14 Best Daily Habits To Start To Improve Your Life
Daily habits to start to improve your life drastically
Have you been struggling to find time to do the things you want to do? Or accomplish the goals you set for yourself?
If you’ve found yourself feeling stressed and overwhelmed by the things going on in your life, then maybe it’s time to implement some daily habits to make your life just a bit more manageable.
Habits are behaviors that become automatic after routinely doing them on a regular basis. We all have good and ‘not so great’ habits.
Daily, good habits that you incorporate into your life can start to become a routine. Once they become a routine, you can eventually learn how to cope with stress and avoid burnout.
For example, if you find yourself rushing out the door everyday to get to work, this may be a sign you need to incorporate habits to create an effective morning routine and a better sleep schedule.
In this post, I’ll be sharing with you 14 daily, great habits you can incorporate into your life to create positive change. So keep reading!
Why are daily habits important?
Sticking to a daily habit can reap many personal benefits that help you to achieve your goals, maximize time, boost your mental health, and lower your anxiety. Overtime, mini habits can help you build a routine that becomes second nature.
Making conscious, intentional habits become a part of your daily life can tremendously improve your life for the better. The most successful people you know such as Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Tony Robbins set daily habits that get them to where they want to be.
Think about it. Brushing your teeth is a habit that you’ve learned growing up. Fast forward to today, you don’t even think about it. You just do it because it’s become a daily routine.
That’s the beauty of developing good, daily habits. The more you stick to these habits, the easier they will become and eventually you won’t have to think about actually doing them.
How do I start developing daily habits that stick?
To create daily habits that actually stick, I’d suggest choosing just 1-2 habits to start off with. Research has shown that it actually takes 66 days for a habit to stick, instead of the popular ’21-day’ notion.
Get my FREE habit tracker (above) to start tracking your habits and keep yourself accountable!
1. Go outside more
Going outside and getting some fresh air can be super beneficial for your health. There are so many benefits of fresh air, including strengthening your immune system and increasing your energy.
Whether it’s for five or thirty minutes, just taking some time to get outside can improve your mental health. If your job or role requires you to stay indoors, it’s easy to be sedentary and inactive. So encourage yourself to take go on a walk either early in the morning or after a long day of work!
Helpful tip: Motivate yourself to go on a walk after work around your neighborhood. Or go on a peaceful morning walk to get your mind and body ready for the day!
2. Wake up earlier
One of the best daily habits you can start to do is to wake up earlier. Waking up earlier not only helps you be more productive, but you also will feel more ready to start your day.
Whether you’re a full-time student or worker, sometimes it might feel like we don’t have enough time in the day to do what we want.
You might say to yourself, “Well, I don’t have enough time to start my side hustle. I don’t have time to work out. I lack energy to do anything after a long day of work.” I get it. It can be rough when you’ve got other priorities in your life.
But if you have goals that you really want to achieve, then you can make time for what’s important to you. How? Wake up earlier and work on those goals.
Wake up 30 minutes earlier to go on a morning jog, write in your journal, meditate, or do something good for yourself.
Helpful tip: Set mini goals by setting an alarm 15 minutes earlier each week, then gradually keep building on those 15 minute increments until you hit your ‘wake up time’ goal. Keep going!
3. Set goals for yourself
This daily habit is so important! Setting goals for yourself triggers new, positive behaviors that creates action and improves your focus.
When you set goals for yourself, you create momentum to keep going. Your vision of your future becomes clearer because you know what you want to achieve.
If you’re someone like me who tends to shoot high and strive towards 10 goals, I’d encourage you to start small. I’m a visionary person, so I love setting goals for my future, but creating too many goals would eventually always overwhelm me.
This would make me procrastinate because I felt like I was ‘failing’ at achieving anything. So the biggest lesson I’ve learned when it comes to goal-setting is taking it one step at a time.
Choosing just one goal to focus on has helped me maximize my focus and productivity tremendously. Want some monthly goals inspiration? Check out this awesome post that has more than 50 goals you can get inspired from.
Helpful tip: Choose 1 goal that you want to work towards for this month or the upcoming week. Ask yourself, What action steps would I need to take to get there? Then list out the steps you need to take!
