os.me Digest: Be Better Me With os.me

Let 2023 be the year of keeping promises! This time, keep your promise to the most important person — you! Why? Because resolutions come and resolutions go, but promises are meant forever.

Most of us are good at keeping our promises to others but not to ourselves. We will change that in 2023. Let us harness the support and power of the os.me community to see through our promises to ourselves. Strive to become better in every way. One promise at a time.  

We are making 12 promises this year. One for every month. By the end of 2023, we will have a glorious calendar of 12 incredible habits that will make the person who matters the most — ourselves — proud. 

So that when you look back, it’ll be one marvelous story of your fulfilled promises to yourself. Let your self-esteem shine with vigor, and become your best friend this year. 

How about coming together, holding hands, and walking with each other to hit the big and small milestones that will help us meet a better version of ourselves? I am calling it #bebettermewithosdotme.

Let’s become better together to achieve our goals in life!

How?

Start with the smallest victory. Build one micro habit per month. Challenge yourself to set up a new task or action every day. Use @os.me as your accountability tool and be inspired by others’ success stories. 

It’s easy to do; just follow these steps:

1. Set your goal for the month that doesn’t take more than 15 mins of your day. Announce it on os.me with #bebettermewithosdotme
2. Create a micro habit
3. Monitor it; if you need support, write on Q&A
4. Celebrate wins with os.me community, write a post and share your journey
5. Repeat

How to increase your chances of success?

1. Announce your goal to the community. Write down the goal, why you want to achieve it, envision it, and publish it on os.me. Let this writing play the role of your journaling/ affirmations and your expression. Go out of the way, and share a vision board. Put it in the post. I am sharing mine below for you.
2. Writing in detail will take you through a journey of announcing it to yourself; it will help you absorb and feel it in your skin, you will feel accountable, let the treasure of wisdom within you come and surface, and let it help you in the planning that is needed to achieve it. In this journey of writing, you will end up outpouring your fears, your joy, and your limitations, and you will live a complete experience 🙂

Result?

By the end of the year, you will have transformed into a happier and healthier version exuding the glow of accomplishment! And more surprises that you will come and share with us on how it transformed you in one year!

Two Simple Approaches

Many of us have already started working on our goals this year. The bigger goals (professional, life-altering milestones) and many of us are bound by commitments to projects at work. So I found two approaches that could cover any situation you are in. Building micro habits to boost your chances of success in your bigger goals or keynote habits to bring out your best potential at work every day.

1. Goal Specific

Micro habits are small actions that can be repeated to form a larger habit. They are easy, quick, and simple to do, which makes them perfect for busy people who want to make big changes in their lives.

Micro habits are great for creating momentum in your life. When you perform a micro habit consistently over time, it becomes automatic and unconscious.

Micro habits are one of the most powerful tools to build long-lasting change in your life. They work because they leverage the power of the “magic” of compounding returns. The more often you do something, the easier it gets, which makes it easier for you to keep doing it.

The first step in creating a habit is picking a goal you want to achieve. The second step is to break that goal into micro habits that are easier to accomplish.

For example, if your goal is to lose weight, one of your micro habits may be drinking 1 litre of water every morning, and another might be walking for 20 minutes.

Once you have your micro habits list, make sure they are specific, measurable, and easy to understand. You should also be able to track them easily so that you can see how well you’re doing at accomplishing them.

1. Keystone Habits

Keystone habits have a huge impact on your life. They prevent other bad habits from forming, and they make it easier for you to do good things like exercise or write more. 

A keystone habit is a small, achievable behavior that can significantly change your life. 

Here are some examples:

• Stop drinking soda and start drinking water.
• Eat less junk food and exercise more.
• Get out of bed at the same time every morning.
• Read for 30 minutes before going to sleep.

You may be familiar with keystone habits from the popular book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, which describes how small changes can lead to big improvements in your life.

Duhigg argues that keystone habits have three characteristics:

1. They’re so easy to do that we don’t really think about them.
2. They have a disproportionate impact, which means they can change our lives in big ways.
3. They often involve other good habits, so it’s easier to form these new habits when you start with a keystone habit.

So! Let’s get this party started. From January to December, we’ll focus on building one micro habit/keynote habit monthly and track your victories by posting on os.me community. Set yourself for bigger goals with your micro habits and the support of os.me community members 🙌🏻

Each month is an opportunity to practice your new habit and strengthen it. If you give yourself just 30 days every month, then in just 12 months, you’ll have built up a powerful set of habits that will support you for years.

