5 Micro Habits to Live Every Day of Your Life With Purpose and Meaning

Our brains are wired to live with familiarity because it’s been comparatively safe in the past doing so.

Talking about cave times… imagine you tried eating a mushroom and you got food poisoning — your brain will keep memory and not let you eat mushroom ever again. Eating apples are safe, so maybe you’ll be eating apples a lot more.

So we could be living in an auto-pilot mode without even realizing it. Only because it would have been familiar to what we see how others are living.

But when we take a moment to think — when we reason our existence, we start thinking about the bigger picture — why do we do everything every day?

We are terrible at multi-tasking. When we are occupied in our day-to-day work, we could easily miss the bigger picture.

Even when we are aware of our bigger picture, we could easily be distracted and lose our everyday connection with it.

And that’s why we must develop daily habits to live a meaningful and purposeful life.

Here are 5 daily habits to live every day of your life with purpose and meaning —

Read your mission statement as your prayer

Take a piece of paper and write your mission statement in a few lines. It works like a cheat-sheet.

Any time you feel you’re getting off-track, or you’re having doubts/fears in whatever you’re doing, take this cheat-sheet out of your pocket and read it. It would be a gentle reminder from your conscious.

As a daily habit, you could paste this mission statement on your wall where you sit to work. Before starting your work, you can read the lines out loud and use it like a prayer.

Your mission statement doesn’t need everybody’s world — it needs to change somebody’s world, starting from yours.

Start here

“I am a writer, and I want to inspire my 249 followers on Medium with my writing, so they would make a minor and substantial change in their lives.”

Just throwing out an idea that even this could be your mission statement. And be okay with the fact that your mission statement will evolve with time.

Do an act of service

And do it without any expectations. Give, and give, and then give some more.

When you focus on serving others, your focus less on your own trivial issues and rather live a bigger picture. When you serve others, you serve yourself too.

Serving others allows us to enter acceptance-mode — and this pulls us out of the complaint zone and we enter a zone of gratitude and growth.

So even serving others is directly beneficial for our own growth.

Start here

You could start by making anonymous donations. Or you can start within your home — prepare lunch for your loved ones and surprise them. Write a heartfelt letter and appreciate your friend/partner for all the goodness they have been spreading in the world.

Play with the idea of service, and you will be surprised by all the impacts it can create in your life.

Keep a self-love checklist

Arguably, self-love is the first act of service you must be doing every day.

Pampering yourself is only half a part of self-love — the other half is being hard on yourself when required.

Notice and observe what do you need for today.

Self-love is a balance between acceptance and improvement. Too much of either of these will cause you suffering.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Start here

Keep a self-love checklist for your life, and you can start by segregating the list like this —

1. For your physical fitness — eating well, exercising, sleeping well, etc.
2. For your mental fitness — meditation, journaling, enrolling in therapy/coaching, etc.
3. For your career — working on your career, building your network, starting a side-hustle, etc.

Practicing one action of self-love every day will keep you in a pattern of living a life every day filled with purpose and meaning.

Practice stillness

An important part of staying connected with your bigger picture is to practice stillness. Our everyday hustle and work can easily put us in distraction-mode.

Moments of stillness every day will help you recharge your energy and get connected to the source over and over again.

Stillness is significant to make this shift — from an auto-pilot mindset to pausing and reflecting on your mission and purpose.

It might look counterproductive when you’re starting out — to practice stillness and doing nothing. In the long run, it will support you to cut out the noise and do the actual meaningful work.

Start here

Sit in silence for a few minutes focusing on your breath. Don’t manipulate your breath, simply observe. Let your body settle down. Feel your body relaxing.

When you feel still, you can continue practicing meditation or you can gently open your eyes and write a journal. Both journaling and meditation in the still state of your mind will help you think objectively about what actually matters to you.

Reflect back every day

Practice can you take you only so far. Reflection on your practice will make your practice exponentially more effective.

This definitely doesn’t mean you should feel nostalgic or guilty about anything.

This reflection practice must evoke analysis in your mind, instead of having you indulge in the memories.

Start here

Before sleeping, sit in silence for a few moments. Calm down your body and focus on your breathing.

Slowly, in front of your eyes, recall all the events that happened since you woke up till this moment. Ask yourself —

1. What went right today?
2. What went wrong today?
3. What can I change for tomorrow?

Gently breathe and settle down. This works as an amazing grounding experience only if you make sure you don’t indulge in the memories.

If you had an amazing day, let it go. Even if you had a terrible day, let it go.

Tomorrow will be a new day. You get another chance to live a life with meaning and purpose.

Summary

Living your life with meaning and purpose is not a one-day event. It’s your bigger picture, and to stay connected with it, you need to develop daily habits around it.

Here are 5 daily habits to live every day of your life with purpose and meaning —

Read your mission statement as your prayer

Take a piece of paper and write your mission statement in a few lines. It works like a cheat-sheet.

Keep a self-love checklist

Self-love is a balance between acceptance and improvement. Too much of either of these will cause you suffering.

As a daily habit, you could paste this mission statement on your wall where you sit to work. Before starting your work, you can read the lines out loud and use it like a prayer.

Do an act of service

And do it without any expectations. Give, and give, and then give some more.

When you focus on serving others, your focus less on your own trivial issues and rather live a bigger picture. When you serve others, you serve yourself too.

Practice stillness

Moments of stillness every day will help you recharge your energy and get connected to your purpose and mission, over and over again.

Stillness is significant to make this shift — from an auto-pilot mindset to pausing and reflecting on your mission and purpose.

Reflect back every day

Before sleeping, sit in silence for a few moments. Calm down your body and focus on your breathing.

Slowly, in front of your eyes, recall all the events that happened since you woke up till this moment. Ask yourself —

1. What went right today?
2. What went wrong today?
3. What can I change for tomorrow?

Originally Published at https://www.dipanshurawal.com/purpose-habits/