Here's something that might bother you a little. The biggest factor in where you'll be 5 years from now isn't your intelligence, it's not your connections, nor is it your opportunities. It's in fact the tiny, almost invisible things that you do or don't do every single day.
I'm talking about the micro habits, the ones that take under 5 minutes, the ones that almost feel too small to matter. I spent 10 years working alongside some seriously smart, high-performers in investment banking. And the thing that separated the people who lasted from the people who burned out was almost never talent.
It was tiny habits repeated. So in this video, I'm going to walk you through 19 micro habits that compound. Some of them are backed by science and some of them I've tried and tested for myself and they've become ingrained now into my daily routine.
I've organized them into five layers: your body, your focus, your people, your evenings, and then one final meta habit. So let's start with layer one, your body. And then habit one, the morning light minute.
This is one habit that has made a way bigger difference than I expected when I started it. Now when I wake up, I try to get some natural light as soon as I can after waking up. So sometimes I'll step onto the balcony, other times I'll just stand or sit by a window whilst I have my coffee.
It sounds so simple and a little bit irrelevant probably, but there's so much research that shows that morning light helps you set your body clock. And I definitely notice that on the days that I do it, I feel so much more awake in the morning, so much better and refreshed, and I sleep better at night. One thing I also try to avoid is letting my phone be the first thing I look at.
There is a very clear correlation on the days that I wake up and scroll through Instagram and how miserable I feel that day. Habit two, 20-20-20. If you spend most of your day looking at a screen, and let's be honest, probably almost everyone who's watching this does, your eyes are spending hours focused on something that's about a foot away.
They were never really designed to do that all day, every day, which is why by 4:00 p. m. your eyes can feel very tired, very very gritty, very dry, or just might even give you a headache.
So, one habit I've started recently is meant to be every 20 minutes, but I do it as often as I can remember. I look at something about 20 ft away for 20 seconds. That's why it's called 20/20/20 rule.
Usually, I'll look out the window or across the room. It sounds very simple, but it gives the tiny muscles in your eyes a chance to just relax before you go back to focusing on something close up again. Habit number three, movements.
This is one that I have to remind myself of because when I'm in the zone, I forget to get off my desk. I forget to get up from my chair, and I bet so many people, again, all who are watching this do this. We sit way longer than what our bodies are designed to do.
So, for the past week, I've had an alarm that goes off every 2 hours to remind myself to stand up, walk to the kitchen, stretch, or do some sort of exercise whenever that alarm goes off, just to move. Every time I do this, I notice my back pain improves so much, and I just find I feel more energized whenever I come back to my desk after doing that. Habit four, make your bed.
And out of everything on this list, make your bed is the one that you're most likely to roll your eyes at. But, there's a US Navy admiral who gave this now famous speech when he said that if you want to change the world, you start by making your bed. And his point wasn't about being tidy or like just making the bed because for the sake of it, but it's the fact that making your bed is a fast task of your day.
So, the second you hit the floor, you've already finished and accomplished something. And you'd be surprised by how far that one small win before 7:00 a. m.
or 8:00 a. m. can pull the rest of the day along with that.
Layer two, your focus. Habit five, one intention, out cloud. So, before the day starts, say or write down one specific thing, one non-negotiable that if you finish or complete will make that day a success.
And be really specific with this, not like something like I'll be productive, but something very specific like send the proposal to the client by end of day. Research shows that when people name and write a very specific intention like that, they are so much more likely to follow through. Naming something and thinking of what that thing is really is half the battle.
Habit six, the two-minute start. Nobody wants to start. Starting is the hardest part.
So the trick is to lie to yourself a little bit. Tell yourself you're only going to do something for two minutes. You're not committing to the whole task, you're not going to spend hours doing it, you're just going to commit to doing it for two minutes.
And almost every time once you've started, you don't stop at two minutes. It's such a great hack to motivate you to just get something done. I alternate this with Mel Robbins' 5-4-3-2-1 method, which is when you don't want to do something, count down from five, and by the time you say one, get up and just do it.
Before your brain has even had time to talk you out of it, you're already in motion to get that thing done. Habit seven, park the phone in another room. There is such an obvious link for me between where my phone is and how much I get done in a day.
If it's on my desk, even if it's face down, there's almost zero friction involved in me just saying, "Oh, I'll just look at it for a second. " And before I know it, I've lost 10 minutes. But if it's in another room, it's completely different.
