If you want to change your life you can bet that one small tweak can work. Maybe not right away, but it opens up a door that allows for more and more positive change. Don’t believe me? I don’t blame you. Most people think they need to win the lottery to change their lives for the better but I say “To heck with that.” You can make a huge, positive impact by deploying several small cornerstone habits.
What is a cornerstone habit?
“What is a cornerstone habit?” you might ask. I would describe cornerstone habits as the small things you do on a regular basis that set the scene for more positive changes. Cornerstone habits encourage you to want to introduce more good things. In my experience, cornerstone habits are like anchors, dotted throughout the day and throughout the week.
You can call them my “non-negotiables”. They are the things I do on a regular basis on my quest to just, generally… ‘feel good’. And that’s the whole point of Project Energise. I don’t need to win the lottery (although I wouldn’t complain if I did of course.) But if I’m going to live a pretty regular life, I want to know how I can feel the best I possibly can not just because it benefits me in terms of my energy, health and my optimism but because ‘feeling good’ also benefits those around me.
If you’re feeling good and you have more energy, I’d say you’re in a pretty good position to lift those around you up when they need you.
So, in this post, I’ll go over some of the cornerstone habits I have that make a big and positive impact on my own life so hopefully you can start dropping your own anchors off throughout the week to ground you and encourage you to want to keep making positive changes.
Let’s start from the top.
1. Aim to get 8 hours of sleep minimum
This is a big one for me. I look around me and I see tired faces all over the place. And it’s not Billy’s fault he looks completely drained. There are many great reasons to stay up late and they are all very good at distracting you from the one thing your body needs the most – sleep.
Sleep is boring. But then again, most healthy habits are ‘boring’. You want to stay up and chat or watch another episode when all your body wants to do is get some deep rest. It’s a hard one. But for me, aiming for 8 hours of sleep is one of the most important cornerstone habits I have and I think it should be one of yours too.
Just search for “reasons why you need sleep” and you’ll be blown away. The list is almost endless. And, as you get older, you definitely notice it when you don’t get enough sleep. Getting a good rest means you have a good baseline for the next day.
In my experience, everything suffers if you’re not rested properly. It’s not for me to tell you how you can get more sleep. That my friend is something best left for the experts.
2. Pop a vitamin every morning
I remember a few years ago when I looked up “Do vitamins actually do anything” and I was surprised to find a headline debunking vitamins and saying they were a waste of time. I won’t bore you with the details but essentially the article described how the human body urinates most of them out.
However, I looked into it again sometime later to find a different headline saying the complete opposite. Go figure. And so this taught me a very important lesson – human beings disagree on everything and always will. I decided to start taking a decent multivitamin regardless and I have no doubt it has helped me to feel more alert and with more energy throughout the day.
Do I know for sure? No. But I know how I used to feel before taking vitamins every day. And there’s no doubt my diet was lacking in some kind of nutrient or mineral. I decided it was better to cover each base and it’s no hassle to swallow a tablet each morning. This has become a cornerstone habit, almost a ritual before heading out the door.
3. Stretch out on the regular
A cornerstone habit that has actually, 100%, changed my life for the better has been my regular stretch practice. I used to think stretching was a waste of time, something only yogis did. And I’m no yogi. But I did injure myself a few years back and then I somehow decided to injure the same leg and then on another occasion, injure the knee on that same leg. So in summary, that leg has taken a real beating over the past 5 years.
The real problem started with my hamstring which was incredibly tight all because I hurt my ankle quite badly. Who would have thought hurting your ankle would make your whole leg sore? This was when I decided to give stretching a real, fair chance. And I haven’t looked back since.
In fact, my hamstring feels like it did before I injured it. And I still kick myself for not stretching my whole life. It’s been a real game-changer for me. It makes me feel nimble and “ready to go.” It is something that helps to counter the strain sitting has on the body too. When you sit in a chair all day at work, you’re entire body crumples up like a discarded piece of paper.
Stretching is the antidote to this.
