Welcome back to another video.
I just made myself a coffee and I thought we could have a little chat today ahead of the new year.
It's almost 2025.
Why is this camera being funny?
Okay, there we go.
So I don't know about you guys, but every year around this time I find myself being very reflective and thinking about the things that I did this year, the habits that I set out to maintain or implement at the beginning of the year, and also start thinking about what are the things that I want to do next year.
So today I thought it would be fun to share five habits that I have personally implemented into my own life that I think could be really helpful and maybe even life-changing for you as well.
Some of the things I'm gonna mention today are things that I've been doing for a while now and just really work for me.
And then there's also a couple things that I actually tried out this year that I found to be really helpful and just kind of like made my life better or made my experience better.
Also as a part of this video, I would love to know what you are looking forward to in 2025.
It could be anything from a work-related event or milestone, or maybe something in your personal life.
I would love to know.
Yeah, let's get started.
Okay, this first one is dedicate the first 30 minutes of your day to yourself.
Now, if you guys have followed me for a while or watched any of my other videos, you'll know that I
I'm an early bird.
I've always been an early bird.
I used to wake up at 5am every day.
Now I've scaled that back to 6am because I think, especially in the winter months, I think it's actually healthier for me to get a little bit more sleep and to wake up closer to the sunrise.
I don't know if there's science behind that, but it makes me personally feel better.
Where this came from for me was realizing that if I'm waking up at 5am just for the sake of waking up at 5am and then scrolling on my phone or watching just like mindless television, then what's really the point of waking up that early, you know?
I might as well get an extra hour or an extra hour and a half of sleep and then do something intentional with my time rather than just rotting like starting my day out with not productive content, if that makes sense.
For me, it's journaling.
I also do a couple of other little things that I can make another video about.
For someone else.
It might be stretching and moving their body or doing like a yoga sun salutation.
Maybe it's doing a workout.
This can really be anything that you want it to be.
The only thing i would say is make sure it's something that doesn't include your phone or your computer.
It's just 30 minutes, you'll be okay, and the second thing that i would say is make sure that it's something that is actually for you, not about someone else, or you're not making it about something that revolves around someone else.
So much of our life already revolves around the world outside of us and the people in our lives and communicating and planning and all that stuff.
Let those first 30 minutes be about you.
The biggest difference I've noticed from me in all of this is that I just feel a lot more grounded.
Sometimes I'll even do a little visualization.
Those things that I focus on early in the morning are the things that stick with me throughout the day, and the energy that it brings me sticks with me throughout the day too.
And so I just have a much more optimistic outlook and I'm naturally kind of inclined to be that way but just much more steady, you know, sense of excitement and sense of opportunity, and things don't really bog me down as much when I center myself in this way in the morning.
So highly recommend it.
Definitely think you guys should give that a try.
Habit number two is investing in your personal growth every day.
And this doesn't have to be a big thing every day.
Sometimes for me, it's just reading a newsletter in the morning while I'm having breakfast.
Or maybe I read the newsletter on the train on my way to a casting or on my way to work.
Some days it's more.
Some days I listen to, you know, a two hour podcast, two and a half hour podcast.
But I'm doing something every single day that teaches me something and that maybe changes my perspective.
This can also be a book.
This can be, you know, audio books.
If you're into that, you really have to be intuitive about this, because the things that are going to work for me are not necessarily going to work for someone else.
But having a little dose of learning every day is just such a game changer.
Some things that I've realized while actively making this part of my everyday life is that there's so much to learn about the world, and I know relatively little.
And so it's made me more curious of a person.
It's made me really interested in industries and areas that I know nothing about, and it's made me aware of my blind spots as well.
I think it's very natural as a person, you have your interests and you have your knowledge, and I have a lot of knowledge in very specific areas, but there are also a lot of things that I don't know about and things that are interesting to me that I would want to know more about.
It's kind of given me clarity in those areas and also um, just made me realize areas where I could be maybe a little bit more educated or I could spend a little bit more time on.
You know, whatever this ends up being for you, the best way and the easiest way to make this into an actual habit is to center it around some point in your day, and so for me, this usually happens in the morning, so it's either while I'm making breakfast, like maybe I'm listening to a podcast, or on the train on my way to work I'm reading a newsletter.
And a lot of this stuff has become intuitive for me now because I want to do this.
But when you're in the early stages and you really want to dedicate some time to this and make this a habit, you want to center it around something that happens every day.
And so maybe for you it'll be during your lunch you're listening to a podcast, or it's your commute, or i don't know.
Maybe it's when you're cooking dinner at night.
It doesn't have to be the same way that i'm doing it, it's going to be different for you, but make sure that it's centered around some sort of moment or activity in your day.
Okay, habit number three is having intentional check-ins with your friends, with your family, obviously if you have a relationship with them and also just the people that you care about.
This doesn't necessarily have to be an everyday thing, because i think our lives are busy enough to do this.
But I've realized at the end of last year that it's so easy to just let life kind of pass you by and then you realize you haven't spoken to someone in four or five months.
And so something that I started doing at the beginning of this year is intentionally checking in with someone if I hadn't spoken to them in X amount of time or if I thought about them in that moment, sending them a message or sending them a voice note whatever your preferred method of communicating is and letting them know that I was thinking about them in that moment.
The second reason why I wanted to be super intentional about this this past year is because I also realized that there were certain relationships that I wasn't really the one who was initiating the text or the communication.
