4 Mindful Ways To Start Your Day

Mindful exercises can have a positive effect on your mind, body, and spirit if you are consistent with your practice and application. Finding the best technique to fit your needs might seem overwhelming in the beginning –but I want you to know you can do it!  

The benefits of mindfulness are plentiful, including improved focus, concentration, reduce stress, and inner peace.

One approach to boosting your mindfulness techniques is to incorporate them into the start of your day. The morning hours are a great way to help you build consistency, and there are multiple things you can do without even leaving your bed!

Here are four mindful things that you can do to start your day.

1. Breathing

You should not underestimate the power of practicing mindful breathing. Slow, deep, and deliberate breathing helps calm your mind, enhances focus, and improvs your productivity throughout the day.

How Does Mindful Breathing Work?

With mindful breathing exercises, we are taking slow and deep breaths which in turn helps to stimulate our vagus nerve. When we slow our breathing to be purposeful as is seen with mindful breathing in which you are taking these slow, deep breaths (five to seven minutes), we, in turn, trigger our heart rate to decrease which leads to a wealth of physical responses throughout the body.

You want to sit in a position that is upright, and your feet are resting flat against the floor. Next, taking a deep breath through your nose, hold it for a five-second count, then just as slowly, release that breath through your mouth while counting to five. Repeat this breathing exercise for five to ten minutes, being purposeful with focus.

You can do this lying in your bed first thing in the morning or at night just before you fall asleep.

2. Mindful Writing

One of the most mindful things you could do each day is journaling. Writing down your thoughts and ideas in a journal is an excellent way to identify, explore, and examine your innermost thoughts.

This process can draw you into the here and now driving you to acknowledge your feelings and develop an awareness for what it is you need to be happy.

3. Visualize Daily Goals

Upon opening your eyes in the morning, try to visualize your daily goals. Visualization of your daily goals can prove extremely beneficial for helping to get the wheels turning in your mind to improve cognition and memory. It is also ideal to bring focus to what you will accomplish for the day. This action will also give you the necessary focus you need to be successful with anything you tackle in your day.

4. Inspirational Reading

First thing in the morning, do a bit of inspirational reading to jump-start your day. Use the language of the material to momentarily challenge your thoughts, beliefs, and ideas about your values, lifestyle choices and other components of your life. Also, allow this content to boost your spirits and to draw you into and inspire your day.

These are just four ways to start your day mindfully. Remember that you don’t have to practice all of these techniques to be mindful. Choose the one that best fits your style to start. Also, do not be afraid to create your own mindful activities that will boost your self-awareness, positivity, and overall health status.

4 Ways to Set Personal Boundaries

What are personal boundaries?

They are the limits that you set with others, they indicate what behaviors are acceptable or unacceptable.

Knowing your boundaries is the first step to unlocking your self-worth. Self-worth is not the same as self-esteem, the former is about finding your intrinsic value.

Knowing this can increase your awareness of your boundaries in line with your spiritual worth, intellectual worth, physical worth, social worth, and emotional worth.

Know this – you are entitled to believe as you wish, so is everyone else.

You are entitled to think your thoughts and own your opinions. You are entitled to your personal space.

You are entitled to have your own friends and enjoy social activities. You are entitled to your emotions and feelings in any situation.

There is a distinct difference between knowing those boundaries and actively setting them. The latter is not always easy and it is a learned skill.

It can be incredibly difficult for anyone who grew up in a home where there were no boundaries. Additionally, you may have high self-esteem, yet still, have low self-worth.

4 Ways to Set Your Boundaries

1. Know Your Limit

You should clearly define your limits with your romantic partner, family members, friends, colleagues, and even strangers.

You can identify your limits by thinking about the experiences you have been through in the past that left you angry, frustrated or uncomfortable.

It may be helpful to create a chart that outlines your boundaries for each type of relationship in your life.

2. Assertiveness

So, you know your limits and you've stated your boundaries, but what next?

You have to follow through.

So, if someone crosses your personal boundaries you have to assert yourself. This can be scary for anyone who isn't accustomed to doing so. There are ways you can build your skill, though, and in easy ways.

For example, if you were overcharged in the store, point it out. If a waitress didn't get your order right, don't be afraid to point it out and get what you ordered. Tell people when they're pushing you beyond your comfort zone in personal discussions.

3. Practice

When you start practicing assertiveness you may worry that you are coming off as rude. However, you are simply affirming the boundaries that you have set.

It is about being honest with others and standing up for yourself. If you don't tell someone that something makes you uncomfortable then how will they know to correct their behavior?

4. Prepare To Ignore

Don't be afraid to ignore someone who is actively crossing your boundaries after you have set them and asserted yourself.

This is an act of self-care and shows you value yourself

4 Ways to Improve Your Focus

Can you think of a time you've been incredibly focused on something? A strange thing happens... suddenly the typical obstacles standing in your way mean nothing to you as you close in on your goal, you are hyper-aware of everything around you, but your focus is unshaken. No matter the obstacle, you find a way to overcome it because you are so locked onto that target at the end of the long road that you view everything through a different lens.

Are you looking to improve your focus and avoid distractions and procrastination? Try these strategies.

• Take Time Out To Get Some Perspective

You may sometimes be in need of a reality check, but who you turn to for it is an important decision. You want to speak to someone who is supportive, willing to talk tough, and invested in success. That may be your partner, mentor, or a straight-shooting friend. No matter who it is, you need people like this on your side.

