We all know the difference between bad habits and good habits and we all know that spending time on positive habits every single day will take you closer to achieving what you want to achieve…
But what are some of those good habits?
What should we be doing every single day as men?
Today, I’m focusing on 12 things men should consider doing every day to help better themselves.
Personally, I’ve been experimenting with different habits and different daily rituals for as long as I can remember but I’ve also done a little bit of research myself and before writing this article, I asked the men in my Facebook group what they thought every man should do every single day.
I’ve collected some of their answers with my answers and put them together for this article.
Before I dive into those 12 things, it’s important to know that don’t feel like you have to do every single one. Don’t set yourself such high expectations. Maybe only choose a few of these and work on them rather than challenging yourself to do all.
See which works well for you. See what benefits your growth the most and utilize them every single day.
- Always Be Grateful
This helped me but it’s also something a lot of the men in the group mentioned and that is be grateful. Always be grateful for what you’ve got.
We spend so much time focusing on what we haven’t got. We spend so much time focusing on the things that we want that we miss the point of actually realizing how much we have to be grateful for.
When you’re grateful for what you already have and when you switch to gratitude, you’ll find that you’ll be put in a much more positive mindset and the truth of the matter is this. You already have so much you can be grateful for.
Just the fact that you’re even alive reading this article through the internet is something that you should be grateful for, or the fact that you can get drinking water from any tap, the fact that you can walk, the fact that you can move your arms.
Being grateful is something that I’ve realized a lot over the last few months because a lot of things that I’ve taken for granted and a lot of people taken for granted can be taken away from you very, very quickly, so it’s very important to realize that you already have so much to be grateful for, so stop focusing on the things you haven’t got. Focus on the things you have got.
- Start The Day Well
The way you start the day is going to have a huge impact on how well that day goes. Now, think of it this way. If your alarm goes off and you snooze your alarm, be honest of yourself for a minute.
I’m being honest. I’ve done this on many occasions. You snooze your alarm. That’s literally you snoozing life. It’s snoozing the day ahead. It’s telling yourself that you don’t want to get up. You would rather stay in bed for another few hours.
When you wake up with no meaning, when you wake up with no plan, you’re going to find that it’s going to be a struggle to get on with the day. Instead, have a good morning ritual in place. Get up at a certain time. Make sure you get up when your alarm goes off and know that after that, you’ve got a good routine set up in place.
It could be as simple as waking up and as soon as you wake up, head downstairs, get changed, put some running shoes on and go for a run. Do some exercise in the morning.
It could be that you get up, have a cup of coffee, do some reading, do some journaling, maybe do some meditation. Whatever you do in the morning, you have to have some plan about it. If you set yourself up for a good morning, you’re setting yourself up for a good day.
- Eat Clean and Drink Water
I love tasty treats. I love sugary sweets, so it’s all about moderation but I find that if I’m not eating well, 80% of the time, I feel very sluggish. I don’t feel as great as I possibly can, so you really want to be focusing on your nutrition, focusing on the water intake as well.
This really is important because the simple way of thinking is this. What you’re feeding your body is fueling you, so if you’re feeding yourself the wrong stuff, you’re going to see the adverse effect. You want to be fueling yourself with the right fuel.
You’re not going to buy a Ferrari, pull up at the gas station and fill it up with the wrong gas. Treat your body, treat yourself like a Ferrari and fuel it with the right stuff.
Just simplify it though. Don’t just focus on one diet, go to another diet, another diet. Just know that if you’re eating well … and we all know what good food is. It’s just getting in that mindset to actually eat it. When we eat good food, 80% of the time, you’re going to feel a lot better from it.
Drinking water is a very important thing as well. Making sure that you drink at least 2 litres of water every single day is something you should also be doing.
- Be Active
Every single day, you should be doing some kind of physical exercise. Again, don’t over complicate it. Don’t feel like you have to go to the gym for two hours.
