Good habits define our success. And there is a consensus among experts, bloggers, influencers, and motivational speakers that these 10 habits will change your life.
What is a habit
A habit is an action that we automatically do without the need for decision-making.
It’s something that, because we have done it over and over, has created a special path. That bypasses the active region of our brain.
To put it simply, it’s something we do without thinking.
Now, the brain cannot interpret habits. The brain’s role is to simply designate a special path for these habits so that it can free up resources that you can use for more important matters.
Therefore, the habits we develop then can either be good or bad depending on their effect on our health, our personalities and ultimately our success in life.
Benefits of developing good habits
As such, you will be the one to decide which habits to develop. And definitely, it’s the good habits you develop that will allow you to live a healthy mind and body, have a vibrant personality, become the person you want to be, reach for your goals, and live your best life.
So if you intend to change your current situation and improve your life. You certainly need to identify your bad habits and change them to more positive ones. That will support your will to improve or get better.
10 good habits that will change your life
Here are the top 10 good habits that successful people share that will change your life.
Eat and drink healthy
A good life starts with a healthy body. And a healthy body needs food that will nourish it in order for it to gain optimal performance. Moreover, adding more vegetables, some fruits, and whole grains to your diet will provide you with the following benefits:
- healthy heart,
- reduce the risk of developing cancer,
- Improve mood,
- Improve digestion,
- Promote weight loss,
- Promote better sleep.
In addition, the body also needs to stay hydrated to be able to duly perform its functions. And despite the proliferation of drinks that are touted as refreshing and “healthy”. Your best source of hydration is still plain water.
To enumerate, here are some of the benefits of drinking your required water intake daily:
- regulates body temperature,
- helps flush out toxins,
- promotes healthy skin,
- helps lubricate the joints,
- helps maintain blood pressure,
- also promotes weight loss, and
- good digestion
Exercise
Another good habit you should develop to change your life for the better is to get regular exercise.
Exerting your body doing cardiovascular exercises such as walking, jogging, dancing, or jumping rope for at least 30 minutes a day, 5-7 days a week, should do the trick.
Alternate cardio with weight training once in a while to add muscle. For sure, you will enhance your body’s performance and also promote a healthy mind.
To add incentive for you to develop the habit, here are the benefits you can get from exercise:
- Improves cardiovascular conditioning.
- Decreases risk of heart disease.
- Lowers blood pressure.
- Increases HDL or “good” cholesterol.
- Helps to better control blood sugar.
- Assists in weight management and/or weight loss.
- Improves lung function.
- Decreases resting heart rate.
Regular sleep
One requirement of our body to fully function is to have enough rest. According to research, most adults require 7-9 hours of sleep. While children and teenagers will require much more time to rest due to their stage of active growth.
When your body gets to have a good night’s sleep, it can start the day refreshed and fully alert. Your brain is energized and has the ability to focus, concentrate, and process memories.
Negative effects of lack of sleep
In contrast, when you don’t give your body proper rest, it will result in the following negative effects:
- inability to focus,
- attention deficit,
- inability to think clearly,
- delayed reactions,
- mood shifts,
- poor mental health and lack of sleep are also linked to
- higher risk of medical conditions such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke.
How to establish a regular sleep routine
So, in order for you to avoid these negative effects and live a better life, it is important for you to establish a regular sleep routine.
If you are one of many adults who are having trouble getting a good night’s sleep, here are some tips for you to try:
- Establish a routine before your bedtime. That will include no big meals, caffeine, or alcohol a few hours before going to bed. No TV, social media browsing, or digital games an hour or two before bed. In lieu of screens, you can opt to read a book.
- Meditation, yoga Nidra, or slow stretching should also enable you to have better sleep.
- Make sure your room is conducive to sleep, that is, it has the right temperature, quiet, and is totally dark.
- Go to bed at night and wake up in the morning at about the same time each day, even on weekends. This is to set your body’s circadian rhythm.
- Endeavor to get early morning sunlight each day to fully wake you up and bolster your body’s natural sleep pattern (the circadian rhythm mentioned earlier.)
Wake-up early
Aside from regular sleep, waking up early is a good habit that will undoubtedly change your life. The best reason for this good habit is that it allows you to be more productive.
Getting up early sets the tone for your entire day. One that does not get off to a frantic start. Instead, it starts off calmly and relaxed, allowing you to start your day in a positive way. One in which you are prepared to get things done and achieve your goals and objectives.
Not convinced yet? Here are some more of the benefits waking up early can provide:
- Again, it’s the habit of leaders, successful, and famous people. Surely it should be worth emulating.
- Together with a regular bedtime schedule, waking up early sets a healthy circadian system which is good for productivity and overall health.
- This regular wake-sleep cycle will also lead to having better sleep which in turn will give you better energy.
- Gives you time for yourself. The early morning hours are yours- you can use it to exercise, read, meditate, write in your journal, or simply enjoy a nice quiet time with just you and your coffee.
- Lastly, getting up early allows for better concentration. For all of the important decisions that must be made for the day ahead.
Reflect
Personal reflection is another good habit that is highly recommended.
In fact, the motivational speaker Jim Rohn advises that you schedule a few minutes at the end of the day; a few hours at the end of the week; half a day at the end of the month; and one day at the end of the year for reflection.