4. Practice gratitude
If you’ve been following this blog for some time, you probably have heard my continuous raves about how practicing gratitude can be so helpful.
It’s helped me so much with my mental health. I use a personal gratitude journal every single morning before I start my day.
According to studies, gratitude can actually change the neuropathways in your brain by shifting your attention away from your negative emotions. Gratitude can shift your negative thoughts into more positive, intentional thoughts.
Helpful tip: Invest in a simple, gratitude journal (I highly recommend this one) and spend 3-5 minutes of your day listing 1-3 things you’re grateful for.
5. Drink more water
Please do yourself a favor and drink more water! Drinking more water is a great daily habit to start doing.
Many of us struggle to meet the recommended water daily intake which is 8 cups per day. I get it, though. Having a job that doesn’t really let you take water breaks or forgetting to drink water are valid reasons.
So how can you make it easier for yourself to drink water?
I’d recommend buying a water bottle that actually helps you keep track of how much you’re drinking. This 64oz water bottle comes with measurement markings to help keep you accountable.
Another suggestion is to set sticky notes or phone check-in reminders to drink more water. This will help you stay motivated to hit your water intake!
Helpful tip: Set triggers that remind you to drink more water. You could invest in a measurement water bottle, set daily reminders, drink from an aesthetic cup, or add fruits to your water to add some flavor.
6. Invest in yourself
You can create a habit of investing in yourself. Basically, to invest in yourself means to focus on your health and wellbeing.
How can you turn this into a habit?
Let’s say for example, you’ve been wanting to learn a new skill, but you haven’t found the time. This is where habits come in. You create time to invest in your skills with habits.
Maybe a habit you can try is setting an alarm to work on developing your skill or making it a priority to spend an hour every week practicing self-care.
Helpful tip: Ask yourself, What areas of your life do you want to invest in? Do you want to invest more time and energy towards learning to cook, play guitar, or read books? Set a phone reminder as a habit!
7. Get enough sleep
If you want to create a habit of waking up earlier, you also want to make sure you’re getting enough sleep. For the average adult, 7-8 hours of sleep is the ideal amount of sleep recommended.
Not getting enough sleep can unfortunately make us more cranky the next day. I’m sure we’ve all experienced waking up on the wrong side of bed due to a lack of sleep.
If you want to wake up earlier, count backwards to see what time you’d need to be in bed by to ensure that you’re getting at least 7 hours of sleep.
Helpful tip: Set a phone alarm that reminds you to start getting ready for bed. Create mini goals to start sleeping earlier by setting your alarm 15 minutes earlier each week.
8. Create a morning routine
I love a good morning routine! An effective, productive morning routine will make you feel more ready, energized, and prepared to start the day. This is why habits are so important. When you can stick to just a few habits, you can create a routine that works for you.
It wasn’t long ago when I created the habit of consciously making my bed right away after getting up. Once I was able to be consistent, I started to practice gratitude journaling.
That’s why I highly suggest starting one habit at a time. Eventually, these daily habits start to become a morning routine that feels second nature to you.
Helpful tip: If you’re struggling to create a morning routine, I created this helpful step-by-step morning routine guide with a free morning routine printable. Go check it out!
9. Focus on a single task
Distractions are a very real thing. Am I right? I feel like technology has just made our attention spans decrease by a lot, and there’s plenty of research to back this up.
I can attest to this, haha. When I look up articles to get inspired for my blog like ‘how to create a morning routine’, I somehow end up landing on ‘how to make a healthy green smoothie,’ lol.
Clearly, focusing on one task is a struggle for me, especially when most of my work requires browsing the Internet. What has helped me to stay more focus is to write a to-do list, go to the library, and put my phone somewhere I can’t see it. Definitely still a habit I’m personally working on!
Helpful tip: List out 1-3 distractions that draw you away from your priorities and goals. Now, list out action steps for each one that you can do to eliminate or at least decrease those distractions.
10. Limit your screen time
If you’re looking for daily habits to start, limiting your screen time is a great habit to try.
How often do you check your phone, your email, or social media? What about watching movies or TV shows?
