Table of contents for Finding Good Habits 2025 in Real Simple

“WE ARE what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit,” wrote philosopher William Durant in 1926, summarizing Aristotle. If our lives are a rich tapestry of all the actions we’ve ever taken, our habits create the most vivid and consistent threads—nail-biting and couch snacking and alarm-snoozing, sure, but also weekly phone calls with your sister and taco Tuesdays with the kids, your nighttime reading routine and long weekend runs. About 43 percent of our daily behaviors are controlled by habit, says Wendy Wood, PhD, provost professor emerita of psychology and business at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and the author of Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick. “We don’t even notice our good habits most of…

ON ANY given day, you probably have twice as many excuses for not working out as you have sports bras in your dresser drawer. “I want to linger in my warm bed a little longer.” “I have a big report due to the boss today.” “I’m feeling sluggish after last night’s cocktails.” Got a few more you’d like to add? The struggle is real, agrees fitness trainer Kayla Itsines, a certified personal trainer and cofounder of the fitness app Sweat, which is why she believes that in order to stick with exercise, you need to make it a habit instead of relying on motivation. The distinction, as Itsines sees it, is that motivation changes over time, but a habit will never let you down. “Habits help you push forward even…

WE MAY think of toxic behavior as tossing insults or hurling plates. Often, though, it’s much more subtle. Those little white lies you tell to avoid owning up to mistakes? A kind of gaslighting. Letting out a loud sigh while cleaning up a mess your spouse left? A wee bit passive-aggressive. Sometimes these actions are intentional. Sometimes they happen without much thought. Either way, they’re not great. And they can erode the bonds of a relationship, warns Robin Stern, PhD, cofounder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and senior adviser to its director. “That’s why it’s so important to identify and talk through what’s happening,” she adds. The first step is understanding toxicity so you can spot it in yourself and others. The next is dealing with it, and…

WHETHER YOU’RE working from home or schlepping into the office, your midday meal should be more exciting than that all-hands you just sat through. Sadly, it’s easy to wear out our lunch go-tos and fall into a rut, says Maya Feller, RD, author of Eating from Our Roots: 80+ Healthy Home-Cooked Favorites from Cultures Around the World. “Stepping outside your norm can quite literally spice up the eating experience,” she says. Not to mention a ho-hum workday! In search of better desk lunches, we held a brainstorm with pro-level packers. Allow us to pitch you the strategies that came out of it and share some next steps. The Shortcut-Based Lunch Conserve your limited discretionary time by picking up convenience foods, like almost-ready-to-eat packaged ramen, a rotisserie chicken, precooked rice pouches,…

EVEN IF your job isn’t physically demanding, the mental and social energy spent at work can hit like a ton of bricks at the end of the day. While it’s totally normal to feel tired after a long day of work, the post-work slump can snowball into chronic fatigue or burnout over time. “While many of us believe pushing through more tasks will bring relief and satisfaction, this thinking is fundamentally flawed. Once in the burnout cycle, additional effort only deepens our dissatisfaction,” says Trisha Miciano, a clinical counselor in Victoria, British Columbia. “Learning to recognize these fatigue signals is crucial—stop glorifying the grind and start working like a human.” If this is relatable, don’t panic. Fortunately, there are low-effort, science-backed strategies you can implement before, during, and after your…

MEATLOAF OR pot roast sandwiches are not the sort of thing you want to find in your lunch box when you’re 8 years old. Or at least, they weren’t the sort of thing I wanted to find in my lunch box. All the cool kids got tuna fish with mayo and chips. Or roast beef on rye and a brownie. Or turkey and cheese with Fritos. It was like being Charlie Brown on Halloween: I got the brown-bag equivalent of a rock. I knew Mom was being thrifty, making the most of leftovers, but that didn’t make it any better. On the other hand, after I learned to read, Mom developed a lunch-box packing habit that made up for her choice in sandwiches many times over. Every day, well into…

