8 Daily Habits That Changed My Life

What's up, you guys? It's Graham here.

So, the new year is fast approaching. It's almost going to be 2020, and for some reason, I still think that five years ago was 2010. But anyway, as we get closer to the new year, people begin creating their New Year's resolutions. So, what a perfect way to start that off with some really easy-to-implement daily habits that I have found made a tremendous difference in my life.

These are the habits that I practice every single day that, in my opinion, helped me out a lot, not only in terms of being an efficient person and making more money, but also in terms of being a more well-balanced, relaxed, and healthier person in general. These are by no means meant to be New Year's resolutions or something you're supposed to start on January 1st only to then stop doing them a few weeks later and then think to yourself, well, oh well, I may as well just start doing it next year. That's not how this works.

These are all habits you could begin doing now, and then wait for it—you could just keep doing them because I have a feeling once you start, you're not gonna want to stop. All of these are things that have taken me years to learn and fully understand, so you may as well just pick up from where I left off, cut your learning curve down to nothing, and then decide from there which ones are the best fit for you.

So anyway, with that said, let's get into the video. First, let's think about the bigger picture and go just slightly beyond a daily habit, and that would be by creating short and long-term goals. Here's the thing: you can't expect to get what you want or achieve anything in particular without having a direction. You really need to be clear about what you want, and by knowing what that is, you're gonna be way more likely to get there.

But the thing is, at least for me, sometimes these goals are so distant in the future that it doesn't really have any urgency to get it done now. Like, so what if you want to have 50 million dollars by the age of 50? If right now you're 20, mentally you're just gonna give yourself the excuse like, oh, it's 30 years away; there's no rush. 30 years from now, a lot can happen between now and then.

The problem here is that even though you now know what you want, you don't really have any clear, precise way of getting there. At this point, it's really just a wish. That's why it is also so important to create short-term goals that you have for the day, or for the week, or for the month, and that gives you some sense of urgency to actually go and get them done.

Having this really ensures that you'll stay on track of your long-term goals, and you have individual steps along the way to help get you there. So make it a daily habit to constantly review your short and long-term goals, and always make sure you have something short-term so you can measure that you could hit that provides a sense of urgency, and that will help you in the long term.

Second, the other daily habit that ties in very closely with the first one is creating a to-do list every single day and not ending your day until that list is done. And until you smash the like button for the YouTube algorithm, they're just like you go and create your short and long-term goals. Your daily to-do list is now going to be your holy grail of the entire day.

It's gonna be the list from which you now will live by and is going to be your new ruler. No, not that type of ruler; it's this type of ruler. For me, I typically created to-do lists the night before with everything I need to get done the next day, and then my next day, I won't stop working until everything is done.

No, I've used that method for years, and it's worked really well. But after a while, I noticed something a little interesting: I would end up working myself non-stop to finish whatever was on the list, regardless of really how much there was to actually do.

And this is the part where I learned about Parkinson's Law, which states your work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. That's exactly why you might procrastinate a month on a homework assignment and then magically finish the entire thing six hours before it's due, the night before. It's why you're able to suddenly finish up all of your work early on a Friday when you realize you can get off earlier and go home versus why it might have taken you a lot longer to get that done on a Monday when you realize you might have had to work late.

I found that you will find a way to fill your time entirely with however much work you decide to give yourself, and that is a problem. Like, I would give myself a few tasks to do every day, but then I found myself kind of wasting the beginning part of the day, not getting much done, and then scrambling and racing to finish all of it before the day ends. And I gotta say, that's no way of being a productive millennial adult.

So recently, I've been implementing deadlines for when each task needs to be done, and then magically I'm able to get everything else done that much sooner. Another small productivity trick that I've learned along the way is to reward yourself for finishing something on time, and that gives you a further incentive to go and get it done.

Like, if I have a tasty leftover cheeseburger in the refrigerator, I might make that my lunchtime reward for getting all my work done by then, and I can't have it until all my work is done. No, I'm not saying that a hamburger necessarily needs to be your motivation, but find some way to treat yourself throughout the day or give yourself some sort of incentive to continue working. Something like the McDonald's double cheeseburger from the dollar menu, something about that just—trust me, it works wonders.