I used to have a really bad addiction to watching movies and TV, which made me waste soo much time. In reality, I used it as a coping mechanism to avoid the things I needed to get done.
Eventually, I had to go cold-turkey with it because it was really affecting my social life and mental health. Maybe I’m going off tangent here, lol. But the moral of the story is be mindful of how much you’re consuming.
Is the time you’re spending on your phone affecting your physical, mental, and emotional health? Check in with yourself and take the necessary steps to reduce your screen time.
Helpful tip: Track how much time you’re spending on your phone or laptop. There are plenty of apps that tell you how much screen time you’ve spent. Set a specific % or goal of how much you want to decrease your screen time.
11. Work on a hobby
Working on your hobby can be a daily habit. Has there been something you’ve been wanting to spend time on, but haven’t gotten around to?
What do you enjoy doing? What interests you? Challenge yourself to spend at least 30 minutes working on your hobby.
Reconnect with the things you enjoyed growing up or start a new hobby. Just make sure you have fun doing it!
Helpful tip: Write a list of 3-5 hobbies that you’d want to try or pick up again. Start with one hobby from the list and spend at least 30 minutes a day for a whole week doing the hobby. Did you enjoy it? If not, pick something else on your list. If yes, then keep doing it!
12. Journal
I am such a huge advocate for journaling. Growing up, I always journaled and I’m so grateful I did. Going into high school, I knew absolutely nobody that journaled, and I feel like journaling is one of those habits that get lost when you grow up.
But journaling not only helps you process your emotions and thoughts onto paper, it makes you happier and helps you to feel more connected with yourself.
I started to pick up journaling again back in college, and I love how familiar it feels and how much I’ve missed it. So if you’re new to journaling, I’d highly recommend checking out this helpful blog post on how to get started.
Helpful tip: Make it a habit to write in a journal everyday this week. You could literally just write 1-2 sentences to start. A helpful prompt could be: Today, I am looking forward to ……
13. Move your body
Exercise is probably one of the best daily habits to start. Not only does it improve your mental health, but it alleviates depressive symptoms.
Whether it’s jogging for 15 minutes or dancing to your favorite music, you get your heart pumping and your blood flowing. Exercise can greatly impact your overall health and wellbeing.
Moving your body can be so much more than just the aesthetics. It can be about feeling strong and powerful in your own body. It can be about having the ability to dance, walk, and run and thanking your body for what it’s capable of doing.
Helpful tip: Set a habit to move your body at least 3x this week, if you haven’t done so. Whether that’s in the morning or after work, do what works for you. You got this, so get moving!
14. Face your fears
I had to end this post with one of my favorite, intentional habits which is facing your fears. Do you find yourself sometimes being hindered by your fears?
Is it the fear of rejection, failure, judgment, or even success that’s holding you back from starting a business or improving your life?
Fear is a real thing, and it can hold many of us back from our goals, dreams, and ambitions. As you’re reading this post, I want to encourage you that you’re not alone. We all struggle with fears.
It’s what you do with your fears that matters. So how can you start facing your fears?
If you’re afraid of starting your business, what is one thing you can do to move that needle forward? Maybe you can start with writing down your WHY.
If you’re afraid of asking someone out on a date, maybe you can just casually get to know them first by asking him/her to a meal. You can take the pressure off of yourself to be ‘perfect.’
Helpful tip: What is a fear that is holding you back? Write that down. Now, write down what is one thing you can do today or this week to face that fear head-on and start changing your life for the better. YOU GOT THIS. Make it a habit each week to ‘expose’ yourself to this fear.
Final thoughts about daily habits to start
I hope you enjoyed reading this post, and that it hopefully inspired you to start creating intentional, daily habits in your life.
Remember that habits take time and patience, so be patient with yourself. If you skip a day or two towards working on a habit, don’t just drop it. It doesn’t have to be black-or-white, and creating habits certainly isn’t a perfect journey.
Creating daily habits take trial-and-error and discipline. You got this!
Wait! Before you go, let me know in the comments below which habit you’d like to incorporate into your life – I’d love to know. 🙂
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