The Top 10 Benefits of Good Habits

Whether you realize it or not, your entire life is a sum of your habits. Some of these habits are good, some are bad, some are healthy, and some are not.

It goes without the saying that bad habits can be harmful. But there are many benefits of good habits that can help you improve your overall health and wellbeing, your relationships, and your quality of life.

Let’s take a look at 10 powerful benefits of good habits that you could be taking advantage of right now to start enjoying a healthy lifestyle!

What Are Habits?

Habits are patterns of behavior that people repeat without thinking or effort. Most habits are automatic and involuntary – meaning no thought or action is required for them to take place.

Many habits are meaningless actions that are part of your daily routine. For example, waking up at the same time on a daily basis or charging your phone at night. But there are also more meaningful habits that can be seen as either healthy habits or negative habits.

Healthy habits are things that you do throughout your day that support your physical health and mental health. Regular exercise and maintaining a healthy diet are two examples of habits that are healthy.

Negative habits are usually harmful to yourself or others. Regularly eating too much fast food or spending too much time on social media are examples of negative habits.

The easiest way to develop a new habit, whether good or bad, is to gain some sort of positive reward. But habits are difficult to break once they become second nature. This goes for both healthy and negative habits!

What are the Benefits of Good Habits?

Positive habits can be hard to make part of your routine. But when you do, you open up a world of possibilities for a healthy and active lifestyle. These 10 benefits of good habits will get you started on the path to being a happier healthy person!

1. Good habits help you to replace bad habits

The first step to enjoying the benefits of good habits is replacing your bad habits. Bad habits are all of the automatic negative behaviors that you find yourself engaging in without really thinking about them.

Instead of eating too much unhealthy food in the morning, take small steps to start your day with a smaller healthy breakfast. For example, consider an omelette filled with fresh vegetables!

2. Good habits help you reach your goals

The biggest and craziest goals and dreams in life usually feel like they are an impossible task. But you will be much more successful in reaching your goals when you practice good habits in your everyday life.

You will never own your dream home or start your own business unless you form regular habits that help you achieve these great things.

It takes a lot of self-discipline to stick with a long term goal. And you will have a hard time reaching your goal if you are constantly falling victim to every temptation along the way. Developing healthy goal habits that support your dreams and ambitions is the best thing that you can do to stay on track!

3. Good habits increase your productivity and efficiency

Daily life is filled with never-ending distractions. Whether it is notifications from your phone or the ongoing temptation of social media, technology has put more demands on our attention than ever before. This makes it hard to stay productive and focus on important things.

One of the better habits that you can start developing is monitoring where you spend your precious attention and focus.

Try making small changes like deleting unnecessary apps on your phone or taking a social media hiatus. You will see a major positive impact on your productivity and efficiency. Little things like going for a walk on your break rather than wasting time on social media add up to a more productive day.

4. Good habits help you become the person you want to be

It is hard to ignore the power of habit when it comes to your own personal growth and development. There are many benefits of good habits that can help you improve your overall emotional health and wellbeing.

For example, taking a short amount of time every night to write in a gratitude journal will make you a more grateful and joyful person. It can be hard to slow down and intentionally think about something that you are grateful for, but this is a powerful habit that can help you find growth.

Use these gratitude list ideas to get started!

5. Good habits increase your overall quality of life

Regularly practicing good habits increases your overall quality of life by helping you stay physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy. And when you are an all around healthy person, you will find yourself living your best life!

And when you live your best life, you feel driven to pursue opportunities for personal growth. This will in turn help you feel motivated to go after your life’s big dreams and goals.

And a life spent chasing big dreams is a life well-lived!

6. Good habits improve your mood

When you feel like you are working towards reaching your goals, bettering yourself, and building good habits, you will notice that your overall happiness level increases.

When we feel happy, our overall moods change. Rather than feeling stressed and anxious, a person who practices good habits becomes a happier and more joyful person. Happier people enjoy their lives more, have better health, and maintain closer relationships with loved ones.

7. Good habits increase your energy levels

Maintaining healthy daily habits is one of the best ways to increase your energy levels. Living a fast-paced lifestyle makes it easy to rely on caffeine as a temporary source of energy. But healthy eating, a balanced diet, and getting enough sleep are better, long term fixes for low energy levels.

