DAILY NON-NEGOTIABLES | healthy habits and daily routines for productivity, happiness, and wellness

I am fascinated by the topic of habit building and maintaining, especially whenever it comes to our daily habits. They are the underlying and oftentimes unconscious architecture that builds our entire lives. We don't decide our future or even our identity, but rather the accumulation of our habits do. Prevailing Wisdom claims that the best way to achieve what we want in life is to set specific, actionable goals. Right? We've all heard that. For many years, this is how I approached my life too. I would set academic, fitness, or career goals. And sure, I succeeded at a few, but I failed at just as many. Eventually, I began to realize that my results had very little to do with the goals I set and nearly everything to do with the daily routines I followed. Over the last few years, there are several daily habits that I have now deemed non-negotiables. They have such a large impact on my well-being and happiness that I strive to do them every single day. Although I hope you gain inspiration and insight from the list I'm about to share, no two people have the same life, values, goals, or priorities. How boring would that be if we were all the same? So your non-negotiables should be unique to you, your lifestyle, your boundaries, your values. No matter my schedule that day, if it's more rigid or if it's completely open and flexible. Practicing these few non-negotiable daily rituals casts votes for the productive, healthy, happy, and thriving identity that I want to embrace. There are a lot of things that I'm tempted to groggily reach out for whenever I first wake up in the morning, like my phone, a cup of coffee. But getting in some quick morning sunshine first is one of the best and easiest wellness habits that has drastically improved my mental and physical health. Viewing sunlight for about 5 to 10 minutes after waking up has become a vital habit that I've developed. Mostly because it triggers dopamine early on, but also multiple studies have confirmed that morning exposure to natural light improves sleep at night, alertness throughout the day, and significantly reduced stress levels, something that I absolutely need. Sunshine regulates your circadian rhythm. It tells your body when to increase, decrease your melatonin levels. So the more daylight exposure I can get, the better my body will produce melatonin when it's time to go to sleep. Not to mention, early morning sunshine is the perfect setting to take care of my plants, take my dog outside, do some reading, or just plan my daily to-do list. My sunshine time, as I like to call it, always looks a bit different depending on the day, but it's something that has become instrumental for my overall happiness. We are all guilty of reaching for that mug of coffee as our first incentive to get out of bed in the morning. And on those days when we can't seem to wake up clear-headed and ready to tackle our chaos, it is coffee that offers the only hope of survival. And although I'd love to believe that coffee actually rejuvenates my body because sometimes it feels that way, look, caffeine is a diuretic, it dehydrates the body from the inside, and we're already losing about one liter of water overnight while we sleep, so drinking water in the morning before reaching for my coffee is one non-negotiable that is essential to me. Science tells us that doing this helps with better brain function, better hydration, obviously, and better overall health. After drinking at least one liter of water before my morning coffee, I can confidently say that I feel so much more energized throughout the day. I would be totally lying to you if I told you I wear makeup every day, but I do make sure to keep a simple skincare routine as a non-negotiable of mine. Taking good care of your skin is so much more important beyond just aesthetics and your physical appearance. It's the largest organ that you have, so healthy skin is essential to your overall health. If you take care of it, it can help take care of you. In my springtime reset video that I published back in March, I told y'all that I would be giving proven skincare a try. It was something new to me, but I really loved the idea of having skincare products formulated just for me, including my gene expression, lifestyle, environment, and then of course my personal skin concerns. And I promised that I would report back after using it for a bit. I've been using Proven's formula for over a month at this point, and I am so incredibly impressed. I have the world's driest skin, but using this personalized formula has made my skin feel so hydrated, soft, and I've even noticed the elasticity in my skin improved just over the last few weeks. And the best part is it's just three simple steps. You don't need a 14, 15, 16-step skincare routine. The simplicity is phenomenal, and I've tried so many skincare brands in my days, and all of them, look, they promise one thing. They almost always fall short to deliver on my expectations, because let's face it, those are formulated for the masses, but Proven Skincare is formulated just for me, and I'm sure that's why I've felt and seen such an amazing difference over the last month. Proven was kind enough to sponsor this video, and you can simplify your skincare routine and give your skin exactly what it needs by trying Proven Skincare's three-step skincare system for 50% off using my code KDC99. Defining your why is one of the most important things that you can do for yourself. Your why is the reason you get out of bed in the morning. It's the reason that you do all of the things that you do during the day. And one very important daily non-negotiable of mine is just to take a bit of time to reflect, remember my purpose, my goals. Look, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that this is something that I meditate on for hours or even minutes on end every day. I just make a point every day to quickly remind myself for a few seconds and check in with myself to see where I am in my journey. Sometimes this is on a walk. Sometimes it's in the shower or while I'm brushing my hair, tying my shoelaces. Sometimes it's while I'm waiting to check out at the grocery store or while I'm pumping gas at the gas station. But just taking a moment each and every day to check in on my why always serves as my North Star for