18 Good Habits to adopt

Developing good habits can help you transform your life for the better. Bad habits can lead you away from your own goals or worse – your happiness. However, by fostering good habits, you can inch closer to success, happiness, and the life you want. By taking the time to invest in your personal development, you can become a better version of yourself. Here are some good habits for a meaningful and happy life. Do not try to do them all at once, add one to your normal routine, and when you are comfortable with that add another and so on…

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1. Start Small

To develop good habits, you will need to start small. By starting small, you will need to pick one and only one thing first. Most people give themselves a multi-page list of things to change only to fail. Having one thing to focus out will naturally ripple out to other changes as well.

2. Remove Obstacles

Some habits are hard to commit to. You might live in an environment that will not support the habit you are forming. Or the one habit you are choosing is tough to maintain for a long time. For instance, say you are committing to a doctor recommended diet. The best way to remove obstacles in this case would be to pay for a meal delivery of the diet food already cooked. That way, you will not feel overwhelmed by cooking at the end of an exhausting day. Preparing it will be faster than ordering take out from a fast-food restaurant.

3. Practice Daily Meditation

Your first step in your journey to developing good habits takes place in the mind. Your mind is like a control centre for your life. It controls your moods, your actions, and how you live your life. If your mind is chaotic, you will live a chaotic life. If your mind is racing with negative thoughts, you will always see the worst in everything. But with meditation, you take back control of your mind. You might notice a negative thought arising but instead of internalizing it, instead you will watch it come and pass. That is the impact meditation can have. It gives you back your clarity, your focus, and your positivity.

4. Spend Some Time Outdoors

There is one vitamin that many people in colder climates are always low in, but it is essential to good health. That is Vitamin D. And you get it naturally from the sun. While going for a walk on a cold day may be less than ideal, spending time outdoors is crucial for good health. It is not just the sun. The fresh air you breath in and the ground your feet touch can help boost your mood and health. On warmer days, be sure to spend some time gardening or going for jogs around your neighbourhood. Developing this good habit can help you live a long life.

5. Read Mindset Books

Good habits come from good knowledge. It is hard to improve yourself if you do not know what that looks like, how to attain it, or if it is even possible. By reading books each night, you can learn new perspectives, new ideas, new skills, and so much more. Education is the secret to success.

6. Develop A Healthy Sleep Routine

One of the good habits you will need to develop is a proper night-time. Going to bed at the same time each night (including weekends) is a great way to help develop a pattern that will help you get your rest. Aim to go to bed at 9 or 10 in the evening to wake up naturally in the morning, instead of being startled awake by your alarm.

7.Express Gratitude

One of the good habits you can build to increase your happiness is expressing gratitude each day. Compile a gratitude list each morning to reflect on what you have and to reap the benefits of gratitude. It has never been easier to lose sight of all the wonderful things we have in our life. All you need to do is head to Instagram and look at your friends vacation pictures, slim figures, loving couples photos, and picture-perfect life. You will want to try a social media detox for a while.

8. Start A Hobby

Some say people should invest in three hobbies: one that keeps you fit, one that makes you money, and one to boost your creativity. Overall, this is pretty sound advice for anyone looking to develop good habits. There is a healthy balance between those three things. You start running each day with a group, then freelancing on the side, and you practice guided meditation for focus.

Each activity helps improve a different focus in your life. The hobbies do not need to invest in too much time either. You can practice meditations in 10 or 20-minute sessions. Running for just half an hour each day can give you a runner’s high without eating up time. While a side hustle can eat up time. Yet, you can also choose one that allows you to automate processes to save you more time. These three good habits allow you to have balance in your mind, body, and finances.

9. Smile

You would be surprised at what kind of impact something as simple as a smile on your face can have on someone. If you regularly walk around with a smile on your face and a positive mental attitude you can bring happiness and joy into other people’s lives. People will also be less combative with you. You will find friendlier faces in your daily interactions. And it all starts with a smile.

Smiling is contagious as well. So, if you are walking down the street and smile at a stranger, that person will highly likely smile back at you. What you do not see is that that person was having a bad day and yet your smile shifted their focus – even if just for a moment.

Smiling is one of those good habits you will want to develop to live a happier life and to make the lives of those around you happier as well.

10. Try Right Brain Activities

When thoughts get louder than usual, it is usually due to an overactive left brain. So, to have some mental peace and stability you will want to strengthen your right brain. Thus, right brain activities are good habits to develop. The right brain is known as the creative brain so any creative activity will help calm the chatterbox in your head. Some examples of right brain activities include meditation, painting, drawing, colouring, gardening, cooking, family hangouts, graphic design, matching games, fashion design, scrapbooking, or even just making things. Keep in mind that writing also activates the left brain due its use of language, so you will want to minimize the amount you do. Those with more active right brains tend to calm the mind more than active left-brain people.

