Good Habits and Bad Habits: Examples and How They Form

Our habits work like our brain’s autopilot system. Some serve us well, pushing us toward our goals. Some habits become obstacles that undermine our chances for success. These habits can also change our brains; every time we repeat a behavior, we strengthen the neural pathways behind it.

Changing habits isn’t easy, but it’s more achievable than you might think. Success doesn’t depend on willpower or dramatic lifestyle changes. Instead, it comes from understanding the psychological mechanisms behind our habits and using them to our advantage.

The Science Behind How Habits Form

Your brain is always looking for ways to conserve its resources. Mental shortcuts are one way to help lighten the load, which is where habits come in. Research from MIT’s McGovern Institute has shown that habits form through a three-part process known as the “habit loop”: a cue triggers a routine, which delivers a reward.

Take your morning coffee routine. The cue might be walking into your kitchen (or passing your favorite coffee shop). The routine is making or buying the coffee. The reward? That familiar comfort and energy boost. Over time, this pattern becomes so automatic that just seeing your coffee maker can trigger a craving.

But what’s happening in your brain during this process? The basal ganglia is a structure found deep within the brain that plays a crucial role. When you first learn a new behavior, your prefrontal cortex—the brain’s planning center—is highly active. But as the behavior becomes automatic, the basal ganglia takes over, allowing your brain to perform the routine while focusing on other things. This explains why you can make coffee or drive to work while planning your day.

There’s a common myth that it takes exactly 21 days to form a new habit. The reality is a whole lot more complex. Researchers at University College London found that habit formation typically takes anywhere from 18 to 254 days, with an average of 66 days. The time varies depending on the person and the complexity of the behavior.

Understanding this science matters because it shows us that habits aren’t about willpower alone. They’re physical patterns in our brains, built through repetition and reward. This knowledge gives us powerful tools for change. By working with our brain’s natural habit-forming system—rather than fighting against it—we can create lasting positive changes in our lives.

Examples of Good Habits and Why They Are Beneficial

The most successful people often share a secret: they’ve built systems of good habits that make success almost inevitable. These habits work together, creating compound benefits that transform their physical health, mental well-being, and daily productivity.

Getting Regular Exercise

Regular exercise might be the closest thing we have to a miracle drug. Research shows that consistent physical activity not only strengthens your body–it also improves memory, reduces anxiety, and even helps prevent depression. The key isn’t intense workouts—even 20 minutes of daily movement can make a significant difference.

Getting Enough Rest

Sleep habits might be even more crucial. A regular sleep schedule aligns with your body’s natural circadian rhythm, improving everything from immune function to emotional regulation. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine reports that adults who maintain consistent sleep patterns show better cognitive performance and emotional stability than those with irregular sleep habits.

Following a Balanced Diet

Nutrition and hydration habits are also important. Small changes, like starting each morning with a glass of water or eating protein with every meal, create a foundation for better health. These habits work best when they’re specific and actionable—”drink water before coffee” works better than “drink more water.”

Practicing Mindfulness and Meditation

Mindfulness and meditation are also highly beneficial “good” habits. Regular practitioners show measurable changes in brain structure, particularly in areas associated with attention and emotional regulation. Even five minutes of daily meditation can begin to reshape your mental landscape.

Writing in a Journal

The simple habit of journaling can transform your emotional well-being. Writing about your experiences for just 15 minutes a day helps you process emotions, reduce stress, and gain clarity. The University of Rochester Medical Center suggests that journaling can help manage anxiety and reduce depression symptoms.

Staying Socially Connected

Perhaps surprisingly, social connection habits are as important as any vitamin you could take. Regular, meaningful contact with others—whether through scheduled coffee dates, family dinners, or weekly phone calls—strengthens your mental health safety net and provides emotional resilience during challenging times.

Taking Regular Breaks

The counterintuitive habit of taking regular breaks actually improves productivity. The Pomodoro Technique—working in focused 25-minute blocks followed by short breaks—helps maintain high performance throughout the day. Your brain isn’t designed for marathon work sessions; it needs these strategic pauses to maintain peak efficiency.

Creating a Supportive Environment

Environment design might be the most overlooked productivity habit. Successful people create spaces that make good choices easier. This might mean setting up a dedicated workspace, placing your exercise clothes by your bed, or removing distracting apps from your phone’s home screen.

Examples of Bad Habits and Their Impact

Bad habits rarely announce themselves dramatically. Instead, they creep into our lives quietly, often disguised as small choices that seem harmless in the moment. Yet their cumulative effect can significantly impact our well-being, productivity, and relationships.

Procrastination

Procrastination tops the list of harmful habits, and it’s more complex than simple laziness. Research from the University of Calgary suggests that procrastination is actually a form of emotional regulation—we delay tasks to avoid negative feelings associated with them. This temporary relief comes at a high cost: increased stress, poorer performance, and a perpetual cycle of last-minute rushes.

