Lifestyle Weekly Roundup – Small Habits, Intentions, and Mindsets to Improve Your Life
Happy Monday! I hope everyone is having a great week so far!
What steps are you currently taking to live your dream life?
I am passionate about lifestyle design and intentionally adding in as many joyful moments into my life as possible. Living my dream life means waking up everyday and intentionally choosing activities and thoughts that align with my goals and support me to feel my best.
And I want to help you do the same.
These are my current favorite lifestyle and wellness habits and routines that are supporting me in living my best life. I hope you can take inspiration from these tips.
Let me know in a comment if you try any of these habits.
Podcasts
I love a good personal development/self-improvement podcast. Listening to other like-minded creators gets me so pumped and motivated about my own self-improvement journey. These are my two most recent podcast discoveries. I highly recommend you check them out, as these creators share so much wisdom!
Read this article to learn about how listening to personal development podcasts can help you on your own personal growth journey.
Just Glow With It
Jasmine Shah (Just Glow With It host) talks all about lifestyle, wellness, and personal growth. Her content is so motivating and truly makes me want to do the work to improve myself.
RachandLife
I discovered the rachandlife podcast through Instagram, and I am so glad I did! I highly recommend giving this podcast a listen, as it feels like a cozy chat with a friend.
Rachel is a Boston University student who talks about healthy and balanced living, covering topics, such as fitness, nutrition, mental health, and more. I really enjoy how her positive take on wellness aligns with my own!
Candle-lit dinners
Daily self-care acts are so important for your overall well-being. One of my current favorite self-care activities is a candle-lit dinner.
No, I don’t mean going out to a fine-dining experience at a fancy restaurant (although that is also a beautiful self-care activity). Candle-lit dinners refers to making and eating dinner in a cozy environment and lighting a candle while you eat.
This is such a cozy and relaxing experience and a great example of intentionally and mindfully upgrading a mundane daily activity. Creating this cozy environment is a great way to relax and unwind at the end of the day, which is so important for your mental health.
I’m currently reading The Chaos of Standing Still by Jessica Brody, which I found in one of my local Little Free Libraries. I picked it because the story takes place around Christmas-time and really adds to the cozy winter vibes.
Cozy jazz
Cozy jazz makes the perfect background music for romanticizing any activity, including (but not limited to) the aforementioned candle-lit dinners.
Cozy Winter Jazz Spotify Playlist
Reading + Dinner
Another dinner-related habit (it’s my favorite meal of the day). I mentioned in this post about falling (back) in love with reading that I had the idea to read during meal-times. While I thought focusing on both tasks might be challenging, I now really enjoy reading while eating dinner (and listening to cozy jazz). This is very relaxing and something I look forward to.
I highly encourage adding elements to look forward to throughout your day!
Let me know in a comment if you also enjoy reading with a meal (just be careful not to spill on your book).
Mindfulness
I’m focusing a lot on practicing mindfulness. This is a hard one for me, as my mind races, but I’m doing my best.
Meditation
Meditation is just one way to achieve mindfulness. I started up a meditation practice a few months ago to help me stay grounded and slow my thoughts. And I can say, I notice the benefits.
Meditation helps me concentrate on tasks, such as work, and also greatly helps me reduce anxiety.
If you find racing thoughts make it hard to focus, I highly recommend trying meditation to see if it helps you concentrate.
One challenge I face with meditation is making time for it, even though I know it is so important. That is why I love that you can find short meditations (1-10 minutes) on YouTube and through apps like Insight Timer.
I’m not a professional and any mental health advice I offer is just based on what works for me. Please take everything I say with a grain of salt.
Simple ways to practice mindfulness
Need inspiration on additional mindfulness tools? Use these tips to ground yourself in the present moment.
Use your five senses
Tune into your five senses to practice present-moment awareness. If you find your mind racing, ground yourself by noticing what you can see, smell, hear, feel, and/or taste.
Mentally note your surroundings
Narrating my current activity helps me bring myself back to the present moment. If your mind starts racing, notice it, then remind yourself of what you are doing. You can also tie in your five senses. As an example:
If you notice your mind racing while you are washing your dishes, you can think:
“I am washing dishes, I am present. I feel the warm water on my hands. I smell the dish soap.” And repeat that anytime your mind starts wandering again.
It’s simple, but effective (the best kind of mindset tool).
Do you have any mindfulness tools that work well for you?
Breathwork
Up until recently, I did not know the difference between meditation and breathwork. So I did some research and discovered that breathwork means actively changing your breathing pattern. While meditation often involves noticing your breathing pattern, the goal is learning to notice and detach from your thoughts.
That said, remember to take mindful, deep breaths throughout the day. This practice is so calming and helpful for re-centering and quieting your mind. It’s like hitting a mental reset button.
Whenever I take a deep breath, I can feel how it helps me relax and calms my anxiety.
Developing routines
In this post How to Prepare for the New Year | Activities to Live Your Best Life in 2024, I discussed how we can let go of old patterns to make room for new ones. This was inspired by my intention to release chaos from my life and implement consistent routines.
I am continuing to work on implementing routines that set me up for success. While giving myself grace in the process. I’m using Notion to keep track of my morning and evening routines. Having this guide is helpful for remaining consistent.
If you feel you aren’t meeting your full potential in some aspect(s) of life, I encourage you to determine if you can identify habits and/or routines that will help you meet your goals.
Starting small
With making lifestyle changes, it is important to start small and recognize every accomplishment. BJ Fogg’s book Tiny Habits explains that this is important for building lasting habits.
Even though I am not where I want to be with my routines, I acknowledge that I’m making big improvements. Congratulating yourself on your successes is an important step in establishing new positive habits.
What is one small step you can take towards implementing a habit you are working on?
Prioritizing sleep
Too many of us don’t get enough sleep. And I got tired of literally feeling tired. Along with focusing on consistent routines, I’m prioritizing a consistent sleep schedule.
Join me in discovering everything you can achieve when you are full rested and energized!
Yoga With Adriene
Every January, Yoga With Adriene does 30 Days of Yoga on YouTube. This is a great, beginner-friendly yoga opportunity that is available for free on YouTube. I appreciate how 30 Days of Yoga helps me get back into a movement routine after the holidays.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my current lifestyle favorites and you feel inspired to use a tip from the post to romanticize/improve your own life. Let me know in a comment if you try any of these habits or if you have any current favorites (habits, mindsets, routines, or anything else!). Make sure to sign up for my email list above and follow me on social media to stay updated on content designed to help you live your best life.
I truly love the opportunity to create this content for you. Thank you for being part of this self-improvement community.
Featured Image: Photo by Vanessa Serpas on Unsplash
Life by Julia 