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Five #30better things you can do

Over the weekend, I suggested that you start out doing one thing a day that will make a change in your life for the better over the next 30 days.

Fire in the fireplace

Pick one thing and do it consistently over the next 30 days. So that you get an idea of the scope of what I’m talking about, here are some suggestions you can use for #30better:

1. Get a half gallon jug/bottle and fill it with plain water at the start of every day. By the end of the day, make sure you’ve consumed it all.

2. Start every day with one minute of meditation. Nothing special, nothing fancy. Just sit at home, in your parked car, or at work (ideally before anyone gets there) where you can have a guaranteed minute, a full 60 seconds, of silence. Use a countdown timer on a watch or mobile phone, and for just a minute, practice just closing your eyes, keeping your back straight, and breathing deeply. If you need words to say in order to give your brain something to do, on every deep breath in, mentally say the word HERE. On every deep breath out, mentally say the word NOW.

3. Before you leave the office, on the commute home, or whatever you do to make the transition from the day to home life (whatever that may be), find one piece of audio or video content that makes you laugh out loud and watch/listen to it. Make it a goal every day for 30 days to make the transition into non-working time with a laugh and a smile. It’s tougher than you think.

4. Go for a walk for 5 minutes every day, perhaps after lunch.

5. Pick a new person every single day at random from your social networks and spend 5 minutes learning about them. Dig into their profile, their blog, what they do, and really learn about who’s in this so-called social network of yours.

The secret to #30better (and to all life change) isn’t picking something big and unsustainably splashy. It’s picking something achievable that you can and will commit to and doing it. All of the suggestions above are things that take minimal time and effort, but can potentially improve your life, health, or power. Most of them are things you can do at the last minute, so if it’s 11:55 at night and you’ve forgotten, you can still go for a walk or drink a whole lot of water.

Don’t skip around, either. Pick one and stick with it. Make that promise to yourself, keep it, and see how much it changes your sense of self-discipline and self-perspective.


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