Ultimate List of Habits: 170+ Good & Bad Habits By Category

Establishing good habits is essential for a person’s well-being.

Without installing good habits, we unfortunately succumb to bad habits. (We’ll explore why below.)

In this guide, we’ll examine an in-depth list of habits broken down by essential life categories.

You’ll find 125 good habit examples (and 60 examples of unhealthy habits).

You may already have many of these habits, while others will be new.

Let’s dive in …

CONTENTS

What is a Habit?

A habit is anything you do repeatedly. It’s a behavioral pattern that can either influence you positively or negatively.

A “good habit” is an established pattern of behavior that supports your overall well-being, either physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. Good habits are healthy habits.

A “bad habit” is an unsupportive behavioral pattern that leads us away from positive health.

Daily habits are formed via an act of will, especially in the case of good habits.

Why are Bad Habits Easier to Form?

The unfortunate reality is that bad habits tend to be the default. That is, when we act without conscious intention, we most often engage in bad habits.

Here are four common reasons why:

Our brains are wired to seek rewards (dopamine) which leads to a lot of addictive, compulsive, and unsupportive behaviors.
Our environments greatly influence our behaviors, and many of us find ourselves in unsupportive environments.
Cultivating good habits takes mental energy. We have a limited daily supply of mental energy (called “ego depletion”). Many people are perpetually depleted due to their lifestyle or circumstances.
Past trauma and psychological wounds tend to reinforce bad habits as the mind seeks to find ways to distract us from our internal problems.

As a consequence of these factors, bad habits form easily—without needing any effort.

Good Habits versus Bad Habits

In contrast, establishing good habits takes conscious effort. It requires:

Will/discipline
Mental energy
Persistence
Patience
Self-compassion

Establishing good habits is best done slowly, patiently, and deliberately.

We’ve all mistakenly tried to “transform” our behavior overnight. It simply doesn’t work that way. Our bad habits were conditioned over time via repetition. Establishing good habits also requires repetition over time.

Making small, incremental changes to our behavior—”micro-changes”—helps reduce internal resistance while facilitating positive momentum.

Wheel of Life Assessment

Categories for Good Habits and Bad Habits

From my perspective as a personal coach for over 25 years, any list of bad or good habits will coincide with the Wheel of Life Assessment categories.

The Wheel of Life represents the common categories of development that we all share. The number of categories varies from individual to individual, but most people have between 6 to 10 categories.

These categories often include:

Physical Health Habits
Positive Mental Health Habits
Emotional Health Habits
Relationships Habits
Spiritual Habits
Financial Habits
Self-Development Habits
Professional Development (Career) Habits
Home Environment Habits

Good habits within these categories lead to development, growth, and overall positive well-being.

So-called “bad habits” lead us to experience less overall fulfillment within these categories.

A Comprehensive List of Good Habits

Now, let’s review a list of good habits that can improve your life, broken down by the above categories.

Physical Health Daily Habits List

Good habit examples to improve your physical health include:

Breathing: Engage in conscious breathing exercises for a few minutes daily and learn how to breathe properly.
Morning Stretching: Establish a mindful morning stretching routine to open and loosen the body.
Walking: Go for at least one daily walk outside. Be mindful of your surroundings.
Shaking: Do morning exercises like shaking and bouncing to get the blood flowing.
Working Out: Establish a daily workout routine that you enjoy.
Hydration: Drink more pure water (and less sugar-based and caffeinated beverages).
Eat for Energy: Eat meals based on energy principles instead of seeking pleasure (or getting “high” from food).
Strength Training: Adopt a strength training routine or functional workout that supports mobility, balance, and longevity instead of vanity (physical image).
Periodic Fasting: Practice intermittent fasting.
Eat Less: Stop eating before you get full. Get in the habit of eating less for more energy.
Eat Whole Foods: Eat more real, whole foods instead of highly processed packaged foods filled with preservatives that your body can’t break down.
Reduce Blue Light Exposure: Wear blue-light-blocking glasses in the evenings to support the circadian rhythm and improve your sleep.
Night-time Stretching: Stretch in the evening before sleep to help your muscles relax.
Chelate Heavy Metals: Consistently chelate heavy metals out of your bloodstream by consuming specific foods and supplements. (Also, consider doing a regular pineal gland detox.)
Increase Sun Exposure: Increase your exposure to natural sunlight (and avoid wearing sunglasses). This will help restore your circadian rhythm. Additionally, you can try using red and NIR light therapy daily.
Reduce Grain In-Take: Eat less carbs and grains each week. Avoid gluten (wheat) as much as possible. Remove grains from your diet entirely if you can.
Relax Your Jaw: Periodically relax your jaw and facial muscles throughout the day.
Improve Your Posture: Improve your posture and physical alignments by learning alignment principles (Zhan Zhuang) and being mindful of your posture throughout the day.
Maintain Healthy Hygiene: Shower regularly, but use less “product.” Most commercial brands of soap, shampoo, and deodorant are toxic. For example, most deodorants have heavy metals like aluminum that get absorbed into your skin. Also, excessive showering with soap and shampoo strips your body of its natural oils.
Perform Organ Detoxes: Periodic detox of various organs, including kidneys, liver, and the colon, for optimal health.
Do Parasite Cleanses: Do a monthly or quarterly parasite cleanse to improve physical and mental performance and reduce the risk of illness.
Eat Mindfully: Stay more present while you eat. Avoid eating while watching television, listening to music, or starting at any device.
Take Cold Showers: Enjoy the documented health benefits of taking periodic cold showers.¹
Establish a Morning Routine: A comprehensive morning routine can include many of the good habits listed in this guide.

