7 Day Healthy Habits for a Positive Mindset Challenge

Welcome to the 7-day Healthy Habits for a Positive Mindset Challenge.

Over 7 days you will learn simple strategies that you can use in your daily life to help shift to a more positive mindset.

Here are some things to know about this challenge.

Why shift to a positive mindset?

When you make a change in your lifestyle, including shifting your mindset, it helps to first understand why it is so important and how you can benefit.

While you can benefit in many ways from having a more positive mindset, here are some of the best advantages:

• You find more joy and happiness in your daily life
• You learn how to see beauty in the world
• You build up more resilience and can handle difficulties without stressing
• You have more faith in yourself and others

It really is a life-changing experience.

What you will learn in this Positive Mindset Challenge

This challenge is meant to help introduce you to shifting your mindset and give you some simple, actionable tasks to help get you started.

Over 7 days, you will learn:

1. How to practice gratitude
2. How to be kinder to yourself and others
3. The importance of having a consistent sleep schedule
4. Why you should treat your body with respect
5. How to find a hobby you love
6. How to enjoy your life no matter what

Healthy Habits for a Positive Mindset Challenge

Throughout this challenge, you will learn about 7 habits you can add to your routine that will allow you to start shifting your mindset to a more positive and joyful one.

Day 1: Be Grateful for Every Moment

Day 2: Be Kind to Yourself and Others

Day 3: Have a Consistent Sleep Routine

Day 4: Release Your Negative Thoughts

Day 5: Treat Your Body With Love and Respect

Day 6: Find a Hobby That Brings You Joy

Day 7: Enjoy Your Life No Matter What

Free Workbook Download

This challenge is very simple, and only requires a notebook and pen to take notes and go through the tasks each day.

However, I have also created a workbook for you to use for each day of the challenge.  This is a free PDF download.

What’s included in the workbook:

• Positive Mindset Challenge Calendar
• Positive Mindset Checklist
• Worksheets /  Gratitude, What You Love About Yourself, Create A Sleep Routine, Release Your Negative Thoughts, Create Healthy Goals
• Sleep Tracker
• Mindset Journal

Download your free workbook

Related self-care posts

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• Plan and manage your self-care like a pro (self-care planner, self care checklist)
• 7 Best Tips for Overcoming Barriers to Self Care
• Self Care Activities to do if you’re short on time (self care checklist)
• 17 Affordable Self Care Ideas (anxiety tracker, mindful baking tips, mandala colouring book, craft project plan, self-care kit list, morning routine checklist, sleep tracker, meditation journal)
• Self-care Pamper Boxes for Busy People (self care kit list worksheet)
• 30 Day Self-Care Challenge (30 day tracker)
•  7 Best Tips to turn your negative self talk into a positive (free chart)
• 27 Ideas for what to put in a Self Soothe Box (blank postcards, colouring book)
• 7 Fabulous Benefits from using Positive Affirmations (30 card deck positive affirmations)
• 25 Self Love affirmations to Change your Reality (25 self love affirmations)
• Self Love Challenge – a guide to healing the relationship you have with yourself (this challenge as a PDF)
• 20 Life-Changing Tips for a Better and Happier You (66 page workbook, affirmations)
• 60 Gratitude Quotes for Inspiration (60 gratitude quotes)
• 30 Day Mindfulness Challenge (challenge calendar, mindfulness journal)
• Easy 2-minute Mindfulness Exercise
• Gratitude Challenge (gratitude journal)

Let’s get started!

Day 1: Be Grateful for Every Moment

The focus on Day 1 is on gratitude, which I think is one of the BEST ways to improve your mindset. And it’s super easy to make a part of your everyday life!

Gratitude for the small things

What is gratitude? When you express or feel gratitude, you have a sense of appreciation for any type of joy, blessing, or good thing in your life.

Most of the time, we feel immense gratitude for the bigger things in life such as when we get a promotion, when someone does a big favour for us and on special occasions.