Don’t feel like you have to sit in a yoga class for three and a half hours because you read that there’s attractive women there and it’s also very good for your flexibility.
Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Just get active. Do a sport that you enjoy. Make sure that you’re getting up from your desk and walking every now and then. Maybe just get up every single morning and hit 50 press-ups.
Whatever it is, making sure that you get active every single day is going to release endorphins. It’s going to make you feel good.
- Do Not Stop Learning
Every day, we should be learning. If you finished school, if you finished college university, if you’ve finished your work studies, do not stop learning.
You should always, always be learning more. If you’re passionate about a certain subject, learn more about that subject.
How can you become better at it? Let’s say it’s photography. Don’t just waste that passion and waste that skill. Start to learn more. Look at different books, different YouTube tutorials. Go out and experiment more.
When you focus on learning more and growing more, you’re going to get so much more from it. It’s going to make you feel better. You’re going to feel more smart as well.
There’s various different avenues of learning. You don’t have to sit in a class. Simply listen to a podcast on the way to work or watching a good YouTube video before bed, an audio book whilst you’re at the gym or waiting in a line to pick up some new clothes.
Whatever it is, learn as much as you possibly can. Honestly, for me, I used to hate learning. I used to hate studying but when I focus on something I’m passionate about, it makes learning so much more enjoyable.
- Spend Time With The Right People
Spend time with family and friends or spend time with people that you enjoy spending time with. Surrounding yourself with people that make you laugh, people that can support you, people that you can open up to and talk to is very beneficial.
There’s a lot of reasons why this is important and you’ve probably got your own but personally for me, when I spend with friends and family, it makes me feel good.
It makes me feel loved and it reminds me that I have that support network if I ever need it and that really is a struggle for most men in particular that they don’t feel like they have support around them.
They don’t feel like they have people they can talk to, so when you surround yourself with the right people, it’s going to make that a lot easier in the long run.
Again, just reflecting as I’m thinking about this point, when you lose someone, you always think, “I wish I spent more time with them.” It was the same with my dad. As soon as I lost my dad, I always thought I wish I just spent more time with him. I wish I told him this.
Same with my brother and his accident that happened a few months ago. I thought to myself, “If only I spent more time with him before, if only I told him this. If only I spoke to him more.”
When you’re focusing on spending time with the people that you truly love, it’s going to help you a lot.
- Have A Grooming Routine
Do some grooming every single day. Not that kind of grooming. I mean look after yourself, your hair, your facial hair. Moisturize.
All of this is very important every single day because when you’re older and you look at yourself in the mirror, your skin is sagging and you look probably about 20, 38 years older than you actually are, you’re going to regret not doing this.
Have a good grooming routine in place. It doesn’t take you a lot of time at all. In fact, you already have some grooming in place. If you have a shower every morning, if you clean your teeth every morning, you’re doing some form of grooming.
All you need to do is implement more to it. Maybe add a face wash whilst you’re cleaning your teeth. Maybe moisturize after that or moisturize before you go to bed.
Just introduce more to your grooming routine to improve the way that you look and you’re going to thank yourself in 20, 30 years’ time.
- Have Man Time
This doesn’t sound very masculine but man time is simply you going out to your shed in the garden. It’s you going to the gym on your own and lifting heavy weights.
It’s you go into the pub and watching the football with your friends. Whatever it is, you need to have some man time. You need to spend some time alone or with other men.
There’s a strong reason behind this and it’s all about testosterone. Maybe you’re spending too much time doing what you don’t want to be doing.
You’re getting up, you’re going to work, you’re coming home from work. Maybe the time you’ve sat down, had dinner, watch some Netflix, you’re going to bed, the same thing repeats.
Spend some time, some conscious time on your own. Man time. Reflect and what that’s going to do is it’s actually going to boost your testosterone and make you feel better about yourself.
It’s going to give you more clarity. It’s going to make you feel like you have more purpose, so make sure you’re investing time in you. Make sure you’re doing things that you want to be doing.