My day goes completely differently. Suddenly, I have to get up. I have to walk out.
I have to make a conscious decision to go into another room and check it. And that friction is usually enough to just stop me, and I end up staying focused on what I actually was trying to do. There is an unbelievable amount of time that we all waste by constantly checking our phones throughout the day.
And if you're really looking to get something done and stay focused, the difference having your phone locked up in another room can make is just undeniable. Habit eight, the two-breath buffer. This is all about impulse.
Before you reply to any text, any email, or something that sparks an emotion to you, take two slow breaths fast. That tiny pause of just bringing yourself to that moment is the difference between sending something you regret and sending a response as a person you actually want to. Even if in that moment someone is like asking you questions like one after the other, just stop the conversation wherever you are, whatever you're doing, and just take a moment to get your control back.
Layer three, your people. And this is habit nine, one genuine compliment every day. Every single day.
Just give a one specific real compliment. Not something like, "Oh, nice job. " or "Good work.
" or "Good start. " but something you really have observed and you mean. There's a psychologist, Barbara Fredrickson, who's done extensive research on positive emotion.
And she says how when you express a genuine appreciation, you as a giver benefit as much as the receiver. And I've noticed on the days that I like I'm very mindful of giving a compliment, I start scanning and thinking about what's good and what's positive. So, just try it.
One compliment, real and specific, every day. Watch what it does to your team, watch what it does to a friendship, watch what it does to your marriage. Habit 10, ask, don't assume.
When you're thinking about what someone else has done or what someone you might think might be doing and it's bothered you. If you're not basing it on facts, then stop yourself from jumping to conclusions. Just ask them instead.
Researchers again have tested this directly and found that we are far worse at reading other people's minds than we believe. There is no amount of overthinking that can make us believe that we know someone else's intentions. Just ask them.
And if you don't want to ask them, don't overthink it or jump to conclusions. Most friction in relationship isn't caused by what happened, it's caused by the story we've made up and the things we convince ourselves are real when the other person has not even thought about it that way. So, over-communicate before jumping to conclusions and just ask for clarifications because nine times out of 10, it almost always fixes everything.
Habit 11, micro kindness. This is different to compliments. It's about actually doing something that helps someone or serves them in a very tiny way that day.
Whether it's holding the door, carrying something, making someone a cup of tea or a cup of coffee. Again, really small act of help boost the happiness of the giver sometimes more than the person on the receiving end. You're not just being a good person, you're also topping up your own well-being.
Habit 12, an 8-minute replay. This is one I've only recently started doing after watching a TED Talk and it's like such a mood booster. So, for 8 minutes a day, you replay a moment from your life that has brought you a lot of happiness.
And you really replay it for 8 minutes straight. You think about it, you replay it, you remember who you're with, what you did, like like you're back there in that moment. And I've done this now for 7 days straight.
And I like catch myself smiling when I think through that moment. And every single time, you feel so much happier afterwards. Your mood is boosted and then like 7 or 8 like 8 days, I generally just feel so much more grateful about really small things.
Moving on to layer four and that is your evenings. Habit 13, which is a five pages a day. Five pages takes about 10 minutes and over a year, that's almost 12 books.
I don't think I need to convince you on this one. The research on reading is boringly consistent. Vocabulary, memory, empathy, slower cognitive decline.
You don't need to find an hour to have all of this stuff, just five pages and that is the habit. Habit 14, the bedside notepad. This is one that I actually learned from my mentor and it's to keep a notepad, so an actual paper and a pen next to your bedside table or on your bedside table.
And whenever something pops in late at night, whether it's a task, it's a worry or something that you're scheduled to forget about by the morning, instead of like holding onto that thought, write it down and then let that thought go. Getting it onto paper, I found is what switches that background noise off. It's It's enough to stop making you overthinking that moment and just say, "I'm going to handle this tomorrow.
I've got it I've got it written down. " And then it's no longer at the back of your mind. And because it's on paper and not on your phone or on your notepad, you're not lighting up a screen at the exact moment that you're trying to wind down.
So, it's just one small paper or notepad by your bed, like the ones that they have in hotels, and just away better night's sleep. Habit 15, the daily cleanse. Before you finish for the day, take like 5 minutes and clear the um what's it called?