But there are so many smaller moments in our lives that are also worth celebrating.

These are the ones we experience every day, such as:

• a morning cup of coffee
• the sun shining
• the joy you feel when you play with your dogs
• reading a bed time story with your kids

These moments are often overlooked, but if you feel more gratitude for every little blessing in your life, your mindset will shift in miraculous ways.

How to Practice Gratitude Every Day

Here are three easy ways to start a daily gratitude practice:

1. Make a gratitude list every day.

This is probably the easiest and most common way to have a gratitude practice. Every day, make a list of 5-10 things you are grateful for that day.

2. Write one new thing to be grateful for in your journal each day.

This is another option if you are into daily journaling, but don’t want to write a long list.

For this practice, just choose one NEW thing you are grateful for every day. Something that really sticks out to you and sparked joy that day.

3. Start being mindful and feeling your gratitude.

Lastly, instead of writing down your gratitude, you can just think it and feel it.

You do this by being more mindful during moments of the day, and when you feel something you are happy about, you really soak in that feeling and think about how grateful you are for it.

Today’s Task: For today’s challenge task, you are going to make a list of what you are grateful for.

I have created a page in the workbook for you to write down 10 things you are grateful for, but you can also use your own notebook or journal for this.

Day 2: Be Kind to Yourself and Others

On the 2^nd day we’re focusing on kindness not just to others, but to yourself as well.

Self-compassion is absolutely fundamental if you want to live a happier, more joyful life.

How You Talk to Yourself Matters

You might not have considered it before, but if you don’t have the most positive mindset, it might stem from how you talk to yourself.

That internal dialogue you tend to have with yourself through various moments of your life, when you are driving to work, when you look at your reflection in the mirror, when you are on a walk, when you are resting at night in bed.

Every moment of your life, you have hundreds and thousands of thoughts going through your mind.

How often are you using them to talk badly about yourself or to yourself? How often do you regret your choices, hate the way you look, ridicule, or judge yourself for what you deem are bad traits or bad choices?

Now, how often do you say nice, kind things? How often do you compliment yourself? How often do you reassure yourself that it’s okay?

You might find that your internal dialogue is almost always negative. That it’s actually easier to not talk kindly to yourself and instead to focus on the negative.

This is exactly why now is the time to start being nice to yourself and showing yourself a lot more self-love and compassion.

Kindness is Infectious

This also comes down to how you talk to other people, or even think about them.

Kindness is infectious, so the more compassion you show to yourself, the more compassion you tend to show to others.

When you begin showing more love and kindness to other people, they will then have more compassion for themselves, and it keeps going in this beautiful, positive, joyful ripple effect.

Today’s Task: For the day 2 task, write down nice things you can say to yourself. You don’t have to love yourself just yet, as that takes more time. But have some compassion and write down things you like about your personality, your morals and values, your appearance, your abilities. Any kind and generous thing you can think of.

Remember that how you treat yourself and others is a choice. You can choose to be kind, loving, and compassionate, or you can choose not to be.

Day 3: Have a Consistent Sleep Routine

Sleep is one of the more important habits you can add to your daily routine for not only physical health, but also mental health.

Your sleep habits and schedule can either be a wonderful benefit to your mindset, or a burden.

On Day 3, you’re going to learn about the importance of sleep and how to create a healthier sleep routine that will improve your mind, body, and spirit.

Why sleep matters when it comes to your mindset

Restful people are happy people.

When you can give your body rest, you also are giving your mind much-needed rest as well.

You get a lot of that noise out of your head, take in a deep breath, and just find some peace within.

This includes not just napping during the day or taking a few minutes of rest between work and personal obligations, but also with your sleep at night.

If you don’t get good sleep, you aren’t even giving your mind a chance to detox and become more positive. You are setting yourself up for failure.

Tips for Creating a Sleep Routine and Schedule

What you really need is a consistent sleep schedule.

