DIY Self Improvement Calendar

Self-Improvement

Tracking your mental and physical health each month is an excellent practice for understanding patterns in your life that are unhealthy or choices you make that lead you to unfavorable results. If self-improvement is something you want to focus on this year, tracking your habits with a self-improvement calendar is a great place to start. 

Your habits shape the quality of your life, and once set, they are hard to break. Like muscle memory, your brain clings to habits, and they become so natural you can easily fall unaware of these consistent behaviors. Nearly half the actions and responses we have daily are not thought out decisions, but just habits and repetitive behaviors. 

 

Breaking Unhealthy Habits

This programming we have built into ourselves comes out in our reactions, and the way we pursue things in life. It creates behavior patterns that dramatically affect our quality of life, either positively or negatively. Your brain does not distinguish what habits are good or bad; it just continues to react the way it is used to. For the sake of your health, it is necessary to build good habits and train yourself with positive responses and an open mind to discover better ways of handling rough emotions and challenges that arise.

 

Discover

By gaining more awareness of habits in your life, you can start to break down your response patterns and question if your reaction to things leads you to discovery, a positive result, or shuts you down and produces adverse outcomes. Are your choices limiting possibilities, your potential, and your personal power?

By tracking your habits and patterns, you can create a healthier mind, body, and environment around yourself. This exercise is solely for the purpose of self-improvement. Be honest and introspective with yourself as you go through this exercise.

 

Track yourself

In a journal, create a self-improvement calendar to document a brief overview of each day of the week. Create a section where you record how you felt, were you productive, what you ate, and any events that happened that day that contribute to your experiences. Make a list of negative things and positive things that occurred. Leave your journal by your bed so you can do this every evening as you wind down.

Each days entry should look something like this:

Date: 1/26/2021

How I felt through the day:

Productivity level: (Rate 1-5)

Food choices today:

Notable events:

Negatives:

Positives: 

At the end of each week, write down ways you want to improve and positively shift things. 

This could be positive self-talk and personal affirmations, setting a goal or writing down ideas, inspiration, diet-related stuff, a workout goal, a new recipe you want to try, or anything you want to integrate into the following week.

 

Review 

Make a simple checklist for the next week and mark off your accomplishments. By doing so, you create positive momentum to keep going and improving just a little more each week.

As you practice this exercise each night, consider what you create and what circumstances have created. How do you feel about things, get in touch with yourself, and pay attention to your emotions and things that challenge you.

Think about how you responded to people and circumstances, and take to be reflective on the choices you made. The way you react to things creates the experience you have. Identify where you could have done better and pay attention to your behavior patterns that create more stress and disharmony.

 

Reflect

Here is an example of some self-reflection questions you can ask yourself each day.

Self Reflection Questions:

How did I treat myself and others around me? 

Was I thoughtful and considerate? 

How can I create more harmony and compassion?

Creating a self-improvement calendar can help you build and reinforce healthy habits and make better choices. If your diet is something you want to focus on, create self-reflection questions about your food choices and emotional state.

 

Choose Compassion

Everybody experiences challenges and hardships that are unique to them. When you choose compassion, awareness, and take responsibility for your habits, relationships, self-talk, and how you communicate with others, you can discover better ways to live. Refine the way you handle situations to reduce stress, eliminate unnecessary dramas, and create more peace. 

Your self-improvement calendar is a tool for you. After a month of tracking, review your outcomes and where you made changes. It will help you get on the fast track to better mental, emotional, and physical health. By analyzing your behaviors and choices, you can create tools for yourself and make more mindful choices to prevent falling out of health.