Needing some tips on how to be more productive with your days? Check out these 6 powerful habits to help you thrive daily and live your best life!
Estimated reading time: 13 minutes
Do you ever feel like you need motivation to help you thrive from day to day? You have come to the right place my friend. We all need motivation sometimes!
I want to help you thrive, so I’ve put together a list of 6 Powerful Habits To Help You Thrive Daily! I’ll go into each one in more detail and give you some tips along the way to incorporate these powerful habits into your daily routine.
Let’s learn and grow together!
Here’s What You’ll Learn:
Now that you’ve seen the list, let’s look at each one in greater detail!
#1: Morning Routine
One of the first powerful habits to help you thrive daily is to have a consistent morning routine. We have all heard this said many times, “Want to be productive? Have a good morning routine.”
So what’s the big deal with routines? Not sure, but for whatever reason they can be great catalysts for having an overall better day.
Studies have shown that waking up around the same time each morning is helpful for your body. It’s more predictable and your body is ready to wake up at that time.
What makes a good morning routine? Great question! Here are some helpful ideas:
- Same wake up time
- Workout
- Shower
- Breakfast
- Read (the paper, Bible, articles on your phone etc.)
Now if for some reason you wake up 30 minutes later one morning, there’s no need to freak out and think that everything will go wrong. Therefore, give yourself some wiggle room and grace.
“What is your routine?” I’m so glad you asked:
- 6:20-6:30 Wake up
- 6:30 Shower/Get dressed
- 7:00 Breakfast and Coffee (Make sure my daughter gets fed too!) ● 7:30 Read or Work on Blog Promoting
- 8:00 Breakfast for my husband before he heads off to work ● 8:30 Walk or some outside activity with my daughter
- 9:00 Homeschool Starts
Obviously there’s some variance with this, but for the most part my weekday mornings look very similar to what’s reflected in this schedule.
I have found that even on the weekends when I can sleep in, my body usually wakes up around the same time because it’s a daily habit. No shame in that! It shows consistency in my life, which is very encouraging.
What If You Don’t Have A Morning Routine Yet?
If you don’t have a morning routine, start little by little. For instance, set your alarm to go off at the same time every morning. Also, make sure that you eat a healthy breakfast, fueling your body with the energy it needs for the day.
Try those 2 things and once they’re regular habits, add a third or fourth to your list! Progress over perfection, right? You can do this!
If you want to deep dive into how to create a morning routine, you may enjoy the book ‘The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)’
#2: Write It Down
This powerful habit is for all of my Type A personalities and list-makers.
There’s something to be said for making a list and crossing things off as you complete certain tasks. It can be very gratifying and motivating! Whether you make a list by hand (that is totally me!) or you use an app on your phone or have a big wall calendar, write down the most important tasks for the day.
Sometimes the visual of seeing what we need to get accomplished can be very motivating, and also helpful! I don’t know about you, but I can tend to forget things if I don’t see them in writing multiple times.
When I taught kindergarten there were so many things I needed to remember, especially around the time of assessments and report cards.
A great help to me was writing a task list down on sticky notes and putting them on my desk. I could check things off throughout the day as well as have continual reminders of things still needing to be accomplished. Very helpful! I love sticky notes.
Whatever version of “writing things down” that fits your personality and working style, just do it! I think you’ll be amazed at how motivating it can be for daily productivity.
If you are looking for a nice planner to write down your to do’s, you may want to check out the legend planner.
#3: Take Care Of Your Body
Another powerful habit to help you thrive is to take care of your body, and by that I mean exercising and eating right.
You have to fuel your body for success, right? If you seem to have a never ending task list, there has to be some way to gain the energy needed to accomplish everything.
Some people are very regimented in their exercise routine and they never miss a day. That’s amazing. Multiple high fives and fist bumps if that’s you!
How To Find Time To Exercise
I have found that since having a child, finding time to exercise daily can be tricky. It’s not that I don’t want to exercise, it’s actually finding the time to exercise.
There are some mornings when I feel super sluggish and experience lots of brain fog only to realize that I need to get outside and take a walk! Afterwards I almost always feel better and more energized.
Living in the midwest can be tricky for outside exercise in the winter time, but this year we tried very hard to not be couch potatoes.
For instance, we found great workout videos on YouTube and got creative some days with dance parties. I learned that if it was at least 15 degrees and not windy, I could handle a long walk. Regardless, find out what works for you and stick to that routine!
