How to Build Great Habits and Use a Habit Tracker in 2021

Good Habits and Feeling Better in 2021

2020 was a doozy of a year. It was really, really rough for many of us — and let’s be real, a lot of us probably let sticking to our good habits slide. 2021 is a chance to get back on track with our good, healthy habits and take care of our mental and physical wellbeing. No slacking in 2021! We are going to make this year much better than 2020 was, so grab your habit tracker and get ready to work.

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Good Goals, Good Habits, and Good Feelings

Take a minute and ask yourself this question: How do you want to feel in 2021? Excited? Inspired? Mentally calm? Strong? Healthy? Connected? All of the above? Think about it, will materialistic things really bring you these feelings? Oftentimes, we don’t really want the “thing,” we want the feeling that the “thing” will bring. 

Look at that list of feelings. Ask yourself, what are you doing when you feel this way? What makes you feel alive? Now, make deliberate goals and good habits based on this. This is what will bring you good feelings. These are the true habits of successful people.

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What Habits Make You Feel Good

Not sure where to start with coming up with good habits? No worries, we’ve got you covered! We have some ideas and inspiration for you when it comes to the habits of successful people that will foster both your emotional wellbeing and physical wellbeing. 

Some ideas for you are:

• Meditating 
• Practicing mindfulness
• Exercising
• Having good sleep hygiene
• Journaling
• Regularly unplugging from social media
• Drinking enough water
• Going on walks
• Practicing gratitude 
• Cutting back on caffeine
• Eating a balanced diet
• Doing deep breathing exercises
• Using a habit tracker

This is by no means a fully exhaustive list, but it’s a place for you to start. You don’t have to do everything on that list (although, if you can, you’re an all-star) and you can personalize your good habits to fit into your lifestyle. 

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Setting Goals and Using a Habit Tracker

Now that you have an idea of some good habits you’d like to implement in 2021, how exactly do you go about setting goals and meeting them? One thing you can do is use a habit tracker, whether you’re using a physical habit tracker or a habit tracker app. Habit trackers are super simple — they basically just help you keep track of what habits you complete every day. They are a great tool to help you stay on track to keeping your good habits and meeting your goals. 

There are a few ways you can use a physical habit tracker. There are a bunch of downloadable and printable options online (Google and Pinterest are your friends!) as well as inspiration for creating your own in a regular journal or a bullet journal. Alternatively, you can use a habit tracker app, including The Daily Shifts, if you’re looking to build good habits. 

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The 4 Steps of Goal Setting and Good Habits

Rather than just choosing a goal like, “I want to meditate more,” we recommend digging deeper. This will allow you to really solidify your goals. 

There are 4 steps of goal setting when you use our method.

Step 1: Instead of focusing on something you want to accomplish, focus on the identity you want to incorporate.

Step 2: Give yourself a target date.

Step 3: How are you going to do it?

Step 4: What is the emotion you want to feel?

Following these steps with the meditation example, you could turn “I want to meditate more” into something much more thorough. For example, you could say, “I would like to meditate more so that I can become a more mindful and mentally calm person. I would like to accomplish having a daily meditation practice by February 1st. I am going to do this by using The Daily Shifts as a habit tracker app to keep me on track with meditating at least once a day. I would like to feel centered and content when I accomplish this.” See the big difference here?

Basic Goals vs. Emotional Goals

One of the main differences in that previous example is setting a basic goal versus setting an emotional goal. Having an emotional goal with more details is more likely to make you work towards accomplishing the goal and creating good habits to help you get there. Here are a couple more examples so you get the gist of it and can implement this with your own goals.

Example Basic Goal: I want to write more.

Example Emotional Goal: I am a writer who publishes a book on January 1. I write for 30 minutes daily. At my book release, I feel empowered as I share my writing gifts with the world.

Example Basic goal: I want to become more fit.

Example Emotional Goal: I am a fit person who exercises 5 times a week regularly, with this practice in place by January 31st. I work out for at least 30 minutes 5 times a week. When I reach my goal, I feel strong and empowered.

Transformative changes start with very small actions. Before you get into your bigger goals, you can reset your life with our five-day challenge. This will help you learn some of the basic habits of successful people. If you still aren’t sure what kind of goals you’d like to set for 2021, you may need to do some more digging. You can do this with our course that will help you find your true purpose in life. Or, you can attend our free masterclass where you will learn to hack your mind and get the Shift My Life Goal Planning Calendar. 

Get ready to put in the work in 2021 — it will all be worth it when you accomplish your goals.