12. Five Daily Practices That Lead to Happiness

“I don’t have enough life left to waste doing stuff I hate.” 

(Leo Babauta, ZenHabits)

What you do every day matters more than what you do every once in a while.

Cumulatively, over a long period of time, those little moments and daily choices add up to a big chunk of your life. 

It’s your routine daily habits that have the biggest impact in shaping who you are becoming.

Adam Gilbert, My Body Tutor, gave me a brilliant assignment one day that has changed my life.

I was feeling crappy and unmotivated and generally negative about life. To help me find actionable tools to be able to change my mind-set, he asked me to come up with MY five daily practices that lead to happiness.

He explained that these practices are unique to each individual human being, because what makes him happy may not make me happy and vice versa.

Then he shared with me his five daily practices. They were all fantastic!  

I stole a couple of his and added a couple of my own. This is what I came up with…

Virginia’s 5 Daily Practices That Lead to Happiness

1. Sleep: Get 8 hours every night
2. Brain Drain: Write 3 stream-of-consciousness pages in my journal every day
3. Exercise: Get my heart-rate up for at least 15 minutes every day
4. Consciously Eat Healthy Food Every 3-4 Hours: never feel hungry, never feel stuffed
5. Be Present: listen and be loving toward all people that I come in contact with daily

So, now… when I feel like life is totally sucking, all I have to do is ask myself if I’ve done my five things today.

And I know that taking action to do one or more of them will surely make me feel better about life… like magic!

I love the way I feel when I do these five things. 

And doing more of what I love inevitably leads to happiness.

Yup, even happiness takes practice.

Why wait? Practice. Be happy now.

Love,

Virginia

“You know what you need to do, so do it.”

(Lena Stevens, The Power Path)