Habits

I have been trying to be as transparent as possible in sharing my journey. My goal in starting this blog is to share my story in an attempt to encourage women to proactively plan for their future I am biased towards women because I am a woman and I am sharing my experience as a woman. Several years back my husband was diagnosed with a spinal tumor and had to undergo spinal surgery, I share that experience in my self published book “Stop, take a breath, and reassess Life”. That experience is what has inspired me to encourage women to proactively plan for their financial futures. I am a work in progress where this is concerned but I have made it a priority in my life. I want to be prepared for what the future holds. I have been working on myself and have had the realization that for any effective change to happen I have to want it to happen.

I am a hardworking individual and I love to read, I am now realizing that people that are in certain levels in their lives are there because of the amount of work they put into improving themselves. I think as I am growing my circle is getting smaller , or it always has been. I just don’t have a lot of time for things that don’t bring me any value and this is where the aspect of habits comes in. As part of my self improvement/ personal development journey I have come across different pod casts, blogs, websites, you tube channels and Facebook groups. One pod cast that I am currently enjoying is the His and Her Money pod cast. This pod cast has been great for me for this season in my life. I have made the decision to get out of debt and following this pod cast has opened me up to a new community of people. Individuals that have decided that life is better enjoyed debt free. They have developed habits that have made it possible for them to make the transition and they are enjoying debt free lives. I am there now, I want to be debt free too and they have made me realize that it is all possible given the right motivation. I want to enjoy life on my terms and I believe debt free will give me that type of freedom. It mean I will have to make certain sacrifices and become intentional with my spending but I am ready for that. This has not been an easy decision and I know that sustaining this will require a mindset shift, this is where my personal development journey will actually aide me. I have been reading and exposing myself to content that helps me grow and I feel like this week the universe was talking to me about habits. I came across a podcast that was talking about how our habits can actually help us achieve the goals that we set for ourselves. There are certain habits that if you took up would actually help you in your own personal growth journey. I am just going to share 2 for now. These are habits that I have easily been able to sustain and I feel that I can confidently share them without feeling like a fraud.

Exercise: your future self will love you and thank you for taking up the habit of regular exercise. I started off this habit really simply I new I had to make it a requirement for myself and I also knew that I had to make it something that I could easily sustain. I looked at my work and home scheduled and really thought about how I could fit any exercise in. I knew that trying to exercise at home wouldn’t work for me so i figured the gym would be a better option for me. As luck would have it the gym is on my way home from the gym so I figured I could try and attend gym sessions on my way from work whenever I needed to make up time. I went with 3 times a week as a starting point because that is not too much of a commitment. Also knowing myself I decided that the class setting would be a better option for me as I was not yet disciplined enough to keep myself accountable if left to my own devices. I didn’t opt for a trainer because I am on a budget (proactively planning for my financial future). Keeping it simple at 3 times a week has actually been great…. I have been able to consistently get to the gym 3 to 5 times a week depending on what my weeks look like. I think because of this I have become physically fit to the point where I have also started jogging around the neighborhood. I run my first ever 6 miles and my time was actually not too shabby. I might actually be developing another habit but we will wait on that one. Exercise is great for your personal development journey because it helps improve your health and it also keeps you in shape, you benefit from being happy…. ask anyone how they feel after a great workout and the majority will let you know that actually feel happy with a sense of satisfaction.

Reading:one habit that I am so grateful I started was reading “self help” books as people like to call them, but to me these are considered personal development books. Read to learn at least for 30 minutes a day. You will be amazed at what your little brain is capable of. We apparently function at only 10% of our brains capability, which to me is a waste. So i decided to test myself and see how many books I can read in a year 40 is my goal and I know i can do it if I now commit to reading a book a week. At the beginning of the year my goal was to read two books a month and i started off really well but as the year has progressed I have started slagging but now that we are in the final stretch I have revisited my goal and will aim to finish a book a week. I will share at the end of the year whether I will have sustained this goal or not. I have also committed to make notes as I read, one thing I wasn’t really doing in the past, I am currently reading the 7 habits of highly effective people and I am writing all the gems of wisdom and aha moments as I come across them. The benefit of this strategy is that i can come back to these notes of mine whenever I want to recall these nuggets of wisdom. How do you read your self help books? Do you tend to make notes in the book, in a separate note book , or not at all?

Beside reading and excersising what other habits do you feel will help you live your best life ever, while you proactively plan for your future? Hope you found this blog post useful.

With Love and Gratitude

Dr Fatsani Dogani