5 small habits for a happier life

Hello my friends, hope you're having a beautiful day. Love a good green tea to start the day. Today I would like to talk about habits. I think with the new year fast approaching it's a good time to reflect on the past year, our accomplishments, our failures, the way we've lived and what we can learn from all of those things in order to have a better year next year and all of the following years. There's this quote that says you are the And that resonates a lot with me. I really think that your life today is a direct reflection of the actions you've taken every day until today. And of course there are external uncontrollable factors that come into play but at the end of the day your actions are the only controllable thing that mold your life and move the needle forward. So I want to make sure that I have regular habits in place that together will add up in a positive way to a better happier life. And today I specifically want to touch on five small habits that I believe will make your life a happier one. The first habit is to dedicate time regularly to a hobby or passion project. When I was unhappy at my corporate job I would make it a habit to work on nights and weekends on creating YouTube videos and eventually that ended up replacing my day job. But even now that I fully love what I do every day and I feel fulfilled by what is now my work, I still try spend 10 to 20 percent of my time working on a passion project on the side or a hobby. For example right now I'm starting to work on a big project that will go hand in hand with my main work next year. And starting in the new year I want to invest more time into my favorite hobby which is dancing because I know it's something that brings more harmony and joy into my life. I believe that a happy life is also a balanced harmonious life where yes you might have that one main thing you work really hard on but you can also have those side dishes that you know bring some spice into your life that can make your meal more enjoyable or elevate your main dish to a whole other level. How did I just get into this food analogy? What I mean to say is that the side stuff you dedicate time to could simply be just a hobby that makes your life more enjoyable or it could be something that actually helps your main job and works in tandem with it or even potentially replace your main job one day. But wherever your side projects take you whether they succeed or fail or simply just for fun I believe it's always beneficial to have that balance between your main thing and your side project. The second habit is to practice a physical activity regularly. There's nothing that'll bring you more rapid benefits and endorphins and just overall good feelings in your life than being physically active. And it doesn't necessarily have to be the gym by the way. You can play football, tennis, run, dance, rock climb, yoga, whatever gets your heart rate going up and gets your body moving out of its comfort zone and pushing its limits is great. For me personally I like the gym and weightlifting as a regular activity the best because it can hit all of your different muscle groups. It can actually improve the way your body looks aesthetically I mean on top of being healthy for you. You can even incorporate cardio in there and because you're always able to add more weights or add more reps in you're able to push yourself and surpass yourself consistently. But regardless of what your go-to sport is incorporating some sort of physical activity into your lifestyle is a game-changing habit that I would recommend to anyone. The third small habit is to have a skincare routine. It really doesn't have to be complicated or take a long time to do. All you need is a morning routine and an evening one. The first thing I do every time is wash my face using a cleanser. You just apply it all over, rub it in, you can get the neck area as well then you rinse it off. If it's the morning I then apply more of a mattifying moisturizer that also contains SPF. It's very important for it to have SPF because otherwise the sun can really wreak havoc on your skin over the long run if you don't protect it. This one's really nice and matte as you can see it doesn't make the skin any oilier it doesn't make it shiny which is perfect because I can have a bit of an oily skin sometimes so it's great. In the evening you don't really need any SPF though you can go for more of a nourishing evening moisturizer that will give your skin all of the right ingredients that it needs to repair and recover during the night. If you're just getting started with skincare I'd recommend checking out Geologie. Full disclosure they are sponsoring today's video. You've heard me talk about them before. These guys are the embodiment of simple personalized skincare for Their process is super straightforward. You just answer an online quiz on their websites to determine your skin type and goals and they provide you with a personalized skincare regimen tailored to your skin. You can check out Geologie with the link in the description and I've even managed to snag a crazy discount code for you guys. Just use the code TIM70 at checkout for a 70% discount for your first order when buying the skincare set. If it's your first time I'd