11. Speak Kindly

One of the good habits you should consider developing is speaking kindly – even during tough conversations. Aim to be empathic with people who may be disgruntled, mad, or frustrated. Sometimes people take out their frustrations on you. But it is important to remember that you have full control over your reaction of every event that happens to you.

And with that power knowing how much control you have; it is necessary to do your part in the world of spreading kindness. You cannot take back hurtful words and it is extremely difficult to undo the damage toxic words can have on people.

12. Exercise

On any good habits list, exercise always finds a way to creep its way in. With busy workdays and family life keeping us so busy, we tend to put our physical and mental health on the backburner. But the lack of exercise can cause serious health issues for you down the road.

By developing good habits like exercise, you will feel more energy throughout your day which will make you happier. Those endorphins sure know how to make you feel good. Plus, you will be taking part in living a healthy life. Doctor recommended.

13. Recite Positive Affirmations

Good habits such as reciting positive affirmations can help you maintain a positive attitude. Studies show that optimistic people live longer, are more social, and achieve greater careers. While pessimism may be a genetic trait, it is possible to rewire the brain to become more optimistic. You can do this by reciting positive affirmations, doing right brain activities, practicing meditation, and doing other calming activities. Objecting to negative or toxic thoughts by replacing them with positive thoughts is a healthy way to help challenge thoughts that do not uplift you. Every time a negative thought enters your mind, think of the polar opposite thought to help train your brain to think positively. For instance, “I can’t lose weight” becomes “If I keep eating healthy and exercising, I will lose weight.”

14. Eat a Balanced Diet

The busier we get the easier it is to just open up that Uber Eats app and order take out. But that quickly becomes a slippery slope. It starts off with just one order but before you know it, you are ordering take out several times a week. And the chef is definitely not putting in the ingredients that make up a healthy meal.

Eating a balanced diet is one of those good habits you will want to do. And with so many different diets and meal plans to choose from, it seems like there is a lot of confusion about what a balanced diet even is.

15. Spend Time with Friends

One of the most neglected good habits is spending time with friends. As we grow older, family life takes over and friends get replaced. But the happiest people are those who have maintained their friendships into old age. Your friends are the people who knew you before you fell in love or started a family. They are important people too!

Find time to spend with your friends. Simple things such as celebrating birthdays, mailing random thinking of you cards in the mail, or going out to a quick coffee can really help you strengthen your friendships. Unbelievably, you will immediately remember how much fun it is to hang out with your friends. All the silly inside jokes you have, all the wild memories you have shared together, and that feeling of being accepted and loved by someone who is not blood. It feels surprisingly good.

16. Practice Mindful Living

Mindful living is all about being present in the world. If good habits do not involve real world living, what is the point? When was the last time you looked up while going out for a walk? Have you ever looked up from your phone to talk (phone-free) with your family? Do you pay attention to labels when buying food to ensure you are nourishing your body with vitamins, minerals, and nutrients galore? You have eaten your favourite meal dozens of times. But have you ever eaten it slowly, focusing on the chew to really taste it, instead of gulfing it down? On these good habits list, you are not just going to want to try these things but do it with attentiveness and focus. That is what living is really all about.

17. Journal

Good habits like journaling allow you to express yourself. Journaling can take many forms. For some, they might be diary entries into your day-to-day life to reflect on at a later point (for that memoir you will write someday). For others, it could be a creative outlet to design and plan your life, help you achieve your goals, or hold you accountable for an important practice, such as a gratitude journal, bullet journal, or mindfulness journal. Journals do not need to focus on novel length stories, you can use drawings, calendars, stickers, or bullet points to share your wild thoughts and ideas. Journaling can inspire you to self-reflect, achieve, and share all in one place.

18. Analyse Your Week Each Sunday

One of the best good habits to have is to regularly monitor your performance and behaviour each week. You can keep a journal or answer the same set of questions. By picking a set day of the week such as Sunday to do this, you ensure that you consistently do this good habit. To live a meaningful life, you need to regularly check-in with yourself.

Which good deeds did you do this week? Were you always kind to others? Are you moving towards or away from your goals? Did you spend enough time fostering relationships with those you care about? Did you fall off the wagon for any of your goals? How can you improve? By asking yourself questions like this each week, you hold yourself accountable. You can answer the same set of questions each week so that you stay committed to what you are setting out to accomplish.

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