Be Your Own Leader
Welcome to the newest portion of our blog Be Your Own Leader. This portion of our blog is designed to help people who are striving to become the best that they can be in both their business and personal lives. Be Your Own Leader will be complementing our weekly motivational quotes and The Rant which looks into sayings and things that people say and do in our everyday lives that just make wonder about people sometimes. For our first post, we will look at 30 things that you can do daily that can really improve your life both mentally and physically and make you a more productive person in both your business and personal life. 
1. Drink a glass of room temperature water when you first wake up: After a good night’s sleep your body is dehydrated and needs to be replenished. Drinking a glass of water is a great way to start your morning. You can add a bit of lemon or lime to get the great health benefits also. You can read an older post that we did, 7 great benefits of lemon water by clicking on this link. https://www.aliferebooted.com/healthandwellness/7-great-benefits-of-lemon-water 2. Stay off your phone first thing in the morning: We all sleep with our phones near our bed, I know I do because I use it as my alarm. Learn to stay off your phone when you first get up, you really don’t need to check your social feeds first thing. This is a tough one, even for myself because it had become such a habit that I had reinforced for years. 3. Wake up Earlier: Nothing is more stressful than having to rush to get yourself or others ready to go for the day. Try waking up earlier, it will have a more calming effect on your life. 
4. Drink less caffeine: Yes, most of us really enjoy that first cup of Joe, but try to wait a couple of hours before your first cup. Drink that glass of water instead. 5. Don’t hit the snooze button: I was horrible with this. When you hit the snooze button you risk the chance of falling back into another sleep cycle and end up feeling groggier than if you would have just gotten up with your alarm. 6. Don’t watch the news, especially first thing in the morning: Plenty of people like to get up first thing and watch the news, unfortunately most of the articles are of the negative nature and can leave you feeling down. Take 5 minutes later in the day to scroll through the headings on a local news feeds website if you want to keep up with current events. 7. Listen to podcasts instead of the radio when commuting: We spend so much time commuting daily, why not use that time to learn something new. 
8. Eat healthier: I think this one is a no brainer. What’s the point of reaching your goals and making lots of money if you don’t have the energy or heath to enjoy the fruits of your labour. Why make lots of money and then have to put it back into health expenses. 9. Stay organized: Nothing is more frustrating than having to move stuff around all the time or not being able to find something that you need. Organize your home and workspace and see how much less time consuming your life will be. 10. Feel gratitude for what you have: In this age of consumerism we live in we all want more and more. Take some time daily to appreciate all that you have in life, there are others in this world who would give anything to have what we have in our lives. 11. Be kind to others: It doesn’t take much to be kind to others. A simple word or gesture can make a big difference in someone’s life, you never know what kind of day people are having and just your little gesture can improve their day and yours. 
12. Be Honest: Nothing can get you in trouble faster than not being honest with people. People will think more highly of you if they know that what you say is the truth. 13. Cut back on sugar: This one goes along with the eat healthier goal. Sugar is known to cause serious health problems, so cut back on that soda or dessert and see the amazing changes that will occur. 14. Limit alcohol: We all love to have a drink from time to time, but sometimes we can overdo it. It’s great to go out and enjoy ourselves after a hard week at work, but what is that doing to you the next day when you really don’t feel like doing anything to improve yourself or reach your goals. 15. Set a budget: Setting a weekly or monthly budget is a great way to see where your money is being spent wisely or frivolously. It’s hard to reach you goal of home ownership, early retirement or starting that new business if you are always spending too much money on things that aren’t necessary. 16. Start saving and have an emergency fund: Learn to start putting a little aside each month, one savings for future expenditures (Vacation, New car etc.) and one as an emergency fund (In case of sickness or an unforeseen repair). 
17. Start a retirement fund A.S.A.P.: You are never too young to start saving for your retirement. The earlier you start the more you will have when it comes time to retire. 18. Take lessons from your life experiences: We have all been through a lot of different situations in our lives, if by chance these same situations occur again we have the ability to make different or better choices. 19. Walk daily/Exercise 3 times a week: Go for a daily walk. If you have time at lunch or just a light stroll in the evening. Try to get at least a half hour worth of moderate exercise 3 times weekly. You will be amazed at the mental and physical benefits that you will get. 20. Set Goals: We all need to set goal in our business or personal lives. Everyone has those big goals of being rich or retiring early, but you need to set the smaller goals that are going to get you to the Goal. When you start reaching those smaller goals you will be amazed at how satisfying it is and the end goal won’t look so daunting. 
