Commiting to your good habits means doing them even when it doesn’t feel exactly good in the moment. The motivation, the feeling of accomplishment, comes afterward and it will help you keep going.

Key Takeaways

If things gets too challenging, remember these four ways to get you going:

1. Show up for yourself and acknowledge your feelings of frustration, sadness, fear or demotivation.
2. Forget the idea that motivation is a spark. Instead, remember that motivation comes after taking action and feeling good enough about it to keep you going.
3. Start with small actions. Celebrate the small successes.
4. Keep your momentum by keeping committing to the habits that nourish you.

Remember that it’s perfectly valid to feel stuck, and it’s a big enough accomplishment that you show up even when it’s tough. Take each day one step at time, knowing that each step counts in the long-run.
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WHAT IS ACTIVE LISTENING
One of the biggest communication problems we have is that we listen to reply, not listen to understand. This is where we draw the line between hearing and listening, and even in listening there’s a next level way to do it: active listening. How do you know it’s active listening, here are some examples:
​Reacting Verbally or Non-verbally
Acknowledging what the person with a simple, “yes” or “mhm” lets them know that you’re listening. Even something as simple as nodding or raising your eyebrows helps to show you’re following.

Allowing Time to Listen and Time to Speak
What makes active listening different is that it ensures you and the other person are in a balanced communication. Make sure that you provide enough space for the other person to express themselves before sharing your sentiments. 

Encouraging the person to share more by asking questions
Being asked more about what you’re sharing means there’s interest in what you’re saying. Let the other person explain further what they mean, and how they feel about it.

Be Truly Interested in the Conversation
Don’t be afraid to ask questions to clarify some things, or make comments to continue the conversation. Set aside other things you’re doing and give your time and energy to it, it will show.

HOW ACTIVE LISTENING AFFECTS YOU
The focus of active listening on hearing the whole message means you’re engaged on a higher level with the speaker, which allows you to absorb more specific details from the interaction. For example, if you’re receiving instructions or training, you’ll be able to recall the details more easily.

Enables You To Identify or Anticipate Problems
You’re allowing yourself to develop an entire sense of the problem and evaluate all the different aspects, based on the details you hear. This can help you to discover a potentially underlying problem and tackle an issue at its very root, instead of merely curing symptoms and then seeing the problem re-emerge later.

Empowers You as a Leader
Active listening is empowering, and empowerment builds confidence. By listening actively, you gain an understanding of what will be beneficial in the workplace, which expands your perspective and empowers you. You’ll become more aware of what’s happening in your workplace, and you’ll communicate with superiors and subordinates much better. All of this paves the way for you to lead with confidence.
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Makes you a problem-solver
Active listening is very important in the workplace and within educational settings. To be able to properly problem-solve and achieve outcomes that all parties feel satisfied with, you need to actively listen to the problems that are being faced. That way, you can address all needs to find the optimal solution.

You are what You eat
Are you fond of avidly eating potato chips or binging in too much sweets? If the answer is yes, it increases the likelihood of you developing mental health issues. There's a saying you are what you eat. Cliché as it may sounds, recent studies show that we eat can really affect the way we feel. It is in the sugar and fats that define our emotion.

A munch on your favorite chips will not affect much. But when eating foods high in fats and sugar become habit-forming, it can deter our mental health in the long run.  It can be an additional factor in affecting our thinking patterns.

Oftentimes, we enjoy potato chips at night sipping our favorite milktea while watching our favorite Netflix shows. We may cancel our exercise routine in exchange to this. It is a domino effect that we tend to forget which can create negative impact both in our physical and mental health.
We may brush off the fact that fats are just the normal part of our daily diet. recent studies revealed how high fat diets can cause inflammation to our vital organs. In the long-term, it showed to increase the risk of developing non-communicable ailment like cancer, heart disease, kidney disease and osteoporosis.
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What will be the effect on our mental health? It is linked to have cause depressive symptoms who developed non-communicable disease. Depressive symptoms does not mean that you are diagnosed with depression. It’s just a manifestation of symptoms which can lead to depression if left unaddressed.
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About the Author:

Noel "Noe" Blanco started his mental awareness journey during the pandemic at In Touch Community Services, Inc. He is a licensed professional teacher. He loves cooking and writing poetry. He's currently taking up a culinary medicine course at Philippine College of Lifestyle Medicine.

He was also chosen by Limitless Labs to be a Master Trainer for the Digital Literacy Program of ASEAN Foundation and Google.org. One of his goals in life is to be a licensed counseling psychologist. He is a mental health advocate and aims to initiate research on the utilization of expressive arts in counseling.