It’s no secret that modern society has an agenda against strong, masculine men. As a result, more and more young males are being indoctrinated into the feminine culture that promotes feminine habits and plagues most developed countries around the globe.
This isn’t an attack on women – having a balance of masculine men and feminine women who complement each other is essential for a harmonious existence. The upside, however, is that it’s easier than ever to stand out from the average man and be something ‘special’. The difference lies in the mindset that you choose to adopt and the daily habits you partake in.
The Importance Of Daily Habits
A daily routine of solid habits is so important because what seems insignificant day-to-day compounds on itself in the long term. This means that the more time you spend on something, the greater your rate of results. This is where the real magic of habits lies.
Take, for example, the gym. It is common knowledge that after a singular training session, you will notice zero differences in your physique. Stretch that out over a few months, however, and the results may be surprising. Furthermore, committed fitness enthusiasts may already be familiar with this phenomenon of compounding results.
After undertaking a long bulk, visual improvements may seem barely visible. When one decides to shed the excess fat during a cut, results can appear to exponentially increase.
For the common man, time is working against them – they grow older, fatter, lose more hair, and lose more money. On the other hand, time immediately becomes an asset for someone who adopts good habits. With every day that passes, you become more knowledgeable on a particular skill, gain a tiny bit more muscle or grow your income a little more. Over a lifetime, this is the difference that separates the strong men from the average men.
For this reason, I have compiled a list of habits you should implement if you don’t want your life to take the same trajectory as most men. The list is in no particular order, but you should try to implement all habits as soon as possible.
Meditate
You’ve almost definitely seen meditation before on a list of self-improvement habits. That’s for good reason as it is one of the best things you can do. This practice isn’t just for Buddhist monks in the Himalayas. It has astonishing applications in the lives of everyone around us. In addition to being effective as a mindfulness practice, I find its more useful benefit is its ability to keep you present and grounded in the current moment.
Being present is essential as it has consequences in all areas of your life. Being present allows you to be more effective at learning; improving your focus and improving your ability to absorb information. Presence is also critical for building and maintaining deep relationships. No one wants to have deep conversations with someone whose mind is half-preoccupied with another topic. Because of this, being present is also very closely linked with an increase in your perceived charisma and this is why so many CEOs and high-level entrepreneurs pursue this attribute. Yes, meditating increases your charisma – who knew?
Exercise
This might be a section where many people will scroll past pretending they didn’t see it. Yet everyone knows that this is an unavoidable habit that will make the path to becoming a strong man far easier – it’s in the name! ‘Strong’. Every man should strive to reach his strength potential and also work towards building an aesthetic physique. Having strength is one of the defining characteristics of a man. It means he can protect his family and is less vulnerable to injury. As for building an aesthetic physique, you may think that this is shallow and looks don’t matter, but this is incorrect. Whether you like it or not, looks play a massive role in how we are perceived and treated by others. You would be doing yourself a disservice to disregard your appearance.
When I talk about ‘exercise’, to achieve the goals I have mentioned above, resistance training is the best route. To put it simply, lift heavy stuff.
Learn To Fight
Many men – most men in fact – do not know how to fight. This is because of a lack of need to fight in our modern world. While this is a good thing, the safety of society has resulted in weak men who won’t place themselves in difficult situations. Fighting is the perfect way for a man to level up his discipline, mental toughness and confidence. As well as being a good skill to learn for defence, it will reveal who you truly are in the moment when you get punched and are faced with fight or flight.
The environment in a typical boxing gym is also perfect for nurturing a sense of brotherhood and building close relationships. Everyone in the gym respects one another for being able to step into the ring and get through the rigorous training that accompanies the fighting lifestyle.
Detach From Technology
In most environments, if you spare a moment to look around, you will notice most people are lost in the virtual world in one way or another. It is common practice for gymgoers to finish a set and immediately reach for their phone during rest breaks. This type of behaviour is detrimental. Not just because it destroys your attention span, but because it also results in excesses of wasted time. This drags your focus away from the real world and your goals within it. While this advice may not be popular, especially with the younger generation, if you are a man of purpose then the distractions of technology must play a minimal part in your life.
The only exception to this is if your main source of income relies on your use of technology. Despite this, some men still use this as an excuse to access forms of Instant gratification via the internet instead of solely for work. Until you have proven to yourself that you can resist its temptations, you should consider placing an extreme limitation on your technology usage.
Read
This refers to specifically reading non-fiction books in the ‘self-improvement’ genre or reading books that will give you knowledge which can be used for personal growth. One of the biggest reasons for this modern pandemic of weak men is a lack of education and understanding. While there are many mediums for obtaining said education, none ensure the information is as deeply embedded as reading.
Its nature means that it conveys more information, and in more detail, than in any video or blog post. Don’t get me wrong, those places are great sources of information. They can definitely push you in the right direction. But for the real life-changing stuff, books are your go-to. Reading letters and words inscribed on a physical piece of paper is also much healthier for your eyes to be focussing on for extended periods, compared to illuminated pixels. Reading before sleeping is a perfect time to implement this habit. It serves as a calming mechanism for your mind making it easier to slip into a state of deep sleep
Clean up your diet
The food we eat has an impact on pretty much everything that we do in our lives. From sleeping to performing meaningful work, the food we ingest can impair or enhance its capacity. The main thing here is to experiment and find a diet that helps you achieve your goals. There are some basic guidelines that should be followed regardless of what diet you decide to choose:
- Eliminate/reduce sugar
- Eliminate/reduce processed foods
- Eliminate/reduce alcohol
Going through the optimal diet can be a whole separate article, but the biggest change for now will come from making an effort to eat only whole foods such as meat, fruits, vegetables and nuts.
Fix your sleep
Similarly to your diet, your quality of sleep will impact all areas of your life bar none. Getting poor sleep will have a negative impact on all your internal body processes. This means reduced capacity for putting on muscle mass and losing fat. It will also degrade your mental performance during your waking hours – therefore hindering your ability to perform income-increasing activities.
Reduced or low-quality sleep has been linked to reduced life expectancy as well as numerous health issues. It speaks for itself that getting lots of good quality sleep will improve all areas of your life if you weren’t getting it before.
Conclusion
While this is by no means a complete list of everything that will transform you as a man, these are some of the best habits that you should focus on starting to implement first in order to build a solid foundation upon which further development can occur.
