30 Tiny Changes for Health, Wealth and Happiness

tiny changes

Have you ever started off on some huge project to overhaul your entire life – only to give up after a couple of weeks?

Change doesn’t need to be dramatic or all-encompassing. Small, individual changes can lead to new habits, and – eventually – to a much-improved life. They might seem insignificant on their own, but they build up to a powerful force, just like raindrops working away at rocks.

Here are 30 tiny changes that you can start on today. If you made just one change every day, you’d be doing them all in a month’s time. How different could your life look in a year?

Health

We often take our health for granted, and only make changes when we get a real wake-up call. Maybe you’d like to be healthier, but it seems like too much effort. These ten changes are all tiny but significant:

  1. Swap one of your daily coffees for a glass of water
  2. Park further from work, and walk the last five minutes
  3. Eat a piece of fruit with lunch, every day
  4. Brush your teeth for two minutes twice a day
  5. Switch from 2% to 1% milk
  6. Use less salt when you cook – try herbs for flavoring instead
  7. Go to bed half an hour earlier and aim for eight hours’ sleep
  8. Cut back on alcohol by drinking a lower abv wine or beer
  9. Get outside during your lunch hour for a twenty minute walk
  10. Swap your regular-sized candy bar for a smaller one

Wealth

You’d probably like to have more money in the bank. Maybe it’s for a holiday, maybe for an emergency fund, maybe just to get out of debt. Whatever your current financial situation, you can improve it.

  1. Set up an automated transfer to move $10 per week into savings
  2. Avoid the shops during your lunch hour, or change your route home from work
  3. If you buy a particular magazine every month, subscribe to it – you’ll save money
  4. Take a thermos of coffee to work, and skip Starbucks
  5. Buy books second-hand on Amazon, instead of buying new
  6. Sign up for a cash-back scheme for your online purchases
  7. Buy food in bulk, and cook batches to freeze
  8. Try generic, instead of branded, products – can you really tell the difference?
  9. Pack your lunch for work instead of buying sandwiches out
  10. Use cash when shopping – and only take as much cash as you need

Happiness

We have so many opportunities and choices, but we often feel unhappy. Maybe you’re stressed at work or at home, maybe you feel too busy, or you just don’t seem to enjoy your life as much as you think you should. Becoming happier doesn’t have to mean ditching it all: you can make little changes to radically improve your life.

  1. Keep your work space tidy
  2. Don’t read emails before breakfast or after dinner
  3. Spend five minutes in quiet thought, prayer or meditation every morning
  4. Write a list of things that you’re thankful for at the end of each day
  5. When your spouse/friend/child talks to you, make time to really listen
  6. Say “no” to commitments which you don’t want to take on
  7. Read a great book for half an hour
  8. Send a message to a friend on Facebook or via email, just to catch up
  9. Take a shower or a walk when you start feeling stressed
  10. Do something kind for someone else, every day

What could you start doing today? And what would you add to these lists? Let us know in the comments…

Photo by Only Sequel

12 thoughts on “30 Tiny Changes for Health, Wealth and Happiness”

  1. Hi Ali,

    I agree with you. A major change might be a one-off thing if the proper supports are not in place to make it lasting. To complicate matters, it might be hard to sustain the efforts to maintain that major change. Instead, small, consistent, individual changes, made in steps that are easy to sustain have a higher chance of becoming permanent.

    I love the 30 tiny changes you have shared with us. Here are some of the thoughts that crossed my mind as I read through them.

    Health:

    I have a weakness for chocolates. Although I can go for extended periods like months without eating chocolates, once I start, it is hard to stop. I love your suggestion of swapping a regular-sized candy bar for a smaller one. That is exactly what I did. I also made it a point not to buy a lot of chocolate at one go. With less temptations lying around, it is harder to indulge than if I had a huge box within reach.

    I also think that drinking water and staying hydrated is very important. I always have a large glass of water during my meals, before I go to bed and when I wake up. It helps to stick to a routine that is easy to follow. I also try to drink water in-between meals as well.

    Happiness:

    I agree with you that spending 5 minutes in quiet thought, prayer or meditation every morning is beneficial for our happiness. When the day gets going, there are so many things to do and see to that we have very little time for ourselves. Over time, the stress builds and soon we find ourselves very unhappy. If we set aside these 5 minutes daily, they can act as a means of relief to release the built up tension.

    I think it also helps if we nourish ourselves, through reading, the things we watch and people we interact with, with things that make us happy. By doing so on a constant basis through different mediums, happiness becomes a way of life for us.

    Thank you for sharing this article! :)

    Irving the Vizier

  2. Ali – they are some great lists!

    It is so important to make change small! The Heath brothers talk about shrinking the change to itty-bitty managable chunks in their book ‘Switch’

    I have jotted some of these down to implement! Thanks Ali!

  3. I love the fact that these are small changes. Small changes over time yield big results. And I can vouch for the second-hand books off Amazon. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between whether they’re used or new.

  4. Small changes can make a big difference. I like the idea of doing one change a day. Taking a shower or walking when stressed is a good one. People just let things get to them to much and need to learn to slow down just a bit.

    thanks Ali for the tips to have a healthy life.
    Debbie

    1. Hi Debbie,

      I definitely agree with what you’ve said about taking small changes one day at a time. It seems that in this fast paced world of ours, it really is difficult for people to learn to slow down a bit. I, myself had a hard time doing it. But I guess, it just takes good time management and proper delegation skills for us to have a health, wealthy, and happy life. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

  5. I liked all these tips. They really are simple and do improve your life. The only point where I would do it differently is health-tip #7. I believe that if you should prepare for sleep better and sleep less. Prepare for the morning in the evening before and imagine waking up at the right time in the morning by visualizing yourself waking up when your clock shows the right time. Use the few minutes thought/meditation/prayer you mention in happiness-tip #3 before you sleep. The human sleeping cycles are 90 minutes each, so I always sleep 6 hours every night, or a maximum of 7 1/2 hours, sometimes only 4 1/2 hours. If you can find out when your cycles begin, go to sleep just before the beginning of a cycle.
    This adds to my health and happiness every day, and indirectly of course also to my wealth.

  6. I don’t know how many are still reading this–just found it, myself ;)

    But I have a few tips to build upon the above, and to tie a few together!

    Me, I don’t even buy used books, anymore: I use the library! I figure, I pay the taxes, I’ll put ’em to use! My local library may not have everything I want, but I can request things from other branches thru the web.

    And to tie together “wealth” and “happiness”: I save money by cooking at home a lot rather than going out, but I also invite friends over and share with them (which makes us all happy, since it gives them something fun to do)! I find they’re also willing to contribute a few ingredients… and we all know what’s in the food, this way! :)

  7. My life is not the same since 2019. Use to do I lot of walking each day up and down the halls of a nursing home wheeling my husband. It abruptly stopped at the end of 1/28/20 because of the close down.
    I need all the motivation I can get besides our Challenges. Reading these reconditions from everyone will hopefully inspire me once again to get out there and walk once again.

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