It’s no surprise that successful people in society typically have routines or habits that they’ve implemented in their lives. These daily habits have helped them not just attain their success but also maintain their sanity, right? Now, while we all may not have the goal of becoming a millionaire, I challenge you to think of what your definition of success looks like. And to take that a step further, I want to challenge you to think of the habits and routines you’d like to implement into your life so that you can start to become the person you need to be to achieve your goals.“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”

Daily Habits of Successful People

1. Wake up early

I don’t know about you, but my day runs entirely different when I wake up early. I have lots of energy and there’s a sense of accomplishment when I’m able to start my day off productively. Not to mention, when I’ve snoozed my alarm clock due to lack of sleep or just wanting to stay in bed longer, I’ve felt groggier and honestly less rested. 

I remember listening to a podcast or youtube video, and the person said “think about it…why would you want to set alarms just to keep hitting the snooze button? You just keep waking yourself up.” When you keep hitting the snooze button, you extend something called sleep inertia, which is basically a time when you have lower performance and a desire to just continue sleeping. You’re gonna feel groggy, disoriented, and just not ready to take on the day.

Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, refuses to set an alarm each night. He wants to ensure that he gets a full 8 hours of sleep and let his body wake up on its own. This is something I’d love to implement as a daily habit, which means I need to go to sleep earlier since I have a 9 to 5 and can’t just start my day whenever like Mr. Bezos!!

Related: How to Create a Productive Morning Routine

2. Read more

Your brain is a muscle. In the same way, you should prioritize physical muscles, like biceps, you should also aim to improve your mental muscle. You can do this in a few different ways, but we’re going to focus on reading today. 

Reading is important for several reasons – it expands the mind and gives you more ideas. I know I could use a bigger imagination sometimes! Reading also helps you improve your concentration and can help you destress. So there are definitely many benefits to reading as a daily habit!

3. Prioritize Exercise

I’ll be honest, I have my weeks where I’m being extremely consistent with working out in the morning and other days where I don’t at all. Exercise is probably the easiest daily habit to skip or “leave ‘til later” but I’ve learned that later never comes. It’s important to be intentional and carve out time when you’ll move your body in a way that feels good to you!

Don’t force yourself to do HIIT workouts if you know you don’t enjoy HIIT workouts. It’ll feel like a chore and will also encourage a negative view of moving your body.

Instead, I challenge you to think of a way of moving your body like pilates, yoga, or boxing that you enjoy, and actually schedule times when you’ll do that for yourself. I’ve actually started multitasking my cardio workouts by listening to podcasts or watching Netflix while I’m on the treadmill to make the most use of my time!

4. Plan your day

Planning your day allows you to be an active participant in the activities you’ll engage in for that day. It makes it a little harder to get sucked into other activities when you know you’ve already set certain tasks for the day.

If you’re an adventurous or spontaneous person and don’t enjoy the thought of having a rigid structure for your day, then I recommend at least planning the non-negotiable tasks that you need to get done for the day. For example, if you know that you should go grocery shopping, pencil that in at a certain time then leave the rest of the day open for spontaneity.

You can take this a step further and start planning for the upcoming week on Sundays, for example. I love to look at my calendar for the week and plan what days I’ll work on certain tasks. Then each night I can look and put things in specific timeslots if desired. 

Related: How to Set & Achieve Your Goals

5. Prioritize relaxation

It’s so easy to fall into the cycle of hustle mode and forget to relax. Now, when I say relax…I mean intentionally. Laying on your couch and watching Netflix every single day isn’t necessarily intentional relaxation. Intentional, or purposeful, relaxation is self care that focuses on slowing down your body’s stress response. It’s slowing your breathing and relaxing muscles with the goal of improving your awareness of how your body feels and even gaining mental clarity. 

There’s a lot more benefits to prioritizing intentional relaxation as part of your daily habits, but those are a few!

6. Have alone time

You might think that alone time is only important for introverts, but that isn’t the case!

While you may have a very large social battery, that doesn’t mean you need to constantly engage in social events and activities. Alone time helps you start to feel content with yourself as a person, without anything external influencing your thoughts about yourself. 

It also helps you unwind and not have to be constantly engaging in conversations. Alone time can help you find new hobbies or explore new interests in general, without worrying about other people’s opinions and interests.

7. Maintain a positive attitude

A positive attitude can help you be more grateful and increase your positive self-talk. Getting upset about things we can’t control doesn’t really do us any good. If you’re not happy about something like traffic on your way to work, ask yourself if there’s anything you can do about it. No? Then there’s no point in taking a mental toll on yourself and being upset over something so small. 

On the flip side, if you’re upset about something like being hungry…I still want you to ask yourself if there’s something you can do about it. If the answer is yes, then again…why are you wasting your time getting upset over something that you’re able to fix? This is such a powerful mindset shift!

Want more information on daily habits?

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There are several books on habits that can literally change your life. I’ve read some, and I still have some that I cannot wait to read! So, if you want to dive deeper into daily habits & ways that you can implement them into your life…check out these books below!

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
• Change Your Habits, Change Your Life by Tom Corley
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg