The Routine and Habits that Have Been Changing My Life
- allymmmounga
- Jul 9, 2020
- 9 min read
My summers go one of two ways:
Notably productive; full of projects, money making, inspiration, and enlightenment.
Jam-packed with wild adventures and mischief; full of late nights, endless laughter, an epic love story, carefree heart, and trouble.
The summer time always seems to be when I do my growing for the year.
It's under the sun, as my tan moves from carmel to chocolate, that I refresh and become a lovelier model. There's the 2005 Ally Mia, who loved cinnamon in her eggs, and the 2020 model who's since learned a lot about taste and has definitely changed her mind about that one. Each year brings new experience and improvement, and it seems that my manufacturer (me) always releases new models in July. It's the hottest time of the year, when the chocolate shade peaks and everything has fallen into place for the season. I find Mays to be bittersweet, full of goodbyes to school friends and the boys that leave for summer sales, but also exhilarating for what's in store this summer. June is the autumn of summer, adjusting to school free schedules. The weeks of trying sunset hikes, evening walks, and swimming workouts to see which kind of workout fits into the new routine build little grooves that lead to habits once July rolls around.
July, paradisial.
It's when everything falls into place. When those little routines turn days into symphonies. And I can't get enough of it.
This is a proactive summer, mischief free. It's about a different kind of happiness, the one that's found in preparation for the coming lovely and sweet ordeals. You see, I'm off to university this fall, to my loveliest place on earth, where I've dreamt of being for years now. And this summer is all about getting ready for it. I've been working my little muffins off at the bakery, piling up some mighty fine savings, and spending a whole lot of time daydreaming about what's to come.
I imagine being in my soon to be home, with its lovely big windows and quirky roommates, arguing about the dishes, and making smoothies each day. Wearing my cute workout clothes and meeting people at The Arc (a humongous gym full of basketball courts, sand volleyball courts, a big ol' rock wall, great weights and cardio. Listen to this: When I toured the campus for senior preview day, our guy guide told us that he'd walked into The Arc a few days before and asked "what all of the controllers were for." The employee said, "Oh, we got an Xbox, just want to make sure everyone feels welcome at The Arc." People go there and hang out all the time and I can't wait.) There are so many lovely opportunities on the way, and I'm working hard to be the kind of person that they come to. Discipline allows me to daydream about all of these lovely things and know that I'm making them happen.
HERE'S WHAT I DO FOR HAPPINESS AND PRODUCTIVITY:
Daily Routine:
Go to sleep early.
However early it takes to get a great night's rest before work. Sometimes that means 5pm. The day's potential is determined the night before, right? So I make sure to do everything in my power to get amazing sleep and keep a regular schedule. It's revolutionized my health in all manners.
***tip: give your body its nutrients during the day so that you'll have the energy to work hard and workout hard. It makes it so much easier to fall asleep when you've used up good energy!
Wake up early and do something positive.
I listen to "The Brendon Show" each morning to inspire me and remind me what I'm working towards, great podcast, Brendon Burchard is lovely. Check him out if you want to feel motivated like all goodness.
***other ideas: right after waking up you can get ready for the day, go outside, start making a delicious and nutritious breakfast, meditate, or feel gratitude.
Make my to-do list.
It's personal to you, really reflect on what you're missing in your daily routine and write these same tasks down in your planner every day. My daily tasks are under "To Do" on this page of my planner. Didn't get to the smoothie that day, and that's okay!
Now I'd just like to talk about how these things have changed my life extraordinarily. Each item on the list is something I've tested out for a good amount of time, to make sure that it's something I enjoy and would want to do each day, not trying to torture myself here, no sir. I've been sporadically doing yoga, exercising, having smoothies, meditating, journaling, reading, affirming my beliefs to myself, and cleaning, getting ready for the day, blogging, and seeking knowledge (or what I call "discovering") for ages now. These last ones weren't included on that page because there simply wasn't enough time for everything! That's okay, remember that.
But remember also that we make promises to ourselves and they need to be kept for good internal relationships. I committed to myself that I would do as many of my daily to-do's as possible without overworking myself or neglecting my true priorities and values because I know that they bring me so much happiness and improvement. Habits are what make you a high performer! It doesn't matter how big or small you commit, as much as how committed you are. Don't break your promises honey, not to anyone, not to you.
Now, the stuff:
Routine To-Do's:
This has been a pretty recent thing, just something that's been going on within the last few weeks. Truly, discipline hadn't ever been my thing for longer than a week... until this summer. Maybe it's turning eighteen, maybe it's the grown-up responsibilities, but I've been practicing self control, commitment, and discipline. This has made all the difference. I'm here to tell you that whatever you want in the moment will give you a fraction of the joy that putting in the effort to control yourself now will give you in the future. You'll be able to buy big things that have a big impact on your life if you save your money instead of eating out every day or buying lip gloss obsessively. I speak from experience, trust me on that one.
Yoga:
Flexibility, peace of mind, energetic and dynamic body, healed muscles, and better workouts.
Exercise:
Baby, we talk about this all the time, you already know. I'll spare you this one and say, if you want to know more, read a blog post from a bit prior to this one, "Happiness Is Made Of... A Happy Body!"