List of Good Habits for Positive Mental Health

Good habit examples to improve mental health include:

Reduce Screen Time: Slowly reduce your overall daily screen time (phone and monitors).
Walk Barefoot: Ground yourself outside multiple times each day. Walk barefoot outside on the Earth whenever you can.
Settle Your Mind: Get in the habit of quieting your mind in the morning, before sleep, and multiple times throughout the day.
Organize Your Environment: Get in the habit of keeping your sleeping and working environment organized. A disorganized environment adds to your mental clutter—and vice versa.
Perform Mental Check-Ups: Periodically evaluate your overall beliefs and outlooks about life. When dark thoughts become pervasive, it’s a sign that you’re out of balance.
Live By Your Values: Determine your values and establish a daily habit of aligning your behavior with your values.
Practice Letting Go: Let go of the past (by bringing past trauma and other events to consciousness). Then, process these emotions via inner work.
Focus on What’s Most Important: Maintain a list of important items you’re working on so that you don’t have to waste energy thinking about them all the time or risk forgetting them.
Reduce Blue Light Exposure at Night: Shut off your devices at least two hours before sleep to help support the circadian rhythm and proper pineal gland functioning at night.
Practice Critical Thinking: Passively accepting beliefs as facts weakens the mind. Critical thinking helps strengthen cognition.

Emotional Health Daily Habits List

A list of good habits for emotional health might include:

Meditate: Practice meditation in the morning and/or the evening.
Recall Your Dreams: Record your dreams before you get out of bed. (It’s okay if you don’t know what they mean.)
Evaluate Your Emotions: Pay more attention to your emotional state, especially when interacting with others.
Self-Reflect: Reserve time in the evening to reflect on the day and what unfolded within your experience.
Do Shadow Work. Get to know your shadow by watching for triggers each day. What triggers an emotional response within you? What do you judge?
Lighten Up: If you tend to take yourself and life too seriously, habitually lighten your mood.
Release Emotions: Learn how to periodically release suppressed and repressed emotions so you don’t build a reservoir of negative emotions within your body.
Recollect Your Projections: We constantly project positive and negative qualities onto others, which distort reality. Recollecting our projections is an essential aspect of inner work.
Keep a Daily Journal: Capture your innermost thoughts, attitudes, and desires to help build emotional intelligence.
Make Funny Faces: Make funny faces in the mirror each day to help massage the muscles in your face while also changing your mood.

List of Habits that Support Healthy Relationships

A list of good habits for your relationships might include:

Communicate with Mindfulness: Stay more present when communicating with your spouse and family.
Interact Face-to-Face: Interact with your friends and family in the real world more often; use the digital world less frequently.
Maintain Eye Contact: Maintain sincere eye contact when you communicate with others. Avoid looking at your phone or glancing away.
Relate to Others: Make a habit of relating to those in your inner circle instead of competing with them.
Mind Your Emotions: Be mindful of your emotional energy and overall state when communicating with others. Pay close attention to how others respond to you. Whenever possible, avoid talking from a place of anger or shame.
Improve Your Listening Skills: Make a habit of listening to others as intently as possible. Active listening is a skill that can develop through intentional practice.
Share Willingly: Share information with others willingly without withholding anything.
Select Your Words More Carefully: Be more mindful of the words you use when communicating verbally and in writing.
Improve the Quality of Time With Your Spouse: Improve the quality of time with your spouse through intentional dialogues, shared activities, quiet meals, and so on.
Improve the Quality of Time with Your Kids: Improve the quality of time with your kids by doing more things with them while staying present.

