“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” said Einstein once. But he never clarifies how to change the things we do. What does it require? Where do we start?
Tracing the goal-chain backward: results <– action <– plan <– setting the goal <– having an idea <– mindset.
It all starts with the right mindset to lead us to the ultimate results, right?
Today, I give you 12 healthy mindset habits and practical ways to build them – one for each month of 2025, so you can improve your life one tiny (atomic) habit at a time.
Yes, I am referring to James Clear’s book (listen to the audiobook for free), but that is only because you and I know that small changes over a long period of time make even the biggest goals achievable.
Most of us love waking up determined to turn our lives upside down and transform them into an Instagram-able reel. However, “most of us” would usually give up or procrastinate on all that before the end of week two.
Why?
Because healthy habits will never work if we don’t nurture a healthy mindset first.
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What is a healthy mindset?
A healthy mindset makes you feel positive and confident and gives you a sense of direction and purpose. It guides you to make decisions that benefit you the best. Your healthy mindset makes your goals achievable and keeps your relationships with people around you (and with yourself) wholesome and meaningful.
A healthy mindset won’t give you clear 1-2-3 steps but instead will support your everyday choices and ensure that your decisions will benefit You.
The importance of a healthy mindset
You might ask why having a healthy mindset is so important. Well, how about the following few reasons?:
If all those benefits sound like fun stuff you’d like to welcome in your life, the only way is to improve your mindset. Let’s see where to start!
12 Practical ways to build healthy mindset habits
The mindset habits below are listed in no particular order. Your task would be to start with the one that resonates the most with you.
Grab your free printable that will guide you through your mindset growth. Brainstorm ideas and add habits that will help you slay your mindset goals this year.
Mindset Habit One: Take responsibility for your happiness
I said I’d listed all habits in no particular order, but somehow, I felt this one should be the first to share.
Would you agree that you always make tiny choices that ultimately shape your days, weeks, months, and years?
I would.
Well, in that case… The easiest way to start the change for a better life is to be brave and take responsibility for each of those multiple choices, big or small.
Yes, taking responsibility comes with its own risk. You might have to admit that it was your fault for the failures that kept you awake at night.
However, your choices also result in your best moments, happy seconds, proudest minutes, and joy in your past and present. Embrace those, and you will embrace your first positive mindset habit.
Your happiness is your duty. Take responsibility for it and see how powerful and strong you will feel. It’s the first step to taking your life into your own hands and changing it into something beautiful.
Try it: List all the good things that happened lately and find the decision that led to them (your decisions).
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Healthy Mindset Habit Two: Positive self-talk
How do you forgive your past mistakes when they all peak through the curtains of your mornings?
How to start believing in yourself when you have no history of success and feel like you’re a walking failure?
Self-disappointment is probably the hardest thing to overcome when it comes to mindset.
And here’s the thing…
Positive self-talk won’t fix your past mistakes and certainly won’t keep you from making new ones.
But do you know what it would do?
Positive self-talk would reduce self-blame and self-punishment and help you use that extra time to come up with solutions instead of problems.
It would keep you more content and lower stress and anxiety. Ultimately, positive self-talk will bring peace and calmness to your life, and that’s a good start.
If switching to positive self-talk is something you struggle with, try thinking of something completely different the moment you realize you’re being negative with yourself.
Try it: Write yourself a letter of encouragement to do your best. Use the opportunity to forgive yourself for everything in the past.
Mindset Habit Three: Choose the people around you wisely
They say that our lives are greatly affected by the five closest people around us.
Do your closest people help you grow and bloom?
Are you, by any chance, maintaining and holding on to toxic relationships?
What happens if you share that you work on creating your best self and improving your life? Would they laugh at you? Would they support you and applaud you for it? Maybe they would join you on the journey? Or maybe they would tell you that it’s already too late for this; they don’t believe enough in you to see it happening.
Choose wisely who you follow and look up to. A positive circle of people would cheer you on your way up and support your thirst for growth. Hold onto those precious souls in your life.
Try it: Dive deep into how your closest people affect your life. See how to improve the relationships that aren’t serving you best and nurture the good ones.
Healthy Mindset Habit Four: Set realistic goals
There are two reasons we don’t achieve our goals:
- We’re too lazy to do the work.
- We want to jump when it’s faster if we climb.
Laziness and active procrastination at work are really common. But we won’t talk about it here.
You should care about the second one more. It would often explain the first one, too.
“We want to jump when it’s faster if we climb” means that too often, we chase a goal that is still too high and too far from us. We skip steps and go for the big wins, but the small ones are equally, if not even more, important.
It’s like expecting to become a chef right after being accepted as a kitchen potter. There are steps to take before grabbing the big prize. Overlooking them would slow you down, frustrate you, and you might even decide to give up halfway through.
Try it: Be more specific with the steps you need to take to achieve your goals. Write them down instead of listing them in your mind only.
Mindset Habit Five: Focus on the present moment
Living in the past and dreaming of the future are the two types of behavior that will do you no good, and I can guarantee you this.
You can only enjoy life when you are present in this very moment. You can celebrate the past, but you only feel joy now.
Focusing on the present moment gives you the power to understand where you stand and what you’ve got to work with.
You know you have a healthy mindset when you are Here and Now, more often than not.
Try it: Train your senses here and now. Name three things you can see, two things you can touch, and one thing you can hear at this very moment. Do this exercise every day. It helps you pay attention to the present moment.
Mindset Habit Six: Take time for gratitude
Gratitude is the best way to attract goodness in your life. How? Well, goodness is already around you, but gratitude helps you see it and appreciate it.
If this is the first post you read on the blog, let me tell you that 90% of the posts here mention gratitude in one way or another. It has transformed my life, it keeps doing it, and I can never stop bragging about it.