Smoothies:
I'm a fruity girl, it's in my polynesian genes and my heart! Smoothies simply make my body and mind feel so fresh and clear. I usually go for green: spinach, kale, red chard, with blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries for antioxidants, and an apple for sweetness.
Meditation:
This is my current highlight of the day. I go to the pool after work, get cozy on my lounge chair, and close my eyes. This idea is something I heard from "Wake Up With Weslie", one of my favorite podcasts. It's called something like the "Three course meal." What I do is spend the first period of my meditation focusing solely on my breathing. If I have trouble focusing, then in my mind I repeat one simple phrase like, "I am happy," as I breathe. After I feel complete with that appetizer, I move on to gratitude, the entree. Keeping that steady breathing, I simply remind myself of the lovely things that I'm grateful for, "I'm grateful for my mom and moose," is always somewhere in the beginning. Then comes the last course, dessert. This is my favorite, food wise and meditation wise. It's a way of manifesting where I say 'I am' statements in my mind. This approach is called, "act as if" and boy, do I love it. In my meditation I pair it with visualization, where I imagine these dreamy dreams as well as think them in word-y form. ***tip: throw in statements that are already true, with statements that haven't come true quite yet. For example, this morning I said, "I am Ally Mia Mo'unga" (currently true, of course), and then, "I have my dream career" (on its way to becoming true). It might be a bit hard to grasp if this is new info, I'm struggling a bit to explain it honestly, so if you'd like more info, feel free to look up "act as if", "breathing techniques", and "gratitude meditation."
Journal:
This has been a consistent habit for more than three years now, but I've come up with a special system. Each week I dedicate one page to my "weekly log" where I leave a spot to simply jot down my favorite events, thoughts, memories, or ideas from each day. Somedays I also do "Stream of thought" where I write about whatever's on my mind. I plan things out in my journal, doodle, and do all kinds of stuff. It helps me to reflect, remember sweet details from lovely times of life, and feel both connected and collected.
Read:
Boy, oh boy. This is just fun. I love to read, so I never miss this one. Whether it's one page in my current self improvement book (High Performance Habits) or two hours in my imaginative read (The Riverman), I make sure to get my nose in a book each day.
Affirmations:
This is the same concept as "act as if" in the meditation paragraph. Let me dive in deeper on why it's so effective. What you hear, what you think, what you believe, what you see, and tell yourself all become your recurring thoughts and perspectives. If you continually tell yourself that you are healthy, happy, financially stable, financially thriving, blessed, beautiful, etc. You will believe it.
Cleaning:
I'm not afraid to admit that this one gets put on the backburner pretty darn often. To make up for it, I make sure to clean up my messes right away so that the amount of cleaning to do is minimal when it's really time to clean that room up. Dishes go right into the dishwasher, bed gets made, laundry goes straight to the basket, etc. A clean environment is incredible, do not discount the effect it has on your mind. Don't you feel more motivated, productive, and happy when you're in a clean spot?
Get ready:
Likewise, don't you feel better when you are clean? The sooner that I shower, the sooner I do my hair, get dressed, put on my makeup, and feel amazing! I'm going to be putting up a post soon on why I love to get done up and beautify. The truth is that it feels good to look put together, to put effort into my appearance and know that I've taken care of myself. There's so much more that goes into it, but more on that later.
Blogging:
I wouldn't be here if I didn't love to write for you guys. Words have always been my mode of creativity, I'm majoring in creative writing, after all! What I want you, my lovely and loyal readers to know is that I try hard to think up ideas on posts you might want to read, on things that could help you improve your lives. And I do this because I love to feel inspired. I love to listen to podcasts, read blogs, articles, books, and have conversations about intellectual topics. This gives me joy, knowledge, and strength to go after my dreams. I do something for this blog each day, whether it's brainstorming ideas, writing a post that I end up not finding value in and not posting at all, or just thinking about you, and how I can serve you! I love you guys. So I create this blog to hopefully replicate my favorite feeling for you.
Discovery:
That leads us right into discovery, the act of looking for learning. It's so important to be growing, girls are like flowers, and boys are like little cubs. We all need to progress, to grow, to learn. So I seek opportunities to do so always. This isn't just when I'm "researching", it's when I mess up at work or listen to someone speak. There are lessons everywhere to discover.
Now, we've gone over quite a bit today. I'm going to be posting a little snippet of this blog post on my instagram @allymmmounga just after posting this. And I want you to
Get growing!
Choose one to-do that you're going to commit to doing 5 days next week. It can be "snuggling my puppy", "moving my body", "Giving someone a compliment", "Making $20", "Taking those big steps toward my career goal", and anything else. Now please comment it on this Instagram post. It doesn't matter if you're reading this blog post on July 9th, 2020, the day that it's been posted or two years from now. The point is to see what everyone is working for, and to keep each other accountable. You got this, babydoll.
This has been such a fun post to write. I hope it's been fun to read! If you got any good little feelings from it, please let me know in a DM on instagram please. I love to hear from you guys, and I would love to hear your stories too! I'm looking to write some posts on self improvement that YOU guys have worked toward, so send in some stories on changes you've made in your life, wake up calls, goals you've set and missed or made, everything!
You're lovely. I love you! Now have a wonderful day, sweet pea. See you soon!
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