HAVE YOU ever paid off a student loan or mortgage or reached a big savings goal and patiently waited for confetti to shoot out of your computer? Why doesn’t that happen? It should! That would be the fanfare you deserve. In fact, we’d argue that tiny pieces of colorful paper should be fluttering around you at all times (don’t worry, it’s recycled and compostable in this hypothetical). Because chances are you’re consistently achieving less major—but no less important—financial wins. Think of a small win as any minor positive action that helps propel you toward a larger goal. In other words, as the baby steps that add up to a mile, says Delyanne Barros, a financial expert and the founder of the Money Coach, an investing education platform. These baby steps…

TIRED Set Boundaries Around Your Bedtime. INSPIRED Add More Self-care to Your Day. Ever feel personally offended that a long day is over and you haven’t had one minute just for you? So you blow off bedtime, then wake up exhausted? You may be a “revenge bedtime procrastinator,” delaying sleep to carve out time for yourself. In one study of Chinese nursing students, researchers found that bedtime procrastinators were more likely to experience self-regulatory fatigue. Self-regulation is controlling your feelings and behaviors so they conform to what’s expected by your boss, family, friends, even the critical inner voice that says you should stop biting your nails. After 12-plus hours of meeting deadlines, answering your kids’ questions, and passing on dessert, you may be too burned-out to face one more “should.”…

IT’S 2 P.M. on a Tuesday. You’re sitting at your desk, and you can’t seem to get anything done. You’re feeling drained, uninspired, and unproductive. Sound familiar? If you’ve ever struggled to find focus and get the creative juices flowing, you may want to consider adding an afternoon walk to your to-do list. The calming, productivity-boosting power of a daily stroll has been touted throughout philosophy and literature for years. In his journal, essayist Henry David Thoreau wrote, “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live! Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.” And while we know that exercise, such as walking, is vital for maintaining your health—the U.S. Department of Health and Human…

Mango Chicken Curry with Coconut Rice ACTIVE TIME 30 MINUTES TOTAL TIME 40 MINUTES SERVES 4 ✓FREEZABLE ✓ MAKE AHEAD ✓ GLUTEN-FREE ✓ DAIRY-FREE 1 cup white jasmine rice1 13.66-oz. can plus ¾ cup unsweetened coconut milk, well shaken and stirred, divided3 tsp. coconut or canola oil, divided2 tsp. kosher salt, divided2½ Tbsp. yellow curry paste5 cloves garlic, finely chopped (about 1½ Tbsp.)1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger (from a 2-in. piece)1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1½-in. pieces2 red bell peppers, thinly sliced10 oz. frozen mango or 1¾ cups cubed fresh (from 1 large mango)Lime wedges, for servingFresh cilantro, for topping STIR together 1¼ cups water, rice, ¾ cup coconut milk, 1 teaspoon oil, and ½ teaspoon salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring often;…

Wearing sunscreen. It wasn’t until I reached my late 30s that I became militant about it. Now, as I’ve gotten older, I am seeing the results of my late start! K.S., DOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE Keeping a log in my car of mileage and any repairs and new parts. It saves a good deal of guesswork during visits to the shop and makes your life (and your mechanic’s life) easier. M.B., BILLINGS, MONTANA Tackling whatever is stressing me out the most in that moment. I used to spend hours procrastinating in various ways because I was too anxious to even think about certain tasks. L.H., RICHMOND, VIRGINIA Looking people in the eye when we speak and focusing on listening to them instead of talking. P.G., COLUMBIA, MARYLAND Cleaning out my refrigerator…

RAISE A feather duster if this sounds familiar: You’re scrolling CleanTok in bed once again and come upon your favorite influencer reorganizing the space under her bathroom sink, or maybe her pantry. Not only does it look easy to execute, but it also looks beautiful—even if it’s ultimately shut behind a cabinet door. Inspired, and frustrated with the constant clutter in your own home, you decide to reorganize. Then you run out of steam mid-project. Or you finish, but you find the shelves overflowing again a scant two weeks later. If you’re struggling to keep your home clutter-free, it isn’t because you’re not as organized as that social-media neatnik. The problem is that you haven’t taken the time to create a personalized (and sustainable) system. We spoke with two decluttering…