recommend going for the complete set which has a face wash, a morning cream with SPF, a night cream and an eye cream. Basically everything you need for a very easy two-step routine of cleansing and then moisturizing. Habit number four is to cook at least one meal per day which I should do more of. If you've seen my apartment tour you know everyone knows that when you're leading a busy life with work, friends, hobbies, social events, it can be hard to find a time to cook your own meals at home and it's just so easy and convenient to grab a quick takeout or eat outside. Hey Siri put on a timer for nine minutes. But eating out is really not great for your health as restaurant foods tend to have a lot more oil, saturated fats and salt. And let's be honest, when do you really have a large portion of vegetables when you're eating outside? I know I could definitely do with some more home cooking. Let's actually whip something up, get some fuel in after this workout. When you cook at home you have much more control over the ingredients you use. So no hidden syrups or tons of unnecessary oil used. You can keep it simple, healthy and tasty like this chicken teriyaki recipe. Got some chicken, tender stem broccoli, green beans and some delicious homemade teriyaki sauce. And there you go, done in 15-minute tops. This is a habit that I really need to start incorporating more into my life to be honest. So how about we do this together? From now on, one home-cooked meal per day. Let's keep each other accountable. Bon appetit. It's really good. The fifth small habit for a happier life is to live a life without clutter. And I'm talking about both your physical and your digital space. Because a cluttered space leads to a cluttered mind which can hinder your productivity, sense of peace and even mental health. I think it's Marie Kondo who says that you should always keep one room in your house as beautiful as possible. And for me that's the living room, especially my desk and tabletops. So at the end of every day, I make sure to tidy everything up to have that clean space for my mind to relax. But with fashion being an important part of my life, having an organized decluttered wardrobe is key for me. It's actually been a while since I've gone through a review slash decluttering session. See I love a good black turtleneck but this one from Uniqlo I actually haven't worn in a very long time. This is a merino wool one but it's actually quite thin and recently I've upgraded to like a black cashmere one also from Uniqlo. It's a bit more expensive but the cashmere just feels a lot softer to the skin. So this is a really good example of I've upgraded from this item to this one. This one I don't really wear anymore that much so I can probably get rid of this one. I can either try to sell it on Depop or donate it to charity. So we'll put this one in the sell slash donate pile and you can tell whenever it's at the bottom of the pile you know that you haven't really worn it in a while because anything you wear usually you keep it on top right. Okay let's actually go to the mirror. This is actually quite good. Fits nice, it's comfortable. I think I'm gonna keep it. One important thing to note is if you haven't worn something in a long time there is a fair chance that you're not actually gonna wear it. So my rule is when deciding to keep an item that I haven't worn if I don't manage to pull off some outfits and wear it in this coming two weeks then I'll get rid of it. Got a Florence black one over here. Love Florence black you already know it. Okay so here we got like a cropped oversized. It's actually a vibe not gonna lie. I'm not ready to part ways with it yet so I am going to keep it. But it's also important to be mindful of your digital life. We spend so much time these days on our phones and laptops being bombarded by constant notifications and all these different apps. You can also apply the decluttering process to your digital space. We've all let our desktop get to a point where it's complete chaos and you don't even know why you downloaded half the files on there. And it's good to just clean up your desktop once in a while, reorganize all of your files into well-structured folders, go through the apps on your phone and make sure you're only keeping the ones that you actually use. And just organize everything in a way that's intuitive and makes sense with the way that you interact with your digital tools. Keeping your physical and digital space decluttered is one of the most underrated habits that can actually lead to a massive improvement in your clarity of mind and just your overall sense of well-being in my opinion. And as Albert Einstein once said, if a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind of what then is an empty desk the sign of. Never underestimate the power of small but consistent habits. We all lead busy lives and a lot of it is dictated by our daily actions. So implementing small positive habits every day can actually lead to massive positive change over time. Hope you guys enjoyed the video and if this motivated you to start implementing some good habits into your life, get started today. I'm holding you accountable. Alright guys, have a beautiful day and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.