List of Good Habits Related to Spirituality

Good habit examples for one’s spiritual health may include:

Center Yourself: Center yourself before you engage in any meaningful activity. It helps you to focus and stay present while reducing stress and anxiety.
Cultivate Gratitude: Maintain a gratitude journal. List 3 to 20 things you’re grateful for each day.
Sun Gaze. Get up early in the morning and gaze at the sun. In the first hour after sunrise, there’s virtually no UV. Sun gazing helps integrate your brain and supports pineal gland activation.
Cultivate Virtues: Familiarize yourself with the Universal Virtues and make a habit of intentionally practicing them. Try practicing only one at a time. For example, select a virtue and work with it for a week or two.
Take Responsibility: Make a habit of taking responsibility for your actions and being more accountable toward your commitments.
Express Gratitude: Express gratitude toward others more often.
Appreciate Nature: Invest time in appreciating nature. Take regular walks in nature where you are present with your surroundings. Stop and appreciate a tree, bush, bird, or flower.
Increase Your Present-Moment Awareness: Practice being more mindful throughout the day, no matter what you’re doing. Mindfulness is a skill that develops with intentional practice.
Express Yourself: Engage in some form of self-expression or creative work regularly through some form of art like painting, sculpting, dancing, drawing, novel writing, and so on.
Practice Intentional Prayer: Pray to the Higher Self within you for guidance—and listen inwardly.
Embrace Solitude: Invest time with yourself in solitude. Intentionally take walks by yourself. Learn to be comfortable being alone without external distractions or stimulation.
Practice Automatic Writing: Automatic writing, also called stream-of-consciousness writing, helps you unload what’s running through your mind while also connecting to deeper parts of your psyche.
Practice Kindness: Perform random acts of kindness as a means of cultivating virtue.
Engage in Introspection: Make a habit of engaging in introspection and self-inquiry to know yourself on a deeper level.
Be Honest: Be more honest, especially with yourself. Self-honesty, integrity, and truthfulness are essential virtues.
Access Your Imagination: Find ways to access your imagination regularly. This will help connect you to your unconscious, enhance your creativity, and keep you from taking this world too seriously.

Good Habit Examples for Financial Health

A list of good habits for one’s finances include:

Establish Clear Financial Goals: Setting clear financial goals will help you naturally move toward your objectives. You’ll begin to find ways to build momentum over time.
Increase Your Financial Intelligence: Habitually find ways to increase your financial literacy so you can make better decisions.
Move Toward Financial Freedom: Make a conscious effort to achieve financial freedom. Start by addressing your overall psychology and beliefs about money.
Pay Your Bills: Pay all your bills on time to avoid late charges and the effects of negative compound interest from additional financial charges.
Track Your Spending: Set up a financial dashboard to fully understand where your money is going each month. Get in the habit of monitoring your inflows and outflows.
Spend Within Your Means: Always spend within your means (avoid overspending). Exercising self-control in this area will positively influence other areas of your life.
Save: Get in the habit of saving a percentage of your earnings each month. Find ways to increase this percentage over time.
Delay Gratification: Get in the habit of pausing for a few days and delaying gratification instead of buying things you want right away.
Invest: Dollar-cost average into investments designed for long-term growth and income generation.
Build a Portfolio: Build an investment portfolio based on your age, level of risk tolerance, and long-term retirement goals.
Work on a Side Hustle: Developing a side hustle is an excellent way to increase your earning potential and help you achieve your financial goals.
Focus on Your Future Self: By focusing on your Future Self, you’ll naturally begin to make better decisions and change daily habits to support who you are becoming.