Let me share my vision board of 12 Promises to Myself in 2023. You could share your complete vision board or start by sharing that one promise for that one month. Announcing and setting the intention is an important step.

I used the vision board template; you can use it too. Once you have shared the vision board or your promise for the month. Come back at the end of each month and write about your progress. Share it with the community to motivate and inspire others and yourself. We are doing this together.

Transformative Ideas

Read these inspiring stories of our community members who are braving their personal limitations to gain freedom.

Hetal, You Are an IRONMAN: The Ironman competition is considered one of the toughest triathlons in the world. The participants must swim 3.8 km swim, cycle 180km, and run 42.2 km — all to be done back-to-back within a cut-off time of 16.5 hours! But nothing is impossible for the one who has the determination and dedication. Hetal Sonpal has both. In addition, he now has the Ironman title! In this blog, he shares his daunting journey of becoming an Ironman champ and how he prepared for the grueling feat.

Failures, Goals, and Focus: Like the sun rays, focus works best when focussed on one task. Try to achieve too many things and it scatters away. During the lockdown, Anant Meera discovered many things about themselves. First and foremost, they realized one thing at a time works best. Secondly, there is a method to adopting a new habit and making it your own forever. She shares her insights, failures, and successes in this helpful blog.

Obesity of the Mind: Come New Year and people contemplate getting rid of physical obesity. But what about mental obesity? Samarth Khanna points out that overconsumption of anything is harmful, information included. He offers his logical plan to battle the obesity of the mind. This is good food for thought for your Promise Calendar.

My Fitness Journey: Kirtee Om started a fitness journey with a strong intention and a well-detailed plan. She regularly logs her progress on os.me, has an accountability buddy, and has a list of resources that should come in handy for anyone looking to stick to their fitness resolution. She is using scientific and researched-based techniques and community support to make good on her fitness promise to herself.

20 Realistic Micro-Habits to Live Better Every Day:  Here are some great suggestions for your 12 Promise list. Pick the ones you like or pair these up in various months and see how these micro-changes yield macro-results for your better me journey. Amardeep S Parmar says, “Each micro-habit here takes one minute at most each day or uses a task most people do anyway.” Everything adds up, remember.

Jack of All and Master of None: In the age of specialization, Rajesh Om Chatterjee underscores the need to be a jack of all trades. After all, everything is connected. He illustrates his point by narrating a real story of a man who loses his job suddenly at the court of the Duke of Milan. The man enrols in Military Engineering in Venice. Later, he sends a design of a bridge to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, who rejects it. The man was none other than the great  Leonardo da Vinci. You need more than one skill and fluidity to be a master of some. Read this blog for inspiration.

Importance of Daily Practice: Find what you love and let it kill you, said writer Charles Bukowski. But if you are not ready for that kind of passion yet, follow Alok Singha’s advice. Find what you love and practice it daily. Or just pick up one activity and do it daily, even for just 10 minutes every day. He makes a strong case for consistency.  

Practice Makes Perfect?: Still, wondering if practice is the secret sauce behind perfection? Read Swati’s journey of realising the truth about this popular adage. Spoiler alert! Practice does help perfect.

Watch this Now!

Wisdom from Om Swami

How to Build a New Habit: Spiritual leader Om Swami shares the three golden rules of building any new habit. He also shares a story to deliver the message in his signature style — witty and profound.

How to Keep New Year’s Resolutions: When you keep walking with patience and discipline, the path to fulfilling your resolution continues to unfold. In this post, spiritual leader Om Swami shares three ingredients needed to make those resolutions work for you and vice versa.

I hope you will join me on this journey of #bebettermewithosdotme. We only need to observe one habit for just 30 days! And only 12 habits/goals in a year.

You aren’t alone! The os.me community is with you every step of the way. Let’s do this together. Let’s walk each other towards a better version of ourselves. Every month it would be a “better me!” You could also reach out to the Samurais for guidance and motivation. Drop your comment below if you are with me!

Good luck!

PS: Did you find this Digest useful? Let me know in the comments. Know someone who’d find it helpful? Share this post with them and introduce your friends and family to our phenomenal Karma program.