Your habits can boost your chances of success or do the opposite, depending on their usefulness. Positive repetitive behaviors shape your life, influencing your health, wealth, and happiness.

You carry out daily rituals–brushing your hair, cleaning your teeth, and showering, for instance. The urge to engage in these behaviors comes naturally because you are accustomed to them. Once you repeat actions often, you do them automatically.

Other repetitive behaviors are so deeply ingrained in your subconscious you don’t spot their frequency. You might look at your status on social networks or your email inbox six times a day. Or perhaps you check your phone for messages often without realizing it steals several hours out of each 24. Yet another example could be slipping outside to smoke with your colleagues, not realizing it happens eight times a day.

Such habits drain your energy and take time. Perhaps you imagine they don’t matter, but if you add the mindless minutes and hours together, you’ll find why you’ve got enough resources to do what matters most to you.

What are helpful habits?

Helpful habits are powerful. Unlike draining behaviors that ruin immunity and motivation, or slow you down and make you tired, they take you to your goals and improve life.  Habits that help might include time management, attentive listening, eating healthily, or a variety of other behaviors that increase well-being.

There’s no need to list unhelpful habits and attempt to reduce them because applying constructive behaviors will do the job for you. More useful actions equal less time given to unhelpful ones. Here’s how to build helpful habits, so you shift toward your goals and well-being effortlessly.

Create goals

Identify your goals. Goals right for you depend on what you hope to accomplish. When you’ve identified them, break them into bite-sized mouthfuls. If you want to be fitter, for example, don’t merely aim to get fit. Set small, doable steps involving helpful habits to take toward the desired outcome.

Useful habits might be to eat a healthy breakfast daily, cycle or jog, and go for a stroll every evening. When you recognize these steps, you’ll see you can condense them into smaller parts too.

Each habit involves the creation of other supportive actions. To eat a healthy breakfast, you must shop for healthy ingredients and prepare foods in enjoyable ways habitually. And to jog, you may develop the habit of stretching to aid flexibility as part of your post-run routine.

According to author and coach Christopher Bergland, research shows your motivation is likely to remain high if you take modest steps. So, don’t plan to run a marathon if you’re a new runner, or aim to follow a complex meal recipe if the challenge feels difficult.

Aiming too high sets you up to fail. Small, comfortable steps help you reach your goals without strain. Match your capabilities with your resources and you won’t quit.

Visualization

Rather than picture the results of your goals, visualize the steps it takes to reach them. See yourself implement them with ease and include details. With the example mentioned, imagine you run a short distance at first, add sensual details like the sensation of cool air on your skin and the sound of birds chirping. Then you could imagine running further when the current step is comfortable to achieve.

Repetition

Habits stem from customary behaviors, so engage in the conduct you want to make routine frequently. You’ll put in plenty of energy at the start of your journey, but the task will get easier as you progress. One of the biggest habits of highly successful people is that they make their bed in the morning.

 “Those who make their bed in the morning are up to 206.8 percent more likely to be millionaires.” – Randall Bell, Ph.D

Motivation

Keep your motivation high. Remember why your goals matter. Improving fitness might mean you live longer and have time for your grandchildren, for instance. And becoming your own boss could mean you have greater freedom and better finances.

Imagine the improvements reaching your goals will make to your lifestyle. Compare how you live now to the changes you want to create later and your motivation won’t wane.

Helpful habits can significantly increase your well-being. Identify what you want to achieve and break goals into doable parts, making sure you maintain motivation, and you’ll soon see positive results. If you are struggling to obtain making these helpful habits a routine, try reaching out to a life optimization coach. Life coaches are not just your personal cheerleaders they will help put you into the driver’s seat of your future.