List of Good Habits for Self-Development

Good habit examples for self-actualization or self-development include:

Follow Your Interests: Maintain a list of things you’re interested in learning, doing, or exploring. Then, schedule time each week to explore these interests more deeply.
Set Mini-Goals: Set mini-goals for yourself at the start of the week based on your personal interests.
Monitor Your Progress: Monitor your weekly progress with a customized personal development plan.
Read Daily: Establish a routine of reading a book for 30 minutes every morning or evening. It helps stimulate your interests and develop your cognition.
Build Relevant Skills: Practice a new skill like learning an instrument, a new language, or a martial art. (Again, focus on whatever speaks to you the most.)
Pay Attention to Your Direction: Be mindful of whether you’re moving toward growth or safety. Backsliding is normal on the path to self-mastery. However, clinging to safety stalls one’s growth.
Draw: Learn to draw with the right side of your brain. See Betty Edward’s classic manual.
Learn “Real-Life” Skills: Learn and practice survival skills including how to start a fire, grow food, heal yourself, and build a shelter. Learn how to identify medicinal herbs and edible plants.
Train in Self-Defense: Practice martial arts or basic self-defense moves.
Use Body-Mind Practices: Practice anything that helps integrate the body and mind including Qigong or Yoga.

List of Habits for Professional Development

Good habits examples for one’s career and professional development include:

Eliminate Common Distractions: Shut off all devices and notifications when focusing on a project. Get in the habit of removing as many distractions as possible before you start work.
Determine Necessary Skills: Create a clear professional development plan where you highlight the skills you know you want to cultivate and begin making progress each day.
Set Mini-Goals: Focus on setting mini-goals for yourself each week that are important for your career. Ensure that you’re making steady progress to help build positive momentum.
Work in Time Blocks: Time blocks are predetermined, scheduled times (usually 60, 90, or 120 minutes) where you work on a specific task or important project without interruptions.
Take Frequent Breaks: After you complete a time block or work for at least 90 minutes, take a 5 to 10-minute break to recharge yourself.
Maintain Your Workspace: Organize your desk/office at the end of each day so there’s no clutter when you start again in the morning.
Improve Your Time Management Skills: Evaluate how long projects take versus how long you thought they would take. This will help you more accurately gauge your time in the future. This will help you develop intrapersonal intelligence.
Improve Your Energy Management Skills: Learning to manage your energy is far more important than managing time. Working in time blocks and taking periodic breaks helps you manage your energy. (See Loehr and Schwartz’s The Power of Full Engagement.)
Focus on One Task: Focus on one task at a time instead of multitasking. Multitasking is ineffective as it diffuses your attention.
Be Mindful of Your Posture: Pay attention to posture while you work or communicate with others. Your posture is a determining factor of your level of energy, focus, and effectiveness.
Rest Your Eyes: This habit is especially vital if you work in front of a computer screen for many hours. Allow your eyes to rest and gaze off into the distance. (Get more sun exposure too.)
Follow-Through: Follow through on your commitments to others and stay accountable to the goals you set for yourself.
Drive Toward Results: Habitually focus on the results you’re after instead of getting lost in the weeds of endless “to-dos.”
Improve Your Communication Skills: Developing strong interpersonal communication skills is vital for the workplace.
Ask Better Questions: Get in the habit of asking better questions about your work. For example: What is the actual result I’m after here? Is there a better way to accomplish this? Is there a better model I can follow?
Edit Your Written Communications: Always review and edit your professional written communications like emails, letters, and texts multiple times.

Good Habits List for Your Home Environment

Good habit examples for your home environment include:

Keep Your Bedroom Tech-Free: Treat your bedroom as a sanctionary for rest and recovery. Make a habit of leaving your phone, other devices, and technology out of this sacred room.
Do Your Dishes: Ensure there are no dirty dishes in the sink before going to sleep (so you wake up to a clean kitchen).
Clean Your Kitchen Counter: Clean the countertops regularly to avoid bacteria buildup.
Dust Your Home: Dust builds up quickly. Do a quick wipe-down with a wet cloth at least once per week to support healthy respiration.
Clean Your Floors: Vacuum or dry mop your floors often for the same reason.
Tidy Up: An unkept home influences your mental state. Keep your home organized to support a clearer mind.
Compost: Compost your food scraps and turn them into nutrient-rich soil. Make a habit of turning your compost pile regularly.
Maintain a Garden: Start and maintain a home garden where you grow at least some organic food. Increase the size of your garden and food production over time.
Keep Your House Shoe-Free: Leave your outside shoes by the front door. Only wear socks/slippers or walk barefoot in your home. Respect your home.
Water Your Plants Regularly: Maintain and water your plants regularly. Get in the habit of observing and caring for plant life.
Organize Your Closets: Periodically, at least once a season, organize your closets—especially your clothing closet.
Cook at Home: Get in the habit of cooking at home more often. Cultivate cooking as a skill. Also, you can use better ingredients than you’ll find in any restaurant.
Do Laundry Regularly: Maintain clean clothing, especially socks, T-shirts, and undergarments. Wash your bed sheets at least once per month.
Unplug Your Appliances and Devices: Each device plugged into the wall extends the electromagnetic field (EMF) from the wires in the walls. Use an EMF meter to first measure the levels. Then, get in the habit of keeping appliances and devices unplugged when not in use.
Use Earthing Sheets: Replace your regular sheets with earthing bed sheets to ground yourself when sleeping and reduce the effects of harmful EMF.