- Sleep Well
There’s a huge misconception that not having enough sleep is powerful. It makes you more of a man. How many times have you heard someone say, “You know, I’ve only had three hours’ sleep last night. I was working until 3:00 in the morning. I got up, went to the gym, da, di, da, di, da”? They boast about not sleeping enough.
Sleep deprivation is serious. It’s going to cause a lot of illness. It’s going to cause a lot of stress, maybe depression, anxiety so making sure you have good amount of sleep every single night is very important.
There’s nothing wrong with maybe staying up one or two nights, putting in the work. I’ve done it many times before but overall, you want to be making sure that you focus on good quality sleep and the quantity of sleep you’re getting.
There’s been a lot of studies recently that prove that sleep deprivation is extremely dangerous. It’s nothing to brag about, so making sure that overall, you’re getting a good amount of sleep is very important.
For me, it’s all about a good bedtime routine.
Take your children, for example. If you’ve got children, you’re never going to send them to sleep the way that you send yourself to sleep, so you never ever say to your child, ”Go away. Watch some TV until you fall asleep at 3:00 in the morning.
Turn the TV off and wake up.” You’d give them a good bedtime routine because you know they’re going to feel better in the morning.
It’s the same with you. Set yourself up for a good night’s sleep with a good bedtime routine. Track your sleep as well. For me personally, I know that if I sleep seven hours, I’m probably at my most productive and my most efficient.
If I sleep any less than six hours or any more than nine, 10 hours, I don’t feel very good at all. You can track your sleep with apps like Sleep Cycle or get yourself a Fitbit. Sleep is very important so don’t forget that.
- Be Organized
This is something that I struggle with and maybe a lot of men struggle with as well and it’s making sure you’re organized enough. I know a lot of guys in the group shared that they got their clothes out ready for the next day. Maybe they packed their bags.
They set a to-do list before the day started. Knowing exactly what you need to be doing every single day is going to set yourself up for success. In fact, recently, I hired an assistant because my organization wasn’t very good at all.
I also married a very good woman who’s very organized to kick me out the backside when I need it because when I’m not organized, when I have no routine, I fall off and it’s not a very good thing to be doing at all.
In fact, you might have heard this before but Tim Ferriss and a few others abide by making their bed every single morning. When they make their bed every morning, when they set their self up in an organized fashion, they have a better day from it.
- Daily Journalling
Journaling is simply decluttering your mind. There’s a lot of misconceptions around journaling. Maybe some people think it’s a diary.
It’s not very masculine at all but journaling is going to help you get worries, get stresses out of your mind onto paper and it’s going to help you solve those worries by them being there.
What I mean by that is when I start to journal, I start to write down all of my worries, all of my thoughts that are making me anxious and as soon as they’re on paper, as soon as they’re out of my head and onto paper, they don’t look as serious as they do when they’re in my head.
The reason why that is, is because I can look at them in a rational way and I can start planning solutions for those worries. There’s a lot of journals out there that you can buy.
You’ve got the five-minute journal. You’ve got the self-journal. I’ve tried a lot of them but personally, what works for me is I’ll play some music, just some music to help me concentrate.
I’ll get a plain notebook out, a pen and I will just write down whatever comes into my mind. I’ll just do that every single morning. It helps me reflect.
It helps me get all of my worries, all of my stresses out onto the paper and it will really surprise you that once it’s out of your head, it makes it a lot easier to deal with.
- Push Yourself
As a man, it’s very important to consistently try and break the comfort zone that you’re in. Maybe you don’t have to do a huge thing every single day.
You don’t always have to face your biggest fears but every day, try and do something that will push yourself.
Try and do something that will break your comfort zone. A simple one would be every day you’re at the gym, try and push yourself that little bit harder. On the other end of the scale, it could be facing your biggest fear. When you push yourself, when you break comfort zones, you’re going to grow as a man.