Just in the way highly effective people have common habits, so to do highly healthy people. I’ve been observing highly healthy people with interest for two decades and through those observations, I’ve compiled these habits, which I see as being the seven most common and important habits in being healthy. 

For a long time I’ve been interested in how to get the most out of the human body. Initially it was for sporting performance, but in more recent times it’s also become to feel good, be energetic, and be more productive at work. 

Since doing a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) course in 2014, I’ve been paying a lot of attention to habits and how they drive behaviour. I started looking into how habits played a role in creating any sort of change in one’s life. I paid particular attention to my clients who were searching for change in terms of weight loss. It became evidently clear that no lasting change could take place without addressing and changing habits.

Everyone who wants to be different from what they are is searching for change. That could be a complete change in direction by revamping who they are, or by following in the same direction and wanting to be better. It’s all change. 

If you continue to do what you do, you will continue to get the same results you get. Whether you want to lose weight, give up cigarettes, get fitter for the upcoming football season or be more productive at work, in order to change you need to change your habits. 

If you’re making big changes in your life such as losing 20kg or giving up smoking, you’ll most likely need to completely eliminate habits and adopt new ones. If you’re making smaller changes to your life on the other hand, such as losing 2kg or taking 10 seconds off your 2km time trial at football training, you’ll probably need to just modify and adjust your habits. 

Whatever your health goal is, these habits are necessary for achieving it and more importantly, for sustaining it. They are the seven habits common amongst highly healthy people as gathered through my observations and experiences. 

The 7 Habits of Highly Healthy People (and how to adopt them for yourself)

1. Knowledge. Educate yourself on all facets of health. That doesn’t mean you have to go and get a degree. Educating yourself might be as simple as reading, talking and asking questions. Compare what you learn so you can make informed decisions. 
   
   
2. Discipline. Be disciplined in your approach to life in general. Be disciplined to exercise when you say you’re going to, disciplined to eat the way you say you’re going to eat, and disciplined to live the way you say you’re going to live. 
   
   
3. Consistent. When you say you’re going to do something, be consistent with doing it. No one ever feels completely motivated to stay on track 100% of the time. The biggest factor in success is consistency. Those who succeed, don’t often succeed on talent, they succeed on consistency. When you don’t feel like working out for example, remember why you said you would in the first place. If that reason isn’t motivating enough in the moment, you need more reasons and a bigger ‘why’.  
   
   
4. Self Arresting. Even highly healthy people ‘fall off the wagon’. Recognise when this occurs and do something about it. If you’ve given in to temptation for example, recognise it, set a boundary, allow yourself, and put it away. Don’t think you’ve ruined your progress and keep going down that path. If you give yourself a boundary, you can still enjoy those pleasures and not feel guilty for doing so. Plus, you won’t go deep down that path. 
   
   
5. Lenient. When you give in to temptation, explain it to yourself in terms of being an isolated and uncommon incident. It’s very easy to remember other times when you’ve given in. In these circumstances, focus on all the times when you wanted to give in but didn’t. Then enjoy the feelings of pride, accomplishment and happiness when you chose to pursue the person you want to be in those moments. 
   
   
6. Optimistic. Be optimistic about your health. Don’t look at yourself and think of yourself in negative terms. Love yourself. Look at yourself regularly and when you do, look at things you like. This breeds belief in knowing you already are who you want to be, as well as hopefulness and confidence that you can be even better. 
   
   
7. Support. Build a group of people around you who support you. Don’t hang around with people who are going to create temptation. It’s said that you are the sum total of the seven people you spend the most time with. Look around at those seven people and decide if that’s who you want to be. Find people you want to be like and hang out with those people. 

The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your habits. To achieve success in any form, you need to establish high quality habits. These seven habits are common amongst highly healthy people. Adopt or enhance these habits to be highly healthy.

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