Being Chronically Online

Excessive screen time has emerged as a modern habit that’s particularly difficult to break. The average person checks their phone 96 times per day, according to research from Asurion. This constant digital distraction fragments our attention and disrupts our natural sleep patterns. More concerning, it often replaces more meaningful activities like face-to-face interactions or deeply focused work.

Poor Sleep Habits

Poor sleep hygiene—including irregular bedtimes, pre-bed screen use, and working from bed—undermines nearly every aspect of our health. When we develop habits that interfere with sleep, we’re not just tired; we’re compromising our immune system, cognitive function, and emotional stability.

Effects of Bad Habits

The effects of bad habits extend far beyond the behaviors themselves. Negative self-talk, often triggered by failing to break unwanted habits, can create a self-reinforcing cycle of low self-esteem and reduced motivation. Each time we act against our better judgment, we strengthen neural pathways that make it harder to change.

These patterns frequently lead to increased anxiety and stress. When we consistently choose immediate gratification over long-term benefits, we create a gap between who we are and who we want to be.

This cognitive dissonance can manifest as persistent background stress, affecting our mental health and decision-making abilities.

Bad habits also take a toll on your physical health. Sedentary behavior, poor dietary choices, and irregular sleep patterns don’t just affect how we feel today—they compound over time, potentially leading to serious health issues. The American Heart Association emphasizes that many chronic health conditions stem from patterns established years or decades earlier.

It can seem a bit discouraging, but recognizing how habits affect us is the first step toward changing them. The good news is that the same mechanisms that make bad habits stick can be used to build better ones.

How to Overcome Bad Habits

If habits were easy to break, they wouldn’t bother us. But you can’t simply delete a habit like an unwanted app. It takes time, but you can gradually rewire the pathways that trigger it. 

Understand Your Triggers and Patterns

Most people try to change habits by focusing on behavior. But the real key lies in understanding your triggers. These cues fall into five main categories:

• Time (like checking social media first thing in morning)
• Location (snacking when you pass the break room)
• Emotional state (stress eating)
• Other people (smoking when with certain friends)
• Immediately preceding actions (grabbing your phone whenever you sit down)

Start by tracking your habit for a week. Note when it happens, what triggered it, and how you felt afterward. This isn’t about judging yourself. You’re gathering information that will help you recognize your triggers–and start finding solutions to help you change.

Replace Bad Habits With Better Ones

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does your brain. Trying to simply stop a bad habit creates an empty space that wants to be filled. The solution? Replace the bad habit with a better one that satisfies the same underlying need.

If you stress-eat, you’re using food to regulate emotions. Instead of trying to “just stop,” plan alternative stress-relief activities: a short walk, breathing exercises, or calling a friend. The key is choosing replacements that are both practical and satisfying.

Change Your Environment

Your environment shapes your behavior more than willpower ever could. Making bad habits harder to perform—even slightly—can break their automatic nature. Some effective modifications include:

• Putting your phone in another room while working
• Removing unhealthy snacks from your home
• Uninstalling social media apps from your phone
• Setting up website blockers during work hours
• Laying out exercise clothes the night before

Find Social Support

Trying to break a bad habit all on your own is hard. Enlisting the help of a support system can make things easier. Research suggests that incorporating accountability into a behavior change plan can improve your chances of sticking with it–and being successful. This might mean:

• A workout buddy who expects you at the gym
• A therapist who helps you understand deeper patterns
• A friend who shares your goal of breaking a similar habit
• An online community focused on the same challenge

Tips for Building Good Habits

Creating new habits isn’t about forcing yourself to be perfect. It’s about setting up systems that make success almost inevitable. Let’s explore proven strategies that make habit-building both effective and sustainable.

Start Small

Forget “go big or go home.” When it comes to habits, tiny changes often lead to the most impressive results. BJ Fogg, director of Stanford’s Behavior Design Lab, calls this approach “tiny habits.” 

Want to read more? Start with one page per day. Want to exercise? Begin with one push-up. These ridiculously small steps might seem pointless, but they serve a crucial purpose: they make getting started impossible to resist.

Small wins build momentum. Each time you complete even a tiny habit, your brain releases dopamine, creating positive reinforcement. These small successes add up—that one push-up often turns into five, then ten, because starting is usually the hardest part.

Try Habit Stacking

Rather than trying to create habits from scratch, attach them to existing ones. This technique, called habit stacking, uses your current routines as triggers for new behaviors. The formula is simple:

After/Before [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].

For example:

• After I pour my morning coffee, I will write one sentence in my journal
• Before I check social media, I will do five deep breaths
• After I brush my teeth, I will do one stretch

These connections make new habits feel natural and reduce the mental energy needed to remember them.