I was the one that was receiving a lot of the times, and it's not because i don't care about that relationship, obviously.
It's more just because of the type of person that i am.
I'm not really someone who texts just to text, like if i want to catch up with you, i'll text you and we can schedule something and then i'll call you for an hour.
But i'm not really someone who like texts things back and forth and also, i guess i'm really just more of the kind of person that shares things with my boyfriend or I'm really close to my siblings and then, once I've shared it, I just kind of move on and process it myself.
I'm not really someone who shares things in the moment.
Anyway, this is one of the realizations that I had, and I wanted to be someone who did send the check-in text message and who would, you know, reach out when I thought of someone rather than thinking about them, but then, you know, moving on to the next thing or forgetting about it, you know.
The way that I made this a habit is I know my people and who I need to reach out to, and there are specific people who are not within the New York vicinity who I need to pay special attention to.
If I notice I haven't spoken to them in a while or haven't checked in, I'll send the text and I'll send it in that moment.
And this is the rule that I have with myself now is I send it the moment if I'm thinking about them.
I send it in the moment.
It takes two seconds to let someone know that you're thinking of them and I know for myself.
If I don't do that, then it's probably not happening.
And then with certain friendships I hate to say that this is what it's come down to, but with certain friendships you can even say okay, every other month at 10 am on a Saturday, we're gonna catch up and we're gonna talk about life, and That works for very specific people.
But those are just some ideas on how to make this a habit and make this part of your everyday or every week life.
This is actually a really good segue into habit number four, which is planning out your life.
This one's interesting for me personally, because I've always kind of been a planner and I like being really organized about things.
I like knowing what I have on my schedule, knowing what's coming up in the week.
But this year I took things to a new level and I actually started planning things by the hour and scheduling my calendar by the hour.
And it made me realize how much time we actually spend on nothing.
An example of this for me would be instead of writing a list of the things that I wanna get done on my like working from home days, I schedule everything in the calendar and I kind of allot the amount of time that I think it's going to take.
Two things happen.
I end up having actually more time in my day and I actually get way more things done.
And I don't know if this is just a trick in my mind or if this actually is something that's proven to work.
I guess when I'm looking at a list of things that I could possibly get done that day, versus a calendar that actually has time allotted for all these tasks, it makes me more likely to actually get them done.
That was kind of more of a personal example for me, but this works for anything really, anything that kind of slips through the cracks in your life, anything that you find really hard to prioritize.
Plan it, start putting it in the calendar.
Workouts.
If you find it hard to get to the gym or always find that you have the intention of working out but it doesn't always happen, start putting it in your calendar and start making this an appointment that you have with yourself.
This could be the same, for if you want to start cooking more, you want to start meal prepping or catching up with friends, like the last one.
I think it's one thing to say yeah, I'm going to get this done today, and then saying yes, I'm gonna do this today and I'm gonna do it at this time, because that's the time that I've scheduled it for and that's the commitment that I'm making to that.
And then habit number five is practicing tunnel vision on your own growth.
I think that this is so important, especially nowadays, with social media access to other people's lives oftentimes being flooded with other people's wins, other people's progress.
Comparison is at an all-time high, and I think that the more you can kind of focus on your own lane, focus on your own path, the better you're gonna feel.
Again, this is one of those habits that I implemented this year and I'm not perfect at it.
I do still compare myself to other people at times or girls that I maybe look up to.
Over time, this is something that has become less and less in my life, and I actually have found that the more I've focused on my own lane, the less time I actually have to spend thinking about other people.
To spend, you know, on social media looking at what other people are doing, because I'm only thinking about where I'm going.
Some of the ways that you can make this into an actual habit is first, you kind of have to establish awareness around when you're comparing yourself the most.
Is it to people in your actual life or is it to people on the internet?
Are there specific times of day that you're doing this or specific days of the week that you're doing this?
Try to pinpoint when this is most likely to happen.
Second thing is what is it that you are comparing?
Is it someone's progress?
Is it an achievement that someone else had?
Is it just a place that someone's out in their life that you wish you were at?
Figuring out what it is that's kind of missing from your life that you wish you had as well.
And then step number three is replacing it with something else.
And so as soon as you notice yourself getting into this comparison trap, comparing headspace, you have to replace it with something else.
And so a good example of this is if you find that this is happening on Instagram or on TikTok.
As soon as you notice it like, as soon as you become aware that you are comparing yourself to this person, you have to shut it down and you have to start doing something else.
And so you can't just put your phone in the corner and do nothing.
You have to replace it with another action, because you kind of have to change the way that your brain is thinking in that moment and you have to get out of that headspace.
That can be reading a book, it can be going to the gym, or going for a walk, or calling a friend, even watching a show, it could be anything, but you have to replace it with something that's also an action and something that's going to get you in a different mindset headspace.
Those are my five habits that i wanted to share with you.
I hope you enjoyed and i hope that even one of these can impact your life in a positive way.
I would love to hear uh, which one was your favorite, which one resonated with you the most, and if you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up.
Don't forget to subscribe.
If you're new, and i'm so i just have to say i'm so grateful for all of your views, all of your support this year.
2024 was a year of realizing things, reflecting on things and getting comfortable in the space again.
And I'm just so grateful to have you guys and to have this channel.
And I'm so excited about making more videos in 2025.
So I hope you have a great holiday, great rest of your holiday.
Hope you have a really happy new year and I'll see you in 2025.