A List of Unhealthy Habits

Most of the above list of good habits can easily be turned into unhealthy or “bad habits.” In fact, it would be all too easy to construct a list of 500 unhealthy habits. (But why do that?)

As I stated above, bad habits are the default. Creating good habits, most often, requires conscious effort and a solid strategy.

Below are 50+ common unhealthy habit examples that don’t support physical, mental, or emotional well-being.

Examples of Unhealthy Habits for Physical Health

Unhealthy habits related to one’s physical body include:

Overeating.
Not reading the labels of the foods you purchase and eat.
Eating commercial brands of packaged foods (loaded with harmful chemicals).
Eating fast food of any kind.
Drinking sugary beverages (also loaded with harmful chemicals).
Drinking an excessive amount of caffeine.
Drinking alcohol excessively.
Smoking cigarettes (especially commercial brands).
Masturbating frequently. (See: Sexual energy transmutation to understand why.)
Slouching or maintaining poor posture.
Grinding your teeth.
Picking your cuticles.

Poor Mental Health Habits List

Poor mental health habits examples include:

Checking your phone 100 times a day.
Frequently checking for news, financial, or social “updates” on any device.
Keeping a cluttered bedroom and workspace (making your mind more cluttered as well).
Smoking weed excessively.
Eating sweets with refined sugar (virtually any packaged candy or dessert from the supermarket).
Ruminating.
Multitasking.
Excessive worrying.
Focus on what you don’t want.
Living from a psychological position of scarcity.
Getting distracted by your phone while you’re driving. (Potential physical dangers too.)
Texting while you drive. (Same dangers as above.)
Consuming too much media.
Seeking validation and praise from others.

Unsupportive Emotional Habits List

Examples of Bad Habits for Emotional Well-Being include:

Using social media like Facebook and Instagram.²[/mfn]
Binge-watching television series on streaming services.
Dramatizing your life.
Seeking approval from others.
Engaging in self-deception and lying.
Watching porn.
Suppressing or repressing your emotions.
Procrastinating.
Leaving important tasks incomplete.
Biting your nails.
Hoarding things.
Behaving in ways that violate your core values.
Eating out of boredom.

Bad Habit Examples Related to Finances

A list of habits related to poor finances include:

Spending more than you earn (living on credit).
Missing monthly credit card payments and incurring unnecessary financial charges.
Focusing on financial scarcity and not making a plan for positive change.
Avoiding looking for, finding, and taking opportunities.
Gambling (including playing the lottery).
Taking risky bets without doing due diligence.

List of Habits that Negatively Impact Relationships

A list of habits to avoid in relationships:

Making destructive comments and judgments about others in your daily conversations.
Gossiping, criticizing, and talking negatively about others you know behind their backs.
Exaggerating.
Neglecting your primary relationship.
Shutting people out who are important to you.
Holding grudges and anger in your heart.
Boasting.
Bullying others.
Chewing with your mouth open.
Being nasty toward others.
Name-dropping.
Being habitually late.
Behaving like a Tyranny.
Being narcissistic.

How to Establish Good Habits

Sure, the deck might be stacked against us. It takes only a few days to establish an unhealthy habit and generally over 30 days to establish good habits.

Thankfully, the science of willpower and self-control has illuminated many effective strategies for installing good habits and breaking unsupportive patterns.

Ready to get started? See this in-depth guide:

How to Make Positive Changes in Your Life Right Now

The Ultimate List of Habits—185 Good Habits & Bad Ones—Sorted By Category