Daily stretching is even better. This is a cornerstone habit I would recommend everyone picks up, not just for those who stare at screens all day, bending their backs awkwardly. It is my antidote and I think it can be yours too.
All you need is 5 minutes in the morning or the evening and you’re done. Go and jump on YouTube to find some fantastic, full-body stretches.
4. Knees Over Toes
Because it’s related, we’ll pop this cornerstone habit right here.
If you’re an officer worker, your legs probably hate you. I’m sorry but it’s true. My legs used to hate me too. I went and played football for the first time in 17 years and my ankles nearly crumbled like the crust of a burnt pizza. My thighs nearly combusted after 10 minutes and my groin could barely move like the stiff legs of a rusty robot. I was a complete mess.
But that all ended after I came across Knees Over Toes Guy, AKA, Ben Patrick. I stumbled across his channel while looking for leg stretch videos. And boy, I’m so happy I did. Ben believes in extending the knee over the toe during stretches to build strength around the knees.
Historically, you’re told never to put your knees over your toes during exercise but that’s old news. Ben believes in building mobility in your legs through strength and flexibility. Truth be told, since I made his Knee Abilist Zero program a weekly cornerstone habit, my legs have never felt better.
I suggest you check him out too. He’s a super humble guy and puts out lots of amazing advice you won’t hear anywhere else. Ben is a true golden nugget of YouTube.
5. Cook 75% of your food
I’m one of those lucky guys I suppose. Cooking has always been something I have been interested in. Although I was never any good at it, there was something I loved about it. And I appreciate this isn’t the case for everyone. However, a cornerstone habit that has a knock-on effect on other areas of my life is cooking fresh food from scratch.
These days food-like stuff is packed into boxes and can be put in a microwave. But I say that zombie food is pure junk. Sure, it might be tasty, but it often lacks actual nutrients, the kind your cells love to be nourished by. Cooking most of my meals from scratch has been a game-changer and with a little practice, doesn’t have to take long at all.
The biggest benefit of cooking your own food is you get a real appreciation for what you’re putting into your body. You’re kind of forced to learn about nutrition which is for me is fascinating. I believe you can improve your diet by improving your relationship with food and by being more hands-on in the process of making it.
Cooking 75% of my meals fresh each day reminds me that I do have time to cook. When I say I don’t I’m making excuses. This is a small lesson that I then apply to other areas of life. For example – don’t have time to exercise? what else are you going to do? Chances are sit down and relax for a few hours.
And, once you taste a homemade burger, you’ll never go back.
6. Get the heart rate up
I feel “the most alive” when I get my heart rate up. This happens when I do strength training but it is especially intense during cardiovascular exercise – something I was never a fan of. But again, it wasn’t until I tried running after a couple of decades that I understood how unfit I was.
I try to think of myself as a dog. After all, I am an animal too. And so what does a dog need? Love, food, water, exercise. It’s the same for me. I need to be walked not just for my physical but also for my mental health. When I go through spells of no exercise, it always feels as if something is missing.
It is something I need to do just to have a fair baseline for ‘feeling good’. There’s a reason my legs allow me to move around. They like to be used.
I think we’ve done a pretty good job of engineering movement out of our lives. In fact, our lives mostly revolve around comfort. When was the last time you sprinted? It’s amazing how quickly you can become unfit so doing an intense cardiovascular exercise once or twice a week has become a cornerstone habit of mine.
They say “movement is medicine” after all. How much better could you feel if you just did something intense for 30 minutes a week? You might be surprised. It might be the one thing you’re missing.
And the great thing about exercise is it’s scalable. Once you do a little of it, you feel like doing more and more. If you just keep it up, you can become super fit with more mental clarity and physical stamina.
This is something that can be truly life-changing for many people.
7. Practise hardcore gratitude
Moving onto more ‘mental cornerstone habits’, gratitude is something I am indulging more and more in these days. When I look back over the years I can see the feeling of “always wanting more” has been present. And this feeling has rarely ever helped me in any way.