Eating too much sugar or drinking coffee feels good in the moment, but these both leave you with a lethargic feeling throughout the rest of the day. The best way to boost energy is to have a normal blood sugar level and get a better sleep routine carved out for yourself.

8. Good habits bring out the best of us

When you practice healthy habits, your heightened energy levels have a positive impact in all areas of your life.

You may have noticed that it just feels good knowing that you are eating healthy on a regular basis and getting regular exercise. This feeling gives you an extra bounce in your step!

Compare this feeling to how you feel when you are sleep deprived and overloaded with too much sugar, fast food, or caffeine. How would you rather feel on a regular basis?

9. Good habits make it easier to help others

The chaos and demands of daily life can sometimes make it hard to leave a positive impact on other peoples’ lives. But whether it is a family member or a close friend, it is important to show our loved ones that we care through thoughtful and positive actions.

One of the benefits of good habits is that they help us make positive actions a priority. Keeping yourself accountable to your own good habits will make it easier to make sure you do at least one good thing per day for someone that you love.

10. Good habits have lifelong health benefits

One of the most important benefits of good habits is that they can help you live a healthy and active lifestyle. Whether your goal is to reduce your risk of cardiovascular diseases, maintain a healthy weight, or increase your overall wellbeing, sticking to healthy habits has many healthy benefits.

Regular exercise and a healthy diet leads to better cardiovascular health and better physique. So if you want to be a healthy person who makes exercising a priority, forming good habits will make this possible!

How Can You Learn New Habits?

At some point, your behaviors became automatic and you formed a habit. So how can you go about learning a new habit?

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear expands upon the work of Charles Duhigg to share a simple 4 step process for learning a new habit.

To form a good new habit you need to:

  1. Make it obvious
  2. Make it attractive
  3. Make it easy
  4. Make it satisfying

These four steps form a habit loop that make habits stick.

Making your new habit obvious to you as you go about your daily activities is a great way to cue yourself to start your habit. If your habit is attractive to you, you will crave it. If your habit is easy enough to do, it won’t take a lot of energy to do it.

Lastly, having habits that feel rewarding act as motivation. This way, the next time you see the original cue, you will trigger the habit loop in order to receive the reward.

In his book the 5 AM Club, Robin Sharma explains that habit formation takes 66 days. After this time has passed, your new habits will become automatic. This means that you will be able to enjoy a new healthy habit without having to think about it!

Take some time to think about a new habit that you would like to develop. How can you use this habit formation process to make your new habit stick?

How to Break Old Habits

While there are many benefits of good habits, they are often overshadowed by old habits that need to be broken first.

Fortunately, the four step habit loop from above can also be used to break habits!

Instead of making habits obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying, we do the opposite to break old habits.

To break a habit:

  1. make it less obvious
  2. make it unattractive
  3. make it hard
  4. make it less satisfying

For example, imagine that you want to cut down on the time you spend on social media on your cell phone. You might try hiding your cellphone somewhere so that it becomes inconvenient and harder to use it. You could also delete all of your apps on your phone so that, when you do find it, it is less satisfying. When you realize that there is nothing exciting on your phone you will put it back where you found it!

Repeating this process over and over will gradually help you break your old habits!

The Benefits of Using a Habit Tracker

Habits are difficult to start and break. Once they become automatic, it really takes a strong level of self-discipline and staying accountable to your goals to break them!

Habit trackers are our favorite tools to help us stay accountable to our habits. Habit trackers have many benefits that will transform the way you make and break habits!

The best part about habit trackers is that they make your habits visible. This way you can see your progress over time to point out areas where you struggled, while celebrating the small wins along the way. This makes it easier to stay accountable to yourself and your habits!

Check out our hand-crafted collection of habit trackers and choose your favorite one to unlock the benefits of a healthy lifestyle today!

monthly habit trackers

Start Enjoying the Benefits of Good Habits Today!

Whether it is maintaining your physical and mental health, or helping you stay accountable to your goals, there are so many benefits of good habits.

Good habits can be tricky because they usually feel harder to start than bad habits. But, the benefits and tips listed in this post show that the hard work is well worth it!

Start tracking your habits today to take advantage of the benefits of good habits and a healthy lifestyle!

Don’t forget to share this post with your friends and family on social media! If you know someone who is working on developing good habits, this post could be just what they need!


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