+
upworthy
More

How changing what I did every day changed my life.

These are 5 important questions to ask yourself today.

I have some questions for you:

1. How was your day today?

2. When you look back on all the things you did today, did you act like the person you wish to become?


3. If you repeated today every day for the next year, where would you end up?

4. If you really want to accomplish your goals and dreams, how much differently would your regular day need to be than today was?

5. In order to achieve your dreams, what would a "normal" day look like?

I’ve learned that if my days aren’t solid, my life won’t be solid.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” — Mahatma Gandhi

On that, Gandhi was completely right.

Photo via iStock.

When I don’t act in accordance with my values and goals every day, I’m internally conflicted in my life.

I usually know that I should be doing certain things if I want to reach my goals — whether that’s working on a project, being present with my loved ones, or a number of other things — and still, I knowingly act in contradictory ways.

If you're like me, maybe you justify your behaviors and convince yourself you’re still on the path toward your dreams. But I've learned that my behaviors directly translate into my results. And when I consciously sabotage myself, I cannot have confidence. Instead, I end up with a handful of depression and identity confusion.

So how close are you to living to your values and goals?

In other words, how internally conflicted are you? In my case, the answer is … maybe quite a bit.

I constantly check Facebook and Twitter despite knowing it keeps me from getting into flow.

I’m addicted to my wife’s homemade bread with Nutella spread on it, despite knowing that it probably keeps me from having the ripped abs I want.

I often go days without writing despite knowing that each day I don’t create might add months to my goals.

One of the best ways I've found to consciously design my ideal life is to start with my ideal day.

Photo via iStock.

You are the only one who can define happiness and success for yourself, and your ideal day should be based on what you imagine as "the good life."

What activities must happen daily for you to live exactly how you want to be living?

For example, my ideal day includes the following activities:

  • 7–8 hours of deep and healthy sleep
  • Conscious eating, which includes simple foods and less than 300 calories of junk food and at least one meal each day eaten with my wife and kids
  • 30–60 minutes of exercise
  • 15–30 minutes of prayer and meditation
  • 1–2 hours of engaged learning
  • 3–5 hours of undistracted writing (which doesn’t include email, unless I’m specifically reaching out to someone)
  • 2+ undistracted hours playing with my kids (no smartphone)
  • 1+ undistracted hours one-on-one with my wife (no smartphone)

It doesn’t matter in which order these activities occur. No two days are exactly the same. But if I did all of these activities, I’d still have over three hours of "in-between" time to check email, eat meals, drive, give spontaneous service, be distracted, talk on the phone to a friend, and all the other things that pop up.

Of course, my days don’t always reflect what I’ve detailed above. Probably half of my days look like that. The other half are a lesser version filled with intermittent self-sabotage.

But if I were to consistently live my ideal day, every day, where would I be one year from now? Where would I be in five years? Probably somewhere great.

Most of us can be in almost complete control of how we spend our time.

This is all easier said than done, of course. I know that. But it’s completely possible to live intentionally and congruently. It’s completely possible to replace bad habits with good habits.

Photo via iStock.

In fact, research shows that when our goals are specific (day to day), intrinsically motivating (things we care about), and time-bound (on a deadline), we’re more likely to keep going until we succeed.

Meredith Willson said it best: "You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays."

How you spend each day is a clear indicator of who you are and who you will become.

So take a few minutes to imagine what your ideal day would look like.

Make a list of the activities that would be in your ideal day.

Start tracking how you currently spend your days.

Once you start tracking your time and become conscious, you might be stunned how internally conflicted you are.

Photo via iStock.

It’s completely possible to become the person you want to be, but it starts with today.

Community

How to end hunger, according to the people who face it daily

Here’s what people facing food insecurity want you to know about solving the hunger problem in America

True

Even though America is the world’s wealthiest nation, about 1 in 6 of our neighbors turned to food banks and community programs in order to feed themselves and their families last year. Think about it: More than 9 million children faced hunger in 2021 (1 in 8 children).

In order to solve a problem, we must first understand it. Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, released its second annual Elevating Voices: Insights Report and turned to the experts—people experiencing hunger—to find out how this issue can be solved once and for all.

Here are the four most important things people facing hunger want you to know.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pets

Family brings home the wrong dog from daycare until their cats saved the day

A quick trip to the vet confirmed the cats' and family's suspicions.

Family accidentally brings wrong dog home but their cats knew

It's not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It's like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.

Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings.

Keep ReadingShow less
via Pexels

A teacher lists his class rules.

The world would be a much better place if humans weren’t so … human. We all fall short of perfection. Common sense is, sadly, not too common. And there’s one guy out there who always manages to screw things up when things start getting good.

Call it Murphy’s law. Call it the great “reason we can’t have nice things.” Call it entropy. It feels like a whole lot of pain could be avoided if we all had just a little bit more sense.

But what if there was one rule that we all agreed to follow to make everyone’s life better? What would this magical rule be?

A Reddit user who goes by the name P4insplatter came to this realization and asked the AskReddit subforum, “What simple rule would fix the world if everyone actually followed it?” They received dozens of simple rules that if everyone got behind would make the world drastically better.

Keep ReadingShow less
Sandra Maria/Youtube, Official Lives & Music Videos/Youtube

You can't not sing this song.

The music of Queen has a profound visceral effect on everyone. Few pieces of art can cause complete strangers to put aside their differences and come together in song, but by golly, “Bohemian Rhapsody” is one of them. It would be cheesy if it weren’t so absolutely beautiful.

This pertains even to non-English-speaking countries, it appears. Recently, thousands of Harry Styles concertgoers in Warsaw, Poland, began cheering as those iconic beginning piano notes penetrated the air.
Keep ReadingShow less

Movie critic Roger Ebert speaking his mind at the Sundance Film Festival.

It’s been ten years since the world lost Roger Ebert to cancer, and his voice is sorely missed. Ebert had a pure love of cinema, and even though he was a film critic in a sweater with a Pulitzer Prize, he wrote and spoke in a way accessible to every man.

He didn’t care if a film was a Hollywood blockbuster or art-house fare; what mattered was whether it deserved his highly-coveted “thumbs up.”

Ebert was an extremely gifted communicator whose interests went far beyond film. In his later years, he often mused about music, politics, and American cultural events with the same eloquence, thoughtfulness and wit.

Keep ReadingShow less
@over40slbmom/TikTok

Feeling nostalgic yet?

It seems like so many iterations of unfettered joy from our childhood haven’t made it to the modern age, and playgrounds are no exception.

Gone are the days of metal slides that scorched the derriere in the summertime, seesaws that doubled as human catapults and the notorious merry-go-rounds that separated the weak from the strong. Good old fashioned character building—safety be damned!

As it turns out, a few of these old relics are still standing. And footage of kids playing at one of these bygone parks is filling adults—particularly Gen Xers—with sweet nostalgia.
Keep ReadingShow less

A couple shares why they decided to leave the United States.

Although it is difficult to tell if there is a trend of Americans moving out of the country, rough estimates show that around 8 million currently live in other countries—double the 4.1 million living abroad in 1999.

The most popular countries for Americans to move to are Mexico, Canada and the United Kingdom, in that order.

A big reason why some are leaving the U.S. is that an increasing number of employers allow people to work abroad. Others are choosing to leave because of cost of living increases and “golden visa” programs. Golden visas offer the chance to get a foreign residency permit by purchasing a house or making a significant investment or donation.

Keep ReadingShow less