As we enter the winter months in the midst of the pandemic, the less hours of daylight and colder weather on top of social distancing and mask wearing could take a serious toll on your happiness and wellbeing. As a life coach helping my clients and social media followers reach their goals, I’m committed to providing as many resources as possible to help you cultivate more happiness and wellbeing in your life. Given the conditions we’re living in for these next few months I’d like to offer 5 habits for you to develop so you stay happy and well this winter.

I write a lot about the power of habits and why they are so important in your life. Researchers have found that on any given day 45-90% of our thoughts and actions are habitual, and these habits could be helping you be happy or could be hurting your levels of happiness and wellbeing. The key is to be intentional with building new habits in your life that help your wellbeing and happiness and over time break bad habits that hinder your progress and happiness. Here are my top 5 recommended habits to have in your life during these tough winter months.

I’ve spent some time writing about the power of habits and the step-by-step process in going from an aspirational goal to behavior change that helps you reach your goals. Now I’d like to recommend one habit that will supercharge your happiness that only takes 5 minutes a day to do. That habit is Keep a Gratitude Journal.

By now you probably have heard of the concept of a gratitude journal. It is simply a record of the things that you’re thankful for, from people in your life, your health, clean water, soft sheets, and the like. It can be big things, like getting a promotion at work or the birth of a child, to tiny things, like your favorite mug. There are various methods on how to keep a gratitude journal, such as the idea to never repeat anything on your list so you mind is always searching for new things/people/experiences to be grateful for, or to always write down things that you’re grateful for that occurred in the past 24 hours.