Conversely, if you’re exercising daily but not fueling your body with healthy foods, you’re doing yourself a disservice. For many of us, I think we would like to eat better, but it’s finding the time to plan and prepare healthy meals and snacks throughout the week that’s the bigger issue.
With anything in life, if you want it bad enough you can make it a priority. You just have to get from the desire to the actual doing.
We can talk it up all we want about wanting to eat right, and even find lots of healthy recipes that sound amazing!
But in order to thrive throughout our days and weeks we need to turn desire into action and fuel our bodies correctly.
How Do You Eat Healthy Throughout The Week?
Great question! I know that it’s so much easier to drive through somewhere or order food for delivery. However, what works for our family, and we’re definitely not perfect, is to do a lot of our prepping on the weekends.
We are big into juicing, so making juice is usually on our weekend list. Cold-pressed fresh juice is absolutely delicious and provides so many amazing vitamins and nutrients for your body! I highly recommend doing this if you’ve never tried it before.
Sometimes it can be overwhelming to plan out meals for an entire week, so my advice is to take just a few days and plan.
Shop for Sunday-Tuesday and make a point to cook those planned meals. Stick to your menu! After those 3 days, see how you did and then you can plan for a few more days. Progress over perfection, right?
My other tip is to have healthy snacks with you at the office or ready to go at home. What I mean by this is to have carrots washed, peeled, and cut so you can just pull out the container and eat them when you’re hungry.
Having healthy snacks available prevents me from binging on a bag of chips (which is a huge weakness for me!). If I’m hungry and I open the fridge to see tons of fruits and veggies that aren’t prepped, I am more than likely going to grab a different snack.
When things are prepped, everyone (including my husband), is more likely to eat healthier. Therefore, fuel your body correctly and take care of it so you can thrive on a daily basis.
Looking for inspiration to eat healthy? Have a look at this book: ‘Eat Better, Feel Better: My Recipes for Wellness and Healing, Inside and Out’
#4: Good People
If you want to thrive in your daily life, another powerful habit is to surround yourself with good people. Seriously, who is motivated by toxic people? Not me.
When you have good people in your life, it’s energizing and motivating. Toxic people can do the opposite. Especially when you are an empath or highly sensitive person.
Here’s how I would describe good people: encouraging, kind, trustworthy, helpful, positive, inspiring, good friend.
Toxic people, on the other hand, can be described with these words: negative, rude, condescending, divisive, untrustworthy, gossips, hurtful, mean, demotivating.
Given the choice, I think most of us would opt for surrounding ourselves with good people. Then why do we sometimes have toxic people in our lives and keep them around?
Sometimes it’s family members and that can be tricky because family is always there. We have to work at those relationships.
However, other times you might have toxic people in your workplace or in your neighborhood and it’s inevitable that you will run into them on a daily or weekly basis. My advice? Always be kind.
Just because someone is awful to you doesn’t permit you to be rude back. Besides, you’re more mature than that. Don’t stoop to their level.
When it comes to toxic people that will always be around, just be in their lives at a distance. Share very little, only interact when it’s absolutely necessary, and then move on.
If you are struggling with toxic people in your life, the book ‘The Highly Sensitive Person’s Guide to Dealing with Toxic People: How to Reclaim Your Power from Narcissists and Other Manipulators’ may be interesting for you to read.
How Do I Surround Myself With Good People? I Want More Positivity In My Life.
Great question! If you’re wanting more positivity in your life, go where the positive people hangout. Whether it’s at church, a mom’s group, book club, or just other families at a park, there are positive and kind people all around.
Most of us are good at reading people and can tell right away if a person meets our standards for friendship. If someone gives you bad vibes upon first meeting them, you can just move on knowing that they’re not worth the investment of your time and emotions. That’s totally okay! Red flags pop up for a reason.
My mom used to tell me that if you can count the number of really good friends on one hand, you’re very fortunate. I agree with that! When it comes to friendship and people in your life, you should look at it as quality over quantity.
Find some good folks and keep them around. Surround yourself with positive, caring, and inspiring people. They will help you thrive!
For those of you interested in teaching your kids about kindness, you should read my article about raising kind kids. Awesome tips!
#5: Healthy Mindset
Another powerful habit to help you thrive daily is to have a healthy mindset. When I say a healthy mindset, I mean putting good and positive things in your mind and heart.