21. Plan your meals in advance: Take the time to plan your meals, take a few minutes to plan your weekly meals, not only is it time saving, you will also know exactly what you need to buy ahead of time which can also save you a lot of money. 22. Unplug your life: Spend an hour or two daily with no distractions. Turn your phone and television off and spend the time doing other more productive things. Studies have shown that the typical North American checks their phone over 250 times per day and can watch up to 4 hours per day of television. 23. Learn to relax/meditate: We all need to relax more. Learn how to meditate or just find some time to sit and not think of all the worries of the day. We all need a little mental break sometimes. 
24. Declutter: To go along with the stay organized benefit, decluttering your house, social media, emails etc. will give you a better sense of wellbeing. Too much clutter is known to cause anxiety in people. 25. Start a new hobby/get back to an old one: Nothing can put your mind at ease like do a hobby that you love. It’s great to see something come to life that you have made yourself. This a good option for when you unplug your life for an hour or two daily. 26. Journal: Learn to journal for a few minutes each morning and night: Write what you have plans to do, what was great about your day or what was bad about it and what you could have done to change it. 27. Read more: Learn to read daily: The most successful people are known to read up to 50 books per year. We are not talking a piece of fiction (although those are nice once in a while), read self-help books or autobiographies of people who have made a huge success of their lives. 
28. Watch the sunrise or sunset: If you are able to get up early enough in the morning (which you should, the most successful people are also early risers) then take the time to go out and watch the sunrise and going to a beautiful spot and watching the sunset can be very uplifting as well. 29. Make a to-do list every night: Nothing can make your day go smoother then planning your day in advance. Start off with an easy task that you can get done quickly (It will put you in a good mindset), then start to tackle your biggest tasks one at a time. Before you know it, you will have extremely productive days that will be getting you towards your goals. 30. Sleep 7-9 hours per night: I know this is hard for most of us but we need the sleep-in order for our minds and bodies to be working at optimum levels. 
Change is always hard so ensure you do not try to do all of these steps at one time. Start slow by maybe just getting up a few minutes earlier tomorrow and having that glass of water first thing, then add another of the 30 daily habits every couple of days. Within a couple of months, you will really start to see how improved your business and personal life has become. We just touched on each subject lightly in this post. We will get more in-depth on each subject or area in future posts along with lots of other topics that you can use to reach all the goals that you have set for your life. We were able to find a decently priced book to help you achieve the goals that you set for yourself. The U.S version through Amazon is $7.58 for the paperback and an amazing $1.48 for your kindle, while in Canada it's a little more expensive at $14.71 for the paperback and $1.99 for your kindle. I've even ordered a copy of the book for myself. The book was given a 3.9 out of 5 from Goodreads and a 3.8 out of 5 from Amazon. I think $1.99 is well worth it to gain more knowledge and be more productive. Here's an excerpt for the book from the Amazon site. Stop doing busywork. Start doing your best work. Are you over-extended, over-distracted, and overwhelmed? Do you work at a breakneck pace all day, only to find that you haven’t accomplished the most important things on your agenda when you leave the office? The world has changed and the way we work has to change, too. With wisdom from 20 leading creative minds, Manage Your Day-to-Day will give you a toolkit for tackling the new challenges of a 24/7, always-on workplace. Featuring contributions from: Dan Ariely, Leo Babauta, Scott Belsky, Lori Deschene, Aaron Dignan, Erin Rooney Doland, Seth Godin, Todd Henry, Christian Jarrett, Scott McDowell, Mark McGuinness, Cal Newport, Steven Pressfield, Gretchen Rubin, Stefan Sagmeister, Elizabeth G. Saunders, Tony Schwartz, Tiffany Shlain, Linda Stone, and James Victore. Plus, a foreword from Behance founder and CEO, Scott Belsky.
If you have any other great daily routines that should be added then feel free to leave a comment or reach out to us by email at tobeyourownleader@gmail.com We have started a new Facebook Group specifically for those who are trying to stay motivate so that they can improve their business and personal life. We would love for you to join our page for daily quotes and updates of when our new motivational post and our new series of blog posts aimed at improving your everyday life. You can join the page athttps://www.facebook.com/Be-Your-Own-Leader-2487540467936932/ Follow us on: Twitter: https://twitter.com/BeYourOwnLeade1 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/real_minimalism Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/realminimalism/ We are always looking for guest writers. If you have a story about minimalism, travel or have a great story to tell on The Rant page that you would like to get out there then please feel free to contact us. Join our mailing list to know when our next post comes out. Thanks, Mark Previous Posts
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