It’s time for you to do the same.
Nurture a mindset of gratitude and appreciation for the littlest things in life. They often turn out to be way more than you’ve ever imagined.
Try it: There are plenty of ways to practice gratitude, but here are a few of them:
- For people with no time: This “a sentence a day” gratitude jar requires almost no effort but gives back a lot.
- For beginners who want to build gratitude as a habit: Read this on how to start a gratitude journal that changes lives.
- For experienced journal junkies:: This 30-day free gratitude challenge will inspire you to love your life.
Try it: Choose one of the three options above or simply write a list of 10 things that are present in your life right now and for which you are grateful.
Mindset Habit Seven: Talk about solutions and not problems
One thing frustrates me about people, and I am guilty of doing it too: Talking about the problem instead of searching for a solution.
We, especially women, love digging deep into a problem, looking at it from all angles, watering it with new thoughts and ideas, and sprinkling it with negative emotions and presumptions… Ah, we love it so much.
But is this the most productive approach? I doubt it.
It is one thing to explore a problem and see the opportunities it comes with, and it is a completely different thing to ponder and stress over it for days in a row. Focus on getting things done and turning problems into opportunities and solutions.
Try it: Instead of going about it with the “Why me?” mindset, try with “What can I do about it?”.
Mindset Habit Eight: Control what you can control
You cannot control if you will catch the latest winter virus. But you can control how strong your immune system is.
You cannot make people buy your small business’ products. But you can make sure that when someone makes a purchase, the quality is the best they could get.
You cannot stop bad things from happening. But you can choose to stress less about them and seek opportunities.
There are tons of things you cannot control in this world. But why focus on them?
One of the secrets to living a stress-free life is to learn when you should let go of control and when you should hold onto it. You can control Yourself, and you cannot control … well, everything else.
Try it: Have a look at this list of things you have 100% control over, and add more to it.
Mindset Habit Nine: Never give up on making that change happen
Thomas Edison made over 1000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb.
Sir James Dyson went through over 5000 failed prototypes until he succeeded in creating the bagless vacuum cleaner that skyrocketed his net worth to over $4.5 billion.
And do you really need me to mention J. K. Rowling and her countless rejection letters?
Success never comes easily. Regardless of your goals, whatever your dreams are, don’t give up on them too soon. In fact, never give up on them. Because if you are persistent and creative long enough, each one of them will become true.
Try it: Can you remember at least one occasion when you didn’t give up on something “impossible” and eventually succeeded in it? Right that example down and use it as your personal motivational letter.
Mindset Habit Ten: Sleep well
This one might come as a shocker but yes, sleeping well is a sign of nurturing a healthy mindset (and vice versa). Here’s why. (I exclude all the cases where proper sleep is impossible such as when you’re looking after a baby, etc.)
A person with a healthy mindset would choose to go to bed at a reasonable hour, so he gets 6-8 hours of sleep (depending on what makes him feel at his best).
They would choose to eat foods that support their gut health and allows their body to rest fully through the night.
They would cut distractions off just in time in the evenings, so their mind doesn’t get overstimulated but has time to unwind and prepare for a healthy dose of zzz-s.
Sleep is important, and if you don’t pay attention to it, it will affect your health over time.
Try it: Evaluate your sleep and list at least three things you could do to improve its quality.
Mindset Habit Eleven: Create feel-good moments for yourself
Let’s be honest here. The feel-stressed moments are plenty. Even though none of us is asking for them, we get them daily.
What about the feel-good moments? Rarely someone knocks on our door and delivers them (unless it’s Amazon Prime).
You want to teach yourself that “happy moments” can be created and nurtured. Don’t let the control over your good mood in someone else’s hands. Own your thing!
Try it: Send your husband out with the kids, and instead of spending that hour cleaning like a maniac, make yourself a cup of tea and read a book, watch an episode of your favorite show, or take a nap. Guess what! You just created a feel-good moment for yourself, by yourself.
Mindset Habit Twelve: Nurture Your Sense of Purpose
I know you might want to jump to this one straight away without going through any of the previous healthy mindset habits. But that would, unfortunately, lead you to failure. Here’s why!
We all have the impression that each one of us lives on this earth with one purpose only… and that seriously sounds stupid. Sorry!
None of us breathes with one purpose only. We all serve different purposes multiple times a day.
Here are a few examples:
- In my country, when we see police car speed cameras on the road, we warn the other drivers by flashing at them. If I pass such a car, I feel obligated to save the next driver’s wallet by warning him that there is a camera. That’s my purpose at that very moment. It isn’t grand, but it will help the other person, that is sure!
- If I watch a tutorial on how to bake a loaf of bread, then the purpose of the person who made the video was to help millions of people make that exact bread.
- A few weeks ago, I went to the local Chinese Acupuncture Doctor with a health problem. As I entered her office, I heard a lady in front of me expressing her gratitude to the doctor for fixing her health issue. Guess what! Her health issue was exactly the same as mine (it wasn’t a common health condition). That lady’s purpose, on that morning, was to be at that same time in the doctor’s office, so I could hear her success story.
I bet you can come up with your own examples too. All you need to do is broaden your mindset and understand that a purpose isn’t always grand and life-changing. It’s just like a little “pinch of fate” that happens.
And living with such a sense of purpose would make you feel confident, content with yourself, and happier. Understanding that you matter and have already fulfilled so many tiny purposes in the past would open your eyes to your importance on this Earth.
So breathe in your sense of purpose and be sure to think about it positively and upliftingly (I know you accidentally thought of the times you were “the lesson” for someone else).
Blogger, dreamer, procrastinator, and lover of everything soul-touching. My mission is to make you laugh, provoke your thoughts, light up your day and inspire you to fall in love with life and yourself.