• Focus On Those Positives

We are all guilty of getting caught up in something that is going wrong even though everything else is going right. In moments like this, it's important to grab hold of the positives. So, take time out to create a list of everything that is going well to realign your focus where it belongs.

• Know When To Take Action

Allowing your focus to move away from the right target often invites negative emotions and leaves you feeling overwhelmed. Take action to take control power and empower yourself, whether it's inviting someone in to collaborate or employing the help of an assistant. Don't allow those feelings to fester, when you identify them take action to mitigate them.

• Practice The Art Of Self-Care

There is nothing more important to your focus than self-care. When you are exhausted, stressed out or hungry you aren't going to be performing at your best. You may have noticed that you're fighting fit when you've had a good night's sleep, you're eating well and exercising often. These are acts of self-care that will keep you healthy, focused, and resilient.

6 Ways to Improve Your Self-Control

1. Big Picture Thinking

It is far easier to practice self-control when you are able to look at the big picture. When you get snowed under by the little things, it can be difficult to overcome the minutiae.

For example, when you are working on a big project you will find yourself easily frustrated by all the steps necessary to achieve the end goal.

However, those steps are necessary to achieve the big picture and show you are capable of self-control by using that to avoid a loss of motivation.

2. Sleep Is Key

You might not understand how sleep plays a role in your self-control, but it does.

A lack of sleep makes you more likely to lose track of your self-control and give in to all types of behavior that you wouldn't normally engage in.

A study from the University of Washington found that a lack of sleep made people more likely to practice unethical behaviors, like falsifying receipts.

3. R&R

We're often told to get on with it or just do it, but a relaxed state is far more appropriate for exercising self-control.

As noted above, stress is a primer for making bad decisions so it stands to reason that taking some much needed time for rest and relaxation will only serve you well.

4. Exercise

You don't need to dedicate all of your spare time to the gym. If you can make time to enjoy moderate exercise in short bouts then you can boost your self-control.

As we know, it's the prefrontal cortex that controls your self-control, and exercise increases oxygen and blood flow to this particular region of the brain.

Of course, this gives you a helpful boost in exercising self-control, so always make time to get some exercise in.

5. Support

If you know you have a problem with self-control, check out the many apps out there that can help you out.

Whether it's an app that will keep your writing on track, one that will drive your fitness goals, you struggle with expenses and need a financial planner, or you need a food journal to drive you.

6. Know Yourself

Self-control is the cornerstone of emotional intelligence. Therefore, the best way for you to manage your impulses and the emotions that you experience is to know yourself.

For example, do you tend to react rashly? Do you find yourself unable to control your chatter once you get started? Are you calm and collected in stressful situations? Are you exceedingly patient?

Knowing your strengths and opportunities can be a key to unlocking your ability to exercise self-control.

If self-control is eluding you, you can take back the power and learn how to harness it to your benefit.

10 Key Examples of Self Discipline

1. The Ability To Resist

Women who practice self-discipline don't just excel at resisting temptation, they are smart enough to remove any trace of temptation from their lives. That goes for distractions, too. There is a lot of self-discipline required to put your phone away and get to the task at hand or to turn the television off and shift your focus to what really needs to be done. Those with self-discipline have the ability to do that without thinking.

This is something you can practice in small ways before you work up to the bigger temptations in your life. For example, if you crave junk food then remove any trace of it from your home.

2. Eat Well

How is this an act of self-discipline? Well, your blood sugar might have more to do with your resolve than you think. When it dips not only does your focus suffer, but your brain isn't functioning at optimum performance. It also means you're more likely to make the wrong decisions, even if they are normally easy for you. Plus, you end up in a bad mood.

Don't just eat well, be sure to eat regularly, too, and that will require some planning.

3. It Can Be Uncomfortable

If you want to improve your self-discipline you will need to change your routine and not only can that be awkward it is often uncomfortable, too. Unfortunately, a lot of the decisions we make are based on habit rather than the actual process of decision making, which means bad habits can be difficult to break. Therefore, shaking things up will give you a better chance of breaking bad habits and building new healthy ones.

4. Schedule Rewards

Yes, even adults need rewards and self-discipline doesn't mean total deprivation. So, make sure you reward yourself and make time for treats and breaks.

5. Learn To Forgive

When you are learning to practice self-discipline, you will experience bumps. When you are faced with a setback, you must learn to forgive yourself for your slip up and then move on.

6. Rise To The Occasion

There are different schools of thought as to whether self-discipline is a finite or abundant resource. Believing it to be abundant often serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy. It means you balance your workload more appropriately and are ready to rise to the occasion when it presents itself.

7. Time Management

Part and parcel of rising to the occasion is knowing how best to manage your time, this is a great example of self-discipline. You manage your workload and have the energy to tackle everything that's on your plate.

8. Exercise

The ability to exercise when you could be doing fun stuff is a true act of self-discipline. Every time you choose to workout, you are choosing health and wellness instead of other pursuits.

9. Sleep

Like diet and exercise, a good night's sleep is something that fuels your ability to practice self-discipline. You're more likely to make the wrong decisions and give in to distractions and temptations when you're exhausted.

10. Follow Through

Want to be self-disciplined? Learn to follow through, those with self-discipline always do.