Reflecting is a way to have a blow-by-blow account of your day and how you spent it. It’s also how you can see if there are errors in your judgment and be able to correct them in time. Before they become bad habits that will sabotage your success.
Additional benefits of regular self-reflection are the following:
- Provides you with great ideas. These kernels of thought can grow into brilliant ideas that solve problems, foster innovation and enhance your life.
- It becomes a record of your successes, big or small.
- Provides perspective.
Practice gratitude
Giving thanks is certainly a good thing, even if it is just a simple “thank you” to God, the universe, family and friends, or even a random someone. It makes you feel good. This is why it is one of the habits that successful people encourage you to develop.
By practicing gratitude, you will open yourself up to a vast number of other great benefits. Among the numerous advantages of expressing gratitude are the following:
- Makes us an all-around better person, physically, mentally, economically, and socially.
- Boosts our positive emotions, which leads to
- Attracting other positive behavior, such as optimism, contentment, and being more considerate of others.
- Boosts self-esteem,
- Increases energy levels,
- Allows you to become more resilient,
- Improves goal-setting and decision-making skills,
Continuous learning
Also, a habit that should not be forgotten is that of continuous learning. Having the childlike ability to ask the how, what, and why of things will definitely lead you to change and improve your life.
Because when you maintain a strong curiosity, and willingness to find out how things work, read, and observe, you will never run out of ideas.
Ideas are what make people and life in general, interesting. It’s what our minds are meant to do, think and come up with ideas. Without ideas, you end up with a meaningless life, devoid of inspiration and purpose.
How to continue learning to gain ideas
As Jim Rohn says about education,
Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.
So, here are some tips you can apply to continue learning.
- Read. About anything that interests you. And read also on other things, even those you don’t have a particular inclination to.
- Listen. Listening to other people talk about their experiences is also a great learning experience. So that if they are successful, you can follow in their footsteps. If they fail, you can avoid making the same mistakes they did.
- Observe. The power of observation is another powerful tool for learning. You can learn new techniques, and strategies, or see things from a different perspective.
Reduce your to-do list
The purpose of making a to-do list is to become more productive.
However, due to overzealous intent or simply overestimation of one’s ability to accomplish things in a day, the opposite of being productive occurs. You end up feeling overwhelmed and unaccomplished.
So, to avoid these unnecessary negative emotions, follow the advice of most successful people and keep your to-do list as short as possible.
Limit your list to three items at most. These three items should be your top priorities, the ones that will have the most impact on your personal or professional life.
As a result, keeping your to-do list short allows you to focus and concentrate more on important matters. You’ll be able to handle them right away. Because your mind will want to prioritize them, before the day’s distractions set in.
Turn off technology
Although technology has undoubtedly provided us with numerous benefits, it has also created a slew of distractions that compete for our attention.
Each activity on our laptops or phones generates a notification. And each notification will make us want to check what that blinking light on our phone brought or the ding of the bell on our laptop represents.
Then a few hours after checking the notification, we would have been deep into the rabbit hole of the internet and social media. And having accomplished nothing productive.
As such, if you want to improve your life, you should make it a habit to turn off technology every now and then.
They say that the cure for temptation is to avoid it rather than fighting it.
So better turn off these technologies that provide you with distraction. If you cannot shut them off completely, at least turn-off or mute the notifications. If you are working on your laptop, keep only the tab you are working on open.
Declutter
Removing items that are not useful and just taking up space in your home, office, or digital memory will provide you with numerous benefits.
And so it’s no wonder that is one good habit that is also highly recommended and practiced.
Here are some of the benefits that will give you a life-changing experience when applied.
- Provides calming effects and also improves focus and concentration,
- Provides a sense of accomplishment,
- Boosts your energy and makes you feel good,
- Improves decision-making skills,
- Improves productivity,
- Helps you get better at organizing,
- Saves you time and effort, and
- Allows you to focus on solutions and not problems.
Summary
To summarize, good habits are important to develop. Because they have the ability to change your life for the better.
And the top good habits you need to develop in order to have a better life are the following:
- Eat and drink healthy,
- Exercise,
- Regular sleep,
- Wake up early,
- Reflect,
- Practice gratitude,
- Continuous learning,
- Reduced to-do list,
- Turn off technology, and
- Declutter.
Please share your thoughts or ideas about 5 Simple Steps You Can Do To Improve Your Life in the comments below. And if you liked this article, you might be interested as well in these articles:
Why Good Habits Beat Motivation
How To Define Yourself By Your Habits
9 Effective Habits For A Happy Life
Building Good Habits For Your To Be
How To Break 9 Bad Habits That Keep You Down
7 Tips On How To Develop A Persistent Habit
5 Organizing Habits You Can Learn From Organized People
7 Good Habits To Develop (Inspired By Gardening)
10 Habits For A Simple Life
Small And Easy Habits That Can Change Your Life
Habits To Overcome The Struggle Of Waking Up Early
10 Simple Minimalist Habits You Can Develop
15 Good And Simple Daily Habits You Can Do To Improve Your Life
Outside reference/s:
What are the benefits of eating healthy?
Fifteen benefits of drinking water
Why Do We Need Sleep?
10 Reasons to Get Up Early — Because Early Rising Isn’t Just for Birds
5 Powerful Reasons to Make Reflection a Daily Habit, and How to Do It
6 Benefits of an Uncluttered Space