Next is something I never thought that I would admit to on YouTube because I've made videos about this in the past. I thought it was stupid; I thought it was a waste of time, and I'll admit I was wrong. And that would be meditation. Prior to a few months ago, I thought the entire thing was bogus, and I just didn't get it.

I tried it a few times; I felt like I was wasting my time. I kept getting all of these racing thoughts of things I needed to do, and I constantly felt like I should just be going out there and working rather than just sitting here wasting time. Well, recently I've been experiencing a lot of work-related stress and the feeling that I can never relax because there's just constantly so much that I need to do and so many things that could be done right now that I never gave myself permission to just take it easy.

It just felt like my mind was constantly going, and I could never tune out and just relax and zone out for a little bit. And I realized that was a problem, and that was not healthy. So it was suggested to me to start meditating, and I did. I gave it a shot, and I even went so far as to hire a meditation coach to help me with this.

I gotta say, the first time I gave it a shot with an open mind, something just clicked. After a few minutes of sitting there watching my breathing and focusing on the present moment, I was finally able to silence all of those racing thoughts. I had this really unbelievable moment of clarity that I was able to tap into something that I haven't yet experienced before.

I've never done drugs or anything like that, but I have a feeling that this could be on par with what that might be like—except actually healthy and not illegal. So over the last few months, I've been meditating twice a day for 15 minutes each for almost every single day, and so far, I think that's made such a huge difference.

What was once something I thought was a stupid, pointless thing has now turned into something I really look forward to doing. It really brings me a lot of creative, positive thoughts when I'm able to tune all of the clutter out of my mind, and just all the worry of everything that needs to get done just kind of settles down for a little bit.

I came out of that experience much more relaxed, much more level-headed, much more concise, much more creative, and much more productive. I'm just able to get way better work done during the day. So for anyone out there who is yet to give this a shot, I highly recommend doing so, and I'll admit I was wrong in my previous judgments about meditating.

The fourth is probably something that a lot of people don't think about, but when you realize what it is, you're gonna have this aha moment because of how obvious it is—and that is having a consistent sleep schedule. I have to say, at least for me, in terms of productivity, there's nothing that throws me off more than an inconsistent slumber.

Like, I could be having a really great week, be feeling a 10 out of 10, be super creative, be in the zone, and then one really late night and then one next day of sleeping in just completely throws me off. The next few days after that, I just feel lazy; I feel unmotivated; I feel sluggish, and I feel fatigued. My body can't seem to catch up with that, and I can't snap out of it until I get my sleep schedule back on track.

It turns out, though, scientifically, our bodies do best when we have a really consistent sleep schedule of going to bed and waking up at the exact same time every single day. You'll find that your body will adapt to whatever schedule you give it, but when you throw that out of whack, your body's chemistry will work in overdrive to compensate for that.

Studies have also found that regular sleep schedules lead to poor performance, weaker memory, and worse quality of sleep when you do sleep. So once you began making the daily habit to keep the same sleep schedule and wake up at the same time every single morning, I ended up being far more productive, feeling way better, getting so much more done, and getting a better sleep at the same time.

The fifth, I've said this before and I'll say it again, but every single day, get in the habit of going and getting some exercise or going to the gym. Now, this has been the one habit that I've kept up for almost 10 years now. I really haven't missed more than a few days of going to the gym unless I'm sick or something like that, and I found there's nothing that makes you feel better that gets you more motivated that brings you more energy that gets you thinking more concise than going to the gym and working out.

Not only that, but the health benefits of going to the gym are immeasurable. I'm talking about something that will improve your mood and your memory and also reduce the risk of chronic illness, stroke, anxiety, depression, and high blood pressure. Plus, if you want to live long enough to see the benefits of all that compound interest in your investments so you could be like 90 years old or a hundred years old still ballin' out on yachts and Ferraris, chances are you need to stay healthy and exercise daily.

Now, if you're the type that finds it really hard to get motivated to go to the gym because we've all had those days, here's what I do. First, just force yourself to get dressed in your gym clothes, assuming you have gym clothes, but I think just by doing that, you'll find yourself that much more likely to actually get to the gym.

