How To: Adopt Elegant Daily Habits and Elevate Your Everyday
This post contains affiliate links and ads. Affiliate links and ads support my work at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your ongoing support!Elegance is an excellent motivator when it comes to changing our habits. If you strive to live a more elegant life, it really does come down to the little things you do each day.
It’s important to remember that, in its truest form, elegance is not about having a certain amount of money, a certain look, or living in a certain city, a common myth that holds so many women back from striving for the elegant life they desire.
Instead, I want you to think of elegance as a state of mind that carries us through the day in a way that is calm, attentive and joyful!
It’s important to reflect on how your daily habits support your bigger goals. If your goal is to build an elegant life you’re proud of, you will find that your goals can be achieved by elevating your daily habits with thoughtful touches and intentional details.
Elegance, it turns out, has a lot to do with our daily habits and how they support - or detract from - the life we desire.
For example, do you find yourself pouring coffee into a thermos and rushing out the door? Not so elegant. Do you reach for a tired lounge set when you dream of dressing up? Rely on dry shampoo instead of twisting your hair into a chignon? Find yourself cutting people off or snapping at questions instead of slowing down and being thoughtful in your words and actions?
These are challenges we all face, but in the face of those challenges we have a choice. Do we continue to take the easy road or do we make an effort to change our habits?
Take time today to reflect on your habits, both the positive and the ones that could be tweaked or replaced. Write down 3 habits you want to continue and 3 new habits that will help you live more elegantly.
5 Elegant Daily Habits to Consider:
Pour your beverage from a can/bottle into a glass
Skip the gossip and instead find something positive to share
Practice eye contact and active listening skills when conversing with others
Practice strong posture when you walk, sit and stand
Take a 30 minute walk outside - this is a great time to listen to a motivating podcast or book
So, how do we change our habits?
One of my favorite books on the subject is Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s a quick read and gives you an understanding of how to best change your habits along with practical tools and encouragement to make the changes you seek.
While there are many methods to change our behavior, my favorite - and one that I have found to be most effective - is called habit stacking.
How does habit stacking work? Simply by adding a new habit to something you already do.
The habit stacking formula is:
After/Before [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].
Try these 5 Simple Examples for Elegant Habit Stacking:
After I sit down for dinner, I will share one thing I’m grateful for today
Before I pick up my phone, I will say 3 self-affirmations
After I put the dishes away, I will set the table for the next meal
Before I practice my evening routine, I will read for 15 minutes
After I check my email, I will send one text to check-in on a friend
How can you use this simple formula to make a change to your daily habits?
Begin by reflecting on how you can use the habit stacking method to add, or detract, a habit you want to change.
I love the idea that habits are the “compound interest of self-improvement.” What does that mean? It means that every time you practice a new habit, you are making a positive improvement that will begin to shape your days, weeks, months, years.
These little habits begin to create the systems we rely on; affecting our productivity, satisfaction and even relationships.
When you think about creating a more elegant life, I want the focus to be on small, sustainable changes that will bring you joy and help calm the chaos.
It is these simple 1% improvements that will compound overtime and lead you to living the elegant life you desire with ease.
Remember, elegance is a state of mind - a system of approach - that centers around an attention to detail in all matters.
I highly recommend Atomic Habits by James Clear if you wish to build better habits!
We know that it takes an average of 66 days for a habit to stick, but how do we focus on creating real change that helps us to reach those big goals and bring our vision of an elegant life to reality?
The key is to focus on aligning your habits with your values; creating change in our identity - the beliefs, worldviews, assumptions and self-image we hold to be true.
Identity-based habits are the deepest level of change we can experience and result in focusing less on specific outcome based goals and more on who we wish to become.
Examples of identity-based habits include:
I am a woman who keeps a neat and tidy home.
I am a woman who takes pleasure in dressing up each day.
I am a woman who makes time for reading (or other hobbies).
I am a woman who delights in making and eating fresh, healthy food.
I am a woman who creates opportunities for myself to thrive.
As you continue to reflect on your habits and make small changes to your daily routine to support a more elegant lifestyle, make sure to pause and think how the values you identified align and support your current habits.
If creating an elegant lifestyle is important to you, begin by adopting elegant habits you can easily work into your day and work your way up to bigger changes. Small wins, such as making time to enjoy your coffee at home each morning before you head out for the day, or making time to meditate each afternoon so you can be more present with your loved ones, will snowball into bigger changes, helping you to build a more elegant lifestyle over time.
What is one elegant habit you can add to your daily routine? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