Some people choose to daily meditate. That’s very popular these days. For me, my healthy mindset comes from spending time in prayer and reading my Bible.
Being a mom, I’ve found it challenging to be consistent with reading the Scriptures, but there’s always time for prayer. My favorite prayer time? In the shower. No joke!
My morning routine includes a shower, and it’s a good 15-20 minutes to take in the day and reflect. Right now we have a couple of friends who are walking the cancer journey, so they usually come to mind in the mornings.
Praying and talking to God about my worries and struggles has been very life-giving to me in this season. If you’re a Christian parent and you’ve wondered about prayer, I wrote a very helpful article that teaches parents about praying for their kids!
Aside from prayer and meditation, another common thing for having a healthy mindset is to listen to good music, and to avoid reading or watching the news.
I understand wanting to be up on current events, but seriously, the news these days is ridiculous! Making a point to not watch the news has been a very healthy choice for our family.
One other tip about having a healthy mindset is to try and see things in a positive light, which brings me to my last point.
#6: Practice Gratitude
Gratitude can go a long way towards an overall healthier and happier outlook on life. Gratitude is defined as: the state of being grateful: thankfulness
Hence, if you want to make gratitude a habit in your life, it’s something that needs to be practised and taken seriously. In the video below, you can learn more about the practice of gratitude:
How Do I Practice Gratitude?
Great question! There are many ways to practice gratitude, but a very common method is to start a gratitude journal. It’s as simple as a notebook where you record things you are grateful for when they come to mind.
If you need ideas, go on Pinterest, there are tons of pins all about gratitude journals with prompts to get the ideas flowing. Some families may sit around the dinner table and share one thing that they’re grateful for from the day.
Also, you may want to consider purchasing a gratitude journal like ‘The 5-Minute Gratitude Journal’, to stimulate your gratitude practice.
For us we choose to do this at bedtime. Before we put Addie to bed we each share something we are grateful for. Sometimes Addie has epic days and her response is, “I’m thankful for the whole day!” Oh to be 6 and carefree!
We started this about a year ago and it has proven so effective for our family. As we’ve navigated some rough waters including financial hardship and infertility, practicing gratitude on a daily basis has reminded us of the many blessings we DO have in our lives. It’s an amazing, life-giving habit!
However you choose to incorporate the practice of gratitude into your daily life, my encouragement is to just start. You won’t regret it!
And if you choose to write down your gratitudes each day, you will have a catalog of wonderful blessings to look back on, reminding you of the many good things in your life. What a gift!
Remember, practicing gratitude isn’t just beneficial for you, it can benefit your children too!
That’s A Wrap!
If you’ve made it this far, you definitely care about establishing powerful habits to help you thrive daily. Way to go!
For all my note-taking friends out there, here is the list one more time.
6 Powerful Habits To Help You Thrive Daily:
- Morning Routine
- Write It Down
- Take Care Of Your Body
- Good People
- Healthy Mindset
- Practice Gratitude
If this list is overwhelming, no worries! Start with one habit and try that for a while. Once you feel like it’s a regular habit for you, move onto another one. Give yourself a lot of grace. Practice makes progress, right? Making progress with these powerful habits is definitely worth celebrating!
Thanks for taking the time to read this article! I would love it if you’d follow me on my social channels and even subscribe to my blog! I only send out encouraging and helpful content, which is a step towards a healthier mindset.
Lots of love to each of you!
Lisa
—
If you’re a parent and wanting to hear the latest parenting hacks, check out some of my most popular parenting articles:
“Mom, You’re Fat.” The 8 Eye-Opening Secrets For Raising Kind Kids
6 Tips For Raising Grateful Kids Instead Of “ME-Monsters”
“Mommy, I’m Scared.” 6 Ways To Help Your Kids Deal With Their Anxiety
Build Confidence In Your Kids With These 7 Awesome Tips!
Excellent article with great tips. I’m definitely a list maker. It’s invigorating to check things off. It’s challenging at times to stick to a routine. I’ve found that I thrive on mixing things up a bit. Thank you for sharing!
I love these tips for developing healthy, daily habits! They not only help with productivity and physical well-being, but mental well-being, too! I agree with you, when you’re a mom with a bulging list of to-do’s, writing them down is so helpful and motivating! 😊
So much practical information. I’m a list maker too! Thanks Lisa!