Clear the like flat surfaces in the room. Like you don't need to even clean the entire room, just clean the flat surfaces and it makes such a huge difference to your space. So, I do it when I finish my day in the office and then before I go to sleep, I do it in the kitchen.
It's all the flat surfaces, but I just make sure that they're tidy and everything suddenly looks so much cleaner. Habit 16, the bedtime cue. Pick one small action that you do every single day that just signals to your brain that it's time to wind down.
So, whether it's making a tea, whether it's dimming the lights, whether it's charging your phone in another room, whether it's reading. And do it at the same time every night. There's a sleep researcher called Matthew Walker and the reason why he says or recommends to do this is because when you have a consistent cue, it helps the brain transition from feeling very awake and alive to rest and improves how fast you can fall asleep and also how well you sleep.
And of course, nothing compounds like good sleep. If you're watching this thinking, "I'd love to start a business one day. " Chances are you probably already have an idea.
The part that is stopping you is everything that comes after. Building a website, setting up payments, managing inventory, shipping orders. It can feel very overwhelming and it's definitely kept me overthinking for far too long.
When I started in business with Shopify, it took away all of those constraints. It handled the technical side so I could focus on what I actually enjoyed, which is creating content, building a community, and a product. Having one platform that streamlines the setup and the back end is such a huge unlock.
Whether you're selling online or in person, Shopify has everything you need to help you do that, and it grows with you as your business grows, whatever stage your business is at. So, if you haven't already, sign up at shopify. com /nisha.
That's shopify. com/nisha. Habit 17, the weekly reset.
So, this is one I try to do every Sunday, and honestly, it helps me start the week feeling so much more in control. So, I use this, this is probably my fourth one, and it has these exercises that you do at the end of every week. I'll link this below as well.
Um and it has exercises that you do every Sunday where you look at your last week and you think about what went well and what didn't go well. And then you look at your week that's coming, and you talk about what the goals that you have and what you want to make sure that you get done and what you want to complete to make sure that week's a success. And I just find that it makes me feel like I'm just having like this Sunday time like carved out of my week just makes me feel like I'm living so much more intentionally rather than just like living on autopilot and just constantly solving things as they come up.
I actually said just like stepping taking a step back and thinking, "Oh, what do I actually want to do? What is the direction that I actually want to go in? Why is it really worth that?
And how can I keep improving week on week rather than making the same mistakes again and again? " So, 20 minutes once a week saves you so many hours of feeling reactive later on or during the week. Habit 18, leave it half done.
So, this is probably the strangest one on the list, and it's one that I've picked up recently whilst writing my book, and it's the first time saying it on this channel. Every now and then, at the end of a writing session, I will deliberately stop halfway through a chapter that I'm writing. And not because I've run out of things to say, absolutely not.
I'll just like have bullet points of what I want to write next, but it's because I want to start the next day in the same flow that I'm in on that evening. And I got this hack from Hemingway, and like he explains it as carrying on with something is so much easier than restarting it from scratch. So, if I stop whilst I'm in the flow, I know exactly where I'm picking up the next morning with the bullet points that I've just written up.
But if I like finish the chapter, I find it's so much harder to like restart again when there's like a blank page standing up like in front of me. I don't do this every day, but when I'm working on something that needs a lot of deep thinking, like my book, I've just found it gets me back into the flow so much quicker. And then layer five, just the better habit.
This is habit 19, which is never hit zero. This is the one that holds everything else together. Whatever kind of day you're having, whether it's like deadlines exploding, the kids are sick, try to never let a key habit that you really want to keep up, try to never let it hit absolute zero.
If you can't do the push-up, just do like 5 minutes. If you can't read five pages, just read one. And it's never really about like getting that thing done, it's actually about the identity that you have when you're doing that thing every single day.
If you're doing that even on your worst days, it just like tells your brain, this is who I am, and it becomes part of your identity. And this is something that I found just boost my confidence and reminds me that I'm someone that can stick to doing things and seeing things through even when things are tough. So, you don't need to start all 19 at once.
In fact, I probably recommend you do not start all 19 at once. Just pick two or three that you resonated with the most, and do them for this week. And then once you've done them, stack another two or three on top of them and see some of them work, some of them won't, some of them won't.
But over time, these small habits done consistently can make such an outsized return on your life. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.