Create Effective Cues and Rewards

Clear cues and satisfying rewards are crucial for habit formation. Make your cues obvious and specific:

• Place your vitamins next to your coffee maker
• Keep a water bottle on your desk
• Set out exercise clothes the night before
• Put a book on your pillow for evening reading

Similarly, build in immediate rewards for your new habits. While long-term benefits matter, your brain responds better to instant gratification. This might mean:

• Listening to a favorite podcast only during exercise
• Adding a favorite flavor to your water
• Checking off items in a habit tracker
• Celebrating small wins with a simple ritual

Tracking Your Progress

What gets measured gets managed. But tracking doesn’t have to be complicated. Simple methods often work best:

• Use a basic calendar to mark days you complete your habit
• Keep a checklist in a visible place
• Use a habit-tracking app if you prefer digital tools
• Take progress photos for visible changes
• Record measurements or metrics that matter to you

The key is choosing a tracking method that motivates rather than overwhelms you. The act of tracking itself can become a rewarding part of your routine.

The Role of Identity

Most people try to change their habits by focusing on outcomes: losing weight, saving money, or being more productive. But the most powerful habit changes happen when we shift our identity first. Who you believe you are plays a big role in driving what you do.

How Self-Image Influences Habits

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you believe you are. Each time you make your bed, you’re voting for being an organized person. Each time you go for a run, you’re voting for being an athletic person. These “votes” accumulate, shaping not just your habits but your self-image.

Consider two people trying to quit smoking. The first says, “I’m trying to quit.” The second says, “I’m not a smoker.” The second person has made an identity shift that makes the behavior change more natural and sustainable. They’re not depriving themselves of something they want; they’re acting in alignment with who they are.

 Identity-Based Habits vs. Outcome-Based Habits

Outcome-based habits focus on what you want to achieve:

• I want to lose 20 pounds
• I want to write a book
• I want to learn Spanish

Identity-based habits focus on who you wish to become:

• I am becoming a healthy person
• I am a writer
• I am someone who loves learning languages

This shift might seem subtle, but it’s profound. When you focus on identity, the right behaviors naturally follow. A healthy person doesn’t need to force themselves to exercise. A writer doesn’t need the willpower to write. These actions flow from their identity.

Developing a Growth Mindset

Central to identity change is developing what psychologist Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset“—the belief that your qualities aren’t fixed but can be developed through effort. This mindset makes identity shifts possible because you view yourself as capable of change.

Some practical ways to cultivate a growth mindset include:

• Adding “yet” to your limiting beliefs (“I’m not good at public speaking… yet”)
• Focusing on the process rather than results
• Viewing challenges as opportunities for growth
• Celebrating effort over natural talent
• Learning from criticism instead of avoiding it

Creating Lasting Change Through Identity Shifts

To make lasting changes, start with small steps that reinforce your desired identity:

1. Choose the identity you want to build

•    “I am someone who takes care of their body”
•    “I am a disciplined person”
•    “I am someone who follows through”

2. Prove it to yourself with small wins

•    Take the stairs instead of the elevator
•    Make your bed each morning
•    Complete one small promise to yourself daily

3. Let your new identity guide your choices

When faced with a decision, ask yourself: “What would a healthy person do?” or “How would a disciplined person handle this?”

4. Build evidence for your new identity

•    Keep a journal of your successes
•    Document your progress
•    Share your journey with others who support your growth

The beneficial thing about identity-based habit change is that it becomes self-reinforcing. Each action that aligns with your new identity strengthens it, making the next positive choice easier. Over time, you’re not just changing what you do—you’re changing who you are.

Putting It Into Practice to Build Good Habits (and Change Bad Ones)

Theory is helpful, but real change happens in the details of daily life. Let’s take a closer look at how to put all of these ideas into practice with concrete tools and strategies you can start using today.

Your Weekly Habit-Building Template

Start each week with a simple planning session. Here’s a practical template you can use:

1. Weekly Review (15 minutes):

• Review last week’s habits
• Identify what worked and what didn’t
• Plan adjustments for the coming week
• Set one main habit focus

2. Daily Practice:

• Morning: One key habit (often the most important)
• Afternoon: Environment check and adjustment
• Evening: Quick progress review and preparation for tomorrow

3. Measuring Success:

• Track only what matters
• Use yes/no measures when possible
• Note unusual circumstances or disruptions

Habit Tracking Methods

Choose a tracking method that fits your style. Simple often works better than complex:

Paper Methods:

• Basic calendar with X’s for completion
• Bullet journal habit tracker
• Simple checklist on your bathroom mirror
• Weekly review sheet

Digital Options:

• Notes app with daily checkboxes
• Habit-specific apps
• Calendar reminders
• Phone alarms for habit cues

Tracking itself should take less than a minute. If it becomes burdensome, simplify your system.

Key Takeaways

Habits shape our lives in many ways, from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep. What makes them particularly powerful is their compound effect—tiny changes, repeated daily, lead to big transformations over time. 

The main points you should take away from this are to:

• Start smaller than you think necessary
• Focus on systems rather than goals
• Change your identity to change your behavior
• Use your environment to support your habits
• Track your progress, but keep it simple
• Expect setbacks and plan for them

Building good habits and breaking bad ones isn’t about being perfect. None of us are. The key is to start making small changes and then be consistent. Every time you engage in that habit, you build the foundation for the person you want to be. 

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