have wanted to do but never scheduled it. Now is the right time to act on those thoughts. Start reading about areas and disciplines that interest you. Don’t focus on finishing a whole book on the same day. Instead, focus on doing something that caters to your own needs. Needs, which are not career-related or business. Needs that prioritize you as the person. Do a new activity that nourishes your body, soul, or mind. Activities that focus on the self. Reading books is one of those activities. But there are so many things that you can implement other than reading. Introduce a new practice based on your body, mind, and soul needs. It could be sleep or working out. Something that you feel needs to be added to your life right now. Start working on that thing.

Disrupt your comfort zone. Bring positive chaos in your life. Challenge yourself to learn a new thing. Modern world is highly globalized. Our paths are more intersected than they have ever been in history. Learn a new culture. Learn a new language. Learn something that will make you a little bit uncomfortable. Such as, sounding words from a different culture. Speaking words in a new language. Creating time and making yourself available to learn a new thing will shift your routine. You will not be stuck in the same routines. By implementing a new practice. You will have something totally different to think about. When you leave office for example, you will not be thinking about catching up with your friends. Instead, you will be thinking about how to make the new habit stick. If, you are highly interested in working on yourself. Start with disrupting your comfort zone.   

An organized man preparing best ways to work on himself/Credit/Andrea Piacquadio

Mind yourself

After interrupting your routine. Now mind yourself. What do you want? Start inspecting your life. The things that you have been postponing for a long time. You now have the right opportunity to get them done. The issues that you have been shelving. The problems that you have not solved. Your personal issues that you have been neglecting. This is the time to look into them. Look into self and parade the needs of thy self. Places you have wanted to visit. Recipes you have wanted to try. Knowledge you have wanted to add. People you have wanted to meet. Everything that you have ever wished to do. Implement them at this stage. Start working on them. Focus on doing things that are just you and no one else. Put yourself first and take care of yourself. Solve problems for yourself. Start minding yourself

Perhaps, you haven’t been feeding your mind the right things. You have maybe, placed yourself out there too much. Look into these things. Reduce the time you spend on things that do not have immediate value to you. It is good to familiarize yourself with your neighborhood. However, hanging out aimlessly will not help you either. If, there is no purpose of you being out there, other than seeing people going up and down. Then you got no business being out there. Redeem that time and invest it in something beneficial. You could use that time to read. You could also use that time to filter materials that you feed your mind. Minding yourself means taking out everything that does not benefit you. It does not matter what those things are. As long as, they don’t produce any meaningful impact in your life, drop them. Let go of friendships, which have turned toxic.  Stop being on tables where you are no longer respected. It does not matter how long you have been on those tables. Start minding yourself. Working on yourself will demand a lot of things. You will have to sacrifice a lot of things that you don’t need.

Slow Down

You have done so much. You have been busy for a long time. You have been running around for a long time. You have fixed a lot of problems. You have been a spanner to so many people. Now, slow down. You have work to do. Fix yourself. Slow down and mind things that just focus on you. You need to slow down and ask yourself if, all you are doing is worth all that effort. The people you are showing up for. Ask yourself if, they can show up for you. At your critical moment. How much of what you are doing now will help you? How many friends will be on your side? Who will readily solve your problems? You don’t need all that stress. You don’t have to drive yourself to anxiety chasing some things. Slow down and only chase what matters. Like your health. You don’t want being anxious to develop into a real medical problem.

You don’t want some level of tiredness you have been ignoring to materialize into something you don’t like. You are going to start working on yourself by slowing down. You are going to declutter yourself. You are going to identify all junk in your life and throw it away. Live a simplified life. A life that you can account for everything. You don’t need to know everyone in your neighborhood. You don’t have to keep up with everything. Pick only what you need. Do only what you need to do. Stop living overburdened. Some of those burdens are not worth it. They are only filling up your time. Making you tired for no reason. Get rid of those burdens. Things that do not present any value. Get rid of them. Secure your time. Use the secured time to meet needs that you have neglected for a long time. Think about duty of care.  Apply it to yourself. It is your needs first and nothing else.

A hard working woman in a Garage. Photo/Chevanon Photography 

Eat Properly

We have many culprits here. Most people are not creating time to eat properly. People are eating what they see or what they find on the way. We are eating to stop feeling hungry. But we are not eating to satisfy our bodies and health. We are eating for survival. Because we have gotten too busy to mind the food. As long as, it is edible, then it is food. You need to stop doing this. Start eating properly. Eat according to the needs of your body. Your body always needs food that help it to develop a strong defense mechanism against harmful invaders. Your body prioritizes your security. It defends you. But it cannot achieve this noble objective by itself. You must put in the work. Eat foods rich in minerals, vitamins and antioxidants. That is how your body develops a strong defense mechanism against viruses and diseases.    

Eating for your body, calls you to healthy eating. Developing a strong immune system requires you to eat a lot of fresh things. Fresh fruits, vegetables, and food rich in different minerals such as, zinc. Zinc helps your body to fight cold. If, you are prone to cold. You need to start eating foods rich in zinc. You also need to start learning where to find fresh foods. Green, fresh vegetables are the biggest sources of antioxidants. You need to start knowing where to find them. Start eating properly. In fact, start eating like an adult. Mind your health. Mind your overall good. Eat with the future in mind. Normalize healthy eating. There is nothing wrong eating on the way. You just need to know what you are eating. Don’t eat because you are hungry. Eat because you need food.

And the foods that keep you healthy and revitalized all day might not be what you see. What you see are temporal solutions. Solutions that can benefit you today not tomorrow. Now if you care about tomorrow. Invest in eating properly. Work on incorporating healthy eating lifestyle. Choose healthy foods often. Learn how to prepare healthy foods for yourself often. You have delegated too much. Face this bull by its horns. Make your food decisions. Make up your mind on the types of food you would like to eat often. Determine whether you can end with a balanced diet on your own. Find out if you know, which foods fall under each category that constitutes a balanced diet. Start working on yourself. Learn about these foods. Start eating properly. Your body needs it. Feed your body the right foods. Feed your mind the right foods. Feed yourself the right foods. You got work to do. Don’t let busy get in the way. If you must become better. Make your excuses last.