If these wish to know how short their life is, let them reflect how small a part of it is their own. Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life, 19
One of the most surefire ways to lose weight is to begin a food journal. It’s pretty simple, just write down everything that you eat and when you ate it every day. The idea being that when we are confronted with our bad habits in the form of a timeline, we can truly see how much we are imbibing. This combined with the guilt associated with having to write down that you are eating junk food is just enough to make you think twice.
The same approach works with our actions. My initial version of this was a Google sheet with four columns: Date, Action, Time, and “Why am I doing this?”. The last column being the most important. This is where you can take time to reflect on your action, whether positive or negative, and recognize if that’s a habit you should cultivate or one you should think twice about.
I refined the spreadsheet with a fifth column called “Productivity”. Here I entered one of the below:
“+ +” for peak performance. If something is “+ +”, you are breaking down barriers and making an example for those around you.
“+” for normal performance. I would use this for actions that are required, but routine. This puts you in a spot so you can get to “+ +” later.
“-” ehh, not your best. An example would be web browsing for a few minutes at work or flipping around social media for a bit.
“- -” for complete waste of time. Extended time on Instagram or Facebook, reality television, video games etc.
Give the above methods a try for just a few days (I do this for 3 - 4 consecutive days per month) then evaluate on how you feel after the days when you see lots of “+ +” and “+”. I think you’ll find that you feel better about yourself and closer to those around you.
As with anything else, you need to be completely honest with yourself while you journal in this way. You will only get out of it what you put in.