It appears to be a feeling something unique to human beings. For example, animals are perfectly fine going through the motions, living out their natural urges, and never feeling the need for more. They just hunt, eat, sleep repeat. It’s just us that crave more and more, never satisfied.
But gratitude is something that can save you from that hamster wheel. Is it overtalked about? Yes. Far too much that people just roll their eyes. And that was me. But as I get older I find a new sense of appreciation for things, even tiny things or things I never even thought about previously.
Here’s a thought experiment you can try right now;
Imagine you lose your arms and legs somehow. Think about all the things you use those lovely limbs to do. And then think about all the things you would no longer be able to do without them.
This is a great way to remind yourself how lucky you are to be able to do things like simply walking around. We spend most of our time thinking about what we don’t have and not enough (if you ask me) thinking about the things we do have.
This is hardcore gratitude – when you intentionally take a moment to be grateful for the overlooked things. This is a cornerstone habit of mine that takes no time, is simple but has hugely positive effects that ripple out.
It reminds you that everything external is just “things”. What matters is your health and those around you.
8. Focus on that which you can control
Most people live in the past or the future. But in my experience, the past makes you depressed and the future makes you anxious. And there’s a real epidemic of anxiety these days. When I was an anxious teenager, I felt completely like the ‘odd one out’. These days, there appear to be countless teenagers with anxiety disorders.
A symptom of modern society?
Perhaps. But whatever the case, I think an age-old lesson can help us here, just as it has helped me:
Spend your time focusing only on the things you can control.
If you can do this, you can let go of 90% of that which bothers you. It reminds you that you can’t control other people and the only thing you can really control is your own reactions to the world, your words and your actions.
You get to let go of envy, jealousy, hatred, and anxiety and begin to focus on the important things.
When I think about the things that used to make me anxious they all revolved around the future and my fears surrounding it. It revolved around what other people thought. But I had little control over those things.
Once you give yourself permission to be present and focus on right now, a lot of weight melts away and you are free, just as you deserve to be. This is a cornerstone habit that I remind myself of constantly.
When something happens – “is this within my control?”
9. Dismiss drama
One big cornerstone habit I will never let go of is dismissing drama. I categorise drama as anything that is stressful that “does not need to even exist in the first place,” and “is only designed to get a click or reaction out of you.”
Look around you. How many things are shouting at you about things that don’t really matter? These are the things that distract you from working on the important things, the things that are within your control.
Every day we’re distracted by loud voices shouting about complete nonsense. It’s a hamster wheel of bad vibes when you turn on the news, flick through your feed or switch the TV on.
Are there bad things happening in the world? Yes. Much of it is noise though. Clickbait used to be disregarded. Now, it is the norm. It is accepted. Worse still, most of the nonsense arguments you read are written by AI, looking to get an emotional reaction from you.
How rude.
Protect yourself by limiting what you expose yourself to, just like you should do when it comes to protecting your health with what you eat. After all, you’re one complete thing. Mind and body are the same thing. What you eat affects your mind. What information you dwell on affects your body.
The whole system becomes weakened by garbage noise that doesn’t need to exist in the first place. Notice the ridiculous clickbait out there and once you do, you can ignore 95% of it, leaving you freer to concentrate on what is important. Your brain feels like it’s being drained of sewage and you are free.
Once you notice how much noise is garbage, you then notice how your opinions and emotions are being manipulated, making it easier for you to separate yourself from the hamster wheel.
Make this a cornerstone habit by not clicking and you’ll be surprised how much better you can feel.
Wrapping it all up
My cornerstone habits define my reality. When you do the same things, think the same things and say the same things on a regular basis, you become those things. This is my philosophy behind building better habits. It is a simple idea. But I believe it to be true through my own experience. So if you want to change your life, start with a few small changes that you have 100% control over.
I hope this post inspired you in some way. If it did, let me know the cornerstone habits you have and share it with others if you think it will benefit them too.
Start creating better habits today.
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Sean C is a writer, passionate about improving one’s self by maintaining healthy habits and doing the things that make life more meaningful.