Now that you've had a little bit of momentum, really all you got to do by the time you get dressed is just say to yourself, "I am just going to show up." That's it. Most of the battle with this is just showing up because I have a feeling that once you just show up, even if you're not in the mood, even if you don't want to go, because you're there, you're going to end up working out anyway, and usually, those tend to be the best workouts you ever have.

For some reason, that's just how it works. I don't make up the rules, but that's how it is. And seriously, going to the gym for me has been a major part of my success. It's really such a great outlet to go and pick up heavy things and then just put them back down again.

And when you begin to see some progress and that you're picking up heavier things than you were the week prior, it really motivates you to continue that progress in other areas of your life as well. Next, we have number six, and admittedly this is still something I'm trying to get better at. I'm still working on this, and this is something for me to still master, and that would be the art and daily habit of not procrastinating.

And when it comes to that, let me share a little secret that I have been using throughout the day non-stop that's worked absolutely wonders for me, and that is what's called the 2-minute rule. So, here's the concept of this: most of the things that we procrastinate on don't really take that much time to do.

So the two-minute rule really suggests that anything that you could get done in less than two minutes, that you think about, just get it done immediately, whether it's a text message that you had to get back to someone on, or an email that you had to do, or even just going and cleaning up after yourself. Don't postpone doing that. Just, if it takes you less than two minutes, do it immediately. Do it right now.

In fact, I got a challenge for you. Let's try this together and see how it works. Look around you right now and see what is there that you could get done right now in two minutes or less. Well, see, one thing I know you could do right now is smash the like button for the YouTube algorithm, because that only takes a half a second. There you go, you already got something done.

Anyway, besides that, just pause the video here, look around, and finish whatever is going to take you two minutes or less, and then come back to the video. Yeah, are you actually going to do this? You're just gonna watch the video and keep going because you want to see what's next? I promise you, just try it with me. It's only gonna take you two minutes, and I have a point with this.

So anyway, please try it. Okay, welcome back, assuming you were the one tenth of one percent that probably even decided to do that. Anyway, if you did do that, how do you feel? Chances are it's way better than you felt a few minutes ago because you actually got something done. And chances are, now that you've already completed a small task, you're more likely to complete other bigger tasks now that you've begun to build up that momentum.

And doing this is also that much more likely just to turn into a natural habit that you wouldn't even have to think about once you start doing this daily. So the benefits and results of doing this are really just immeasurable. Anyway, the next time you see something that you should be doing, like using the link down below and signing up for Webull, and they'll give you two free stocks when you deposit a hundred dollars, just go ahead and do it.

I have a feeling you're gonna be very impressed by what comes from that. And lastly, the most important from all of this, if you even want to call it a daily habit, it's the daily habit of being consistent daily. Just trust me on this, without consistency, everything that I just mentioned is entirely pointless.

Don't waste your time creating goals and pushing yourself at the gym and creating a sleep schedule and meditating if all you're gonna do is try it for a few days and then dabble with it every now and then and then just stop and then come back to it. Trust me, you're just not gonna see any results, and you will get frustrated.

And anytime you have something like that, just—it's never going to end well. Beyond anything, all of this just falls apart and fails because consistency is really like the glue that holds everything together. And to be honest, you're not gonna see any benefit for a lot of this anyway unless you do it consistently for a few weeks to a few months.

It's like going and working out at the gym once and then expecting that you're just gonna look like The Rock after. To get to a point like that, you're gonna have to stay disciplined and consistent for years, if not decades. And while you won't be able to see the results of this immediately, I really believe that over time, you're gonna get way more than you ever expected was possible.

So, with that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate it. As always, if you have not already subscribed, make sure to destroy the subscribe button and the notification bell so YouTube notifies you anytime I post a video. Also, feel free to add me on Instagram. I post pretty much daily, so if you want to be a part of it there, feel free to add me there.

Also, feel free to add me on my second channel, The Graham Steffen Show. I post there every single day I'm not posting here, so if you want to see a new video from me every single day, add yourself to that. And finally, if you guys want two free stocks, remember the two-minute rule: two-minute rule, two free stocks. All you got to do is use the link down below in the description, sign up for Webull, deposit $100, and they will give you two free stocks.

One of the stocks is going to be valued up to $1,400 for the month of December. So, if you want a chance to get a stock that's worth a lot of money, make sure to use the link down below in the description. Thank you guys so much for watching, and until next time!