decisions, tasks, and discipline every single day. Some people argue that the benefits for making your bed after you wake up are confined to the aesthetics of your bedroom and nothing more. But for me, making the bed is about setting an intention to just do the little things that bring about an orderly, thoughtful, responsible, balanced, and successful life. It just provides me with a quick sense of daily accomplishment and makes me believe that I can achieve all of my goals that day. After doing this, even though it is incredibly simple, I know that even if the rest of the day becomes total chaos, I did at least one small thing that I am proud of. Our environment and homes can be incredibly important tools for shaping our daily experiences. How they're organized, cleaned, even furnished can be curated to evoke a wide array of emotions. But because I do not subject myself to daily deep cleaning and organizing sessions, I just have one non-negotiable. Wipe down surfaces. Whether I'm using my desk, my coffee table, kitchen counter, it is so nice to have a quite literal clean slate every single day. Not only is it hygienic, of course, but just a small dose of cleanliness helps so much with my mental clarity and it fosters a much more productive environment. Other days, sure, I'll do more cleaning like vacuuming, laundry, etc. But just one tiny simple aspect in my routine to keep the surfaces clean and tidy is a very important non-negotiable for my mental health. I wish I was a salad for lunch girly every day. I really do, but I'm just not. And with that said, I have to make a conscious effort every single day to get my greens in. A lot of the time, it's through making a protein smoothie. I'm sure you guys have seen it on my channel a ton. The one I make is full of mixed spinach, chard, and kale. But on some days, I'm just not feeling like making that green protein smoothie. And so instead, I'll get all of those micronutrients in from my OptiGreens powder. It's a superfood powder that delivers the same nutrients of juiced greens with digestive enzymes, probiotics. And what's great too is I can make this non-negotiable happen even whenever I'm traveling or on the go. Because in addition to the normal scooped green powder, I also have the OptiGreens stick packs that I can take with me anywhere. Also, with 80% of your immune system located in your gut, just giving your body the right nutrients on a daily basis, getting those greens in, it really helps to keep yourself feeling well. And of course, improve your overall health. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like we live in this life with the unspoken rule that when the phone buzzes, we pick it up and respond ASAP. It's like we've become enslaved to our cell phones without even realizing it. Our bodies, our minds, we've connected the dots between a vibration or a sound alert and then picking up our phone. When in reality, we have a moment to make a choice. We can pick up our phone and see what that sound caused or we can continue living our life and then just get to our phone whenever we're ready for it. But it feels like we're programmed to prioritize a machine instead of ourselves, which isn't new, but it definitely feels dystopian saying it out loud. After all, if I answer a text from a friend or a family member immediately, well, I mean, I'm already on my phone. Why not just scroll through Instagram really quickly or TikTok or you know what? I need to make that Amazon purchase really quickly. That's been sitting in my cart. And then 30 minutes to an hour has gone by without me even realizing it. So over the last few years, I have been embracing the do not disturb feature on my phone all of the time. It rejects all phone calls. It turns notifications to silent, essentially reducing that pain of anxiety that stems from getting those notifications. Not only do I have it set during sleeping hours, but I keep it on periodically throughout the day as a way of just weaning myself off of technology, spending more time being present or productive in the real world and setting digital boundaries with myself and others. By eliminating the unconscious, self-imposed sense of urgency, I can be more present, more mindful and, of course, more in control of my circumstances and my experiences. This next non-negotiable to be impeccable with my word is from a phenomenal book by Don Miguel Ruiz called The Four Agreements. He explains that your words are magic. You can use your words to create good in the world or to create chaos and spread negativity. This is simply about paying attention to my thoughts and my words and making a conscious decision, a commitment to be thoughtful when I communicate. This includes the words I think, I say and write to myself and others. And since our words are choices, learning how to think and speak in a way that feels good and helps create what I desire, it adds immense value to my life. It also helps me find daily comfort in expressing my fears, my desires, my goals with others and myself. So being impeccable with my word, it takes practice. It takes time. It's an ongoing journey. But by practicing some awareness daily and making it a non-negotiable, I can focus on thoughts and words that truly represent how I want to feel and communicate with others. As much as I try to, not every day has room for each of these habits. That's just how life is. But the key to building habits isn't keeping a perfect scorecard that's impossible. It's just simply not letting one day that is missed become a repetitive pattern. Consistency in and of itself has also become a non-negotiable of mine. If and ultimately when I drop the ball on one of these, I just make a point to pick it back up the very next day. Of course, your non-negotiable should be unique to you, your boundaries, your values, your lifestyle. And I would love to know what they are. So let me know in the comments what your daily habits and non-negotiables are. These little rituals that I mentioned, they've helped me through so many challenges. When life seems unpredictable, when it just gets overwhelming at times. These practices keep me grounded. They've helped me stay focused on what's really important. And I hope you guys enjoyed this video and were able to take something away from it. Thank you so much for hanging out with me and I will see you next week. It never gets me down. City of mine. The city.