Even as an adult, your sleep routine is important.

It is how you train your body and mind when it is time to start shutting down and becoming prepared for bed.

Here are some tips for creating a sleep routine and schedule:

• Go to sleep around the same time every day.
• Start getting ready for bed an hour before you intend to sleep.
• Create a calm, peaceful sleeping environment.
• Shut off your phone and other distractions during your night-time routine.
• Add calming habits, like a bath, reading a book, writing in your journal, or meditating to get restful during your night-time routine.

Today’s Task: As you might have guessed, today’s task is to create a sleep schedule and night-time routine. Tracking your sleep will help you see patterns and then to make changes.

A worksheet and sleep tracker has been created for this task in the workbook, but of course you can do this in any notebook or piece of paper you have. You can also plan it digitally if you prefer.

Day 4: How to Think Positively by Releasing Your Negative Thoughts

Today is when you learn about how to think positively by releasing your negative thoughts.

It would be impossible to avoid all negative thoughts or even to reverse them all into positive ones.

The point isn’t that you won’t ever think negatively again, but to find a healthier way to cope with those negative thoughts.

That is why learning how to release these thoughts is so helpful.

Your negative thought spirals are preventing your mindset shifts

The reason you need to start releasing your negative thoughts isn’t because they are bad to have or that you need to prevent them.

You are human with human feelings after all.

But when you have negative thoughts and don’t process them in a healthy way, they tend to spiral out of control.

Then all of a sudden you have no room left for positive thoughts and your mindset never shifts to a healthy, happy place.

Use a journal to release and purge these thoughts

The best way to release your negative thoughts is by writing them down.

If they remain in your head, they tend to keep returning and affecting your mindset.

By writing them down on paper, it feels like you are purging them, and you often find clarity as you do so.

You figure out where they came from, what you are actually feeling, what is worrying you, and what thoughts are just being manifested by fears and anxiety. 

Which will lead you to thinking positively.

Today’s Task: It’s time for a full journaling page! Print the journaling template or use your own journal. Write down any negative thought you have right now or have been struggling with lately. It is time to release and purge all these thoughts.

One final thought for today is that you are not defined by your negative thoughts OR your positive thoughts.

It is okay to have both as long as you have healthy ways to process the negative ones and don’t let them overwhelm you.

 Day 5: Treat Your Body with Love and Respect

Now is the time to think about your physical health, and how that can actually help with your mindset.

For day 5 of the happy mindset challenge, I want to explore easy habits that improve your physical health and really show love and respect to your body.

Your body has carried you through so much already, and will be there with you for the rest of your life. It is the one constant in your life, and should be treated kindly.

When you can focus on treating your body with respect, you will start to feel more grateful, which allows you to treat yourself with respect as well.

Nourish your Body with Loving Foods

Respecting your body and loving it isn’t about restriction, trying to be a certain size or look a certain way.

It is about nourishing your body with healthy foods that you also really enjoy. 

Loving your body is about finding a way to focus on balance with nutrients that give you energy and help your body feel good, but that also nourish your soul.

Move Your Body in a Joyful Way

Exercise is much the same, where you should think less about what you want the movement to do for your aesthetics, and more for how you want it to make you feel.

When it comes to your mindset, choose movement that feels happy and energetic, that releases endorphins, and that you don’t hate to do.

Focus on Healthy Habits

There are also other healthy habits that not only help your mindset, but your body as well.

This includes drinking more water, getting better quality sleep, taking your vitamins, focusing on balance, reducing stimulants like caffeine and alcohol, and never being too hard on yourself.

Today’s Task: Take some time to create daily health goals or shifts you want to make to your lifestyle, such as changing your diet, drinking more water, sleeping better, or exercising.

Use the goal planning page in the workbook to write down your healthy lifestyle goals.

Remember that you deserve love and respect, not just in your mind, but with your body and health as well.

Day 6: Find a Hobby that Brings you Joy

Today, we’re focusing on hobbies, or any daily activity you enjoy.

We aren’t just talking about any hobby or activity that you’re good at or is easily accessible to you, but one that makes you feel genuine happiness and joy.   

Something you are so absorbed in that you lose time!

Find the Joy and Happiness

Think about the activities you have participated in the past, and how you felt.

Consider the hobbies you tried that seemed like you should like them, but never could dedicate yourself.

These are the ones you’re probably not too passionate about, even if you might have had a natural skill for them.

The other activities are the ones to consider. The ones that you enjoyed right away.

You felt that surge of adrenaline or euphoria just because it was something that made you happy.

It may have provided no other benefit to your life other than you just really had a lot of fun.

These are the hobbies or activities to add to your life. These are the ones that are going to shift your mindset the most.

Turn it into your daily self-care

It is easy to add habits to your day that help with a specific purpose, like expressing gratitude, journaling, or eating healthy, but with something like a fun activity, it always seems optional.

When something is optional, it tends to get skipped altogether.

Make it a priority to add a fun activity to your daily life as a form of self-care.

Today’s Task: If you don’t already have a hobby in mind, then start by making a list of things you enjoy, or new hobbies you might want to try out.

Now is a great time to find that hobby or activity that truly makes you happy.

How did you like today’s habit? Is it something you can add to your routine? Let me know!

Day 7: Enjoy Your Life No Matter What

On this final day, we’re talking about enjoying your life, finding the passion in life, and really acknowledging how blissful it can be.

This is not just about gratitude, which we have already discussed. It is not just a list of what you are grateful for – though that is still VERY important.

When we talk about enjoying your life no matter what, it means in all the moments you experience. The good times and bad. The happy moments and the sad moments.

Each of these memories is something you experienced that shaped who you are, transformed your life in one way or another, and had an impact on your mindset.

They are all important and should all be celebrated for what they did for you and your life. That is the beauty of enjoying your life no matter what happens.

How to enjoy your life during every moment

Your life is made up of moments that make you who you are and shape your mindset to be what it is.

It is not just how you react to these moments that matter, but how you feel during and after them.

When it comes to enjoying your life no matter what, it is not about always being happy and positive, though having a more positive and optimistic mindset can certainly help.

It is all about how you approach dealing with them and what you experience.

For this, you want to focus on 2 things:

1. Feel immense joy and passion during the good times

2. Feel gratitude during the tough times

With these together, you will enjoy your life even during those difficult and challenging phases, because even though you aren’t necessarily happy, you are still grateful.

Today’s Task: For the final task of this challenge, you are going to make a list of everything you love about your life. This goes beyond just a gratitude list. 

Dig deeper and think of memories, past events, future dreams and goals, anything that really makes you feel joy when you think about it.

I have created a journaling template in the workbook for today because I really want you to write as much as possible, instead of being limited to a list of 10 things. Print multiple copies of that page so you can write to your heart’s content.

I hope you learned some new easy habits in this Healthy Habits for a Happy Mindset Challenge.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

Shifting your mindset is a process – It has taken your entire life to have the mindset you have right now, so it will take longer than a week to shift to a more positive one. Give yourself time to gradually shift your mindset one day at a time.

You won’t be positive all the time about everything – Don’t force yourself to be positive about everything that happens. Sometimes, you’re just having a bad day or going through a difficult time. While your positive mindset helps you be more resilient to these events, it doesn’t take away all negative thoughts completely.

Allow negative thoughts to flow in and out – When those negative thoughts do come in, be mindful about them. Allow them to enter your mind, acknowledge and accept them, then allow them to flow right back out.

Keep up with your gratitude practice – This is one of my favourite habits for a reason. It is one of the most impactful ways to change how you view yourself and your life. When you have more gratitude in your life, you have more peace in your mind.

And that’s it for this challenge.

Add these simple habits to your everyday life and you’ll be shifting to a more positive mindset.