17: The Happy Habits Framework That Changed My Life

In this episode, I’m sharing something incredibly personal — the daily happy habits that have completely transformed my mental health and how I feel about myself. 

What started as simple, feel-good actions became a powerful framework I now live by. I’ll walk you through how I discovered these habits, how journaling helped me connect the dots, and how you can start building your own version of this happy habits framework to feel more grounded, joyful, and strong every day. 💛 

Get your FREE HAPPY HABITS GUIDE BOOK

 ✨ Perfect for women on a journey to feel stronger, happier, and more grounded — inside and out. 

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Transcript

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Hi, I'm Laura Orlando and welcome to the Build Strong Women podcast. I believe as women that we are the role models for the next generation of girls. So how do we become the best role models for these young girls? We work hard to become the best version of ourselves, whatever that means to you. It's not easy. It takes work. It takes learning, trying new things, falling down and getting back up again. But that's what we do on the show. We dive deep into how we can grow on the inside. We will learn from women that are on the same journey as us. Just trying to become the best version of themselves. Let's learn together, build our confidence, learn to love who we are so that we can teach the next generation of girls to grow up to be strong and confident women. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of the Build Strong Women podcast. Thank you so much for being here and tuning in to this week's episode. I know I say this every week but this episode is something that is really close to my heart and really close to who I am and it's something that I do every single day. So I want to talk to you a little bit about the habits that I do that just help me feel good. I like to call them my happy habits and I do have a podcast episode about happy habits. It's episode three and it talks about what happy habits are and how you can find find your own happy habits. in different areas of my life because that's what I needed and these things just started to fill me up and make me feel good so when I was doing this journaling I was like oh my gosh all these different areas of my life are starting to feel better because I'm intentionally making these habits that help me feel good in these areas so I thought this is something special and it really has changed my life my mental health and how I feel every day and I really wanted to share that with you because that's what life is all about if you find find something that helps you feel good. You want to share it with everyone. And that is exactly what I want to do here. So I'm excited to dive in. And I hope that you are excited to to learn more about this happy habits framework and how it's changed my days in my life inside and out. And I really want the same for you. I want to help women live with more intention with more joy and peace in their life and just really focus on their mental health because it is so important. So this framework isn't about just adding something more into your It's more about being intentional and creating these rhythms and systems and purpose into your everyday routine so that you can feel happier, less stressed, and really fill up your cup. And what this is all about is really starting to take care of your mental health. Finding habits that feel good to you is more about living a life that is more aligned to becoming the best version of yourself and not so much just trying to be perfect all the time and just ignoring our needs and ignoring our mental health and how we feel inside. It's about keeping the promises you made to yourself that help you become the best version of you. So when I started being really intentional about making sure that I was getting in my happy habits under this framework, I discovered that I was feeling so much better. So after incorporating all these habits under these buckets and kind of figuring out this framework, now I am like, okay, I need to share this with everyone. I want to share this with you because I want you to feel better. So the five buckets are movement, mindset, joy, peace, and connection. And I'm going to kind of go through each one and explain to you what they mean and why they matter. And maybe a couple examples of some of the habits that I've created so that you can figure out your own happy habits and use these buckets in this framework as well. But before we dive into each of the buckets, I'm really excited because I created a free happy habits guidebook to help you. And you can find the link down in the show notes. And this guide is really just an easy way to start bringing a little bit more joy, clarity, and calm into your day. Like I said, it's not about adding more things into your life. It's trying to create habits that you can do every single day that help you feel more grounded and aligned. And this guidebook is designed to help you create your own happy habits, the kind that actually fit into your and support your mental, emotional, physical well-being in small meaningful ways. That's all it is. No one has time for extra things. So if that sounds like something you need right now, go and look in the show notes after the episode because it's a great download. I put a lot of thought and energy and I'm just so excited to share this whole framework with you so that you can create some happy habits to do within your everyday to just feel better inside. And who doesn't want to feel better inside? I know I do and that is like my mission in life is just to feel good inside mentally, physically, and I want the same for you too. So I hope that free guidebook is there to help you. Okay, so let's dive into our first bucket. So the first bucket that I wanna talk about is movement. And the whole purpose in movement is so that you feel more energized and that you are really taking care of your body. And like I always say, we work out for our minds. That is number one. Yes, there are so many benefits to working out and exercising and moving our body, but when we work out, We are doing it for our mental health. Taking care of your body and pushing yourself physically can really help improve your mental health. And it really helps you build that resilience in your life. When we push ourselves to do things that we think that we can't do and we do these hard things, something changes inside of us. It helps us to be more confident in every area of our life. And that's what movement has done for me and for my mental health. There are so many things that you can do for movement that don't require you're going to a gym for an hour you can take a walk you can take a little dance break in the middle of the day you can do chores around your house and that cleaning and moving and listening to music there are so many ways that you can move your body you can go down into your basement you can just do 10 push-ups during the day on at random times but i really want you to think about how you can get movement in within your day some people like to work out in the morning some people like to do it in the afternoon or evening you have to find what's best for That's the most important thing. Because when you sweat and you move your body, you're going to feel better. And I'm just going to tell you this right now. You're not going to want to do it. You're going to say, oh, I just don't want to do it. I don't want to sweat. I don't want to get ready. I don't want to move. I don't want to do it. But I'm telling you, as soon as you start, you immediately start to feel better. And when that workout is done, you will be so proud of yourself. And that has been something that has made me want to get to the gym. It's not how I feel before. It's how I want to feel after and how it makes me feel for the rest of the day. Okay, so the next bucket that I want to talk about is mindset. And I know that I said that we are working out for our minds. And that is one part of working on our mindset. But we really need to be intentional about setting the tone for our day. Working on our mental health and our mindset is so important in just as important as moving our body. Making sure that we are being intentional about doing our mindset work is so important and I like to do mine in my morning routine with prayer and journaling before I start my day. When I start my morning doing something for my mindset, my day is completely different. Trust me, I have gone to school not doing this and I have gone to school doing this and it is a massive difference in how I feel and how I show up. So now don't Don't get me wrong, there are many mornings where I have to rush out the door and I'm helping the kids and I'm trying to just get to school on time and I don't have time to do my morning routine, but this isn't about perfection. My morning routine is just being really intentional about having a positive day and getting my prayer in and getting my gratitude in for the day. It just helps me feel better and just have a more positive outlook on the day because it's hard getting up and going to work and doing the things that we have to do all day, but if we We can get our mindset right. Emotionally, we will feel better. And that's what I want for you too. Just having this little quick journal session to get in in the morning will help you with your day. It will just set your intentions. Okay, what are the promises that I want to make sure that I am doing every day? What are the habits that I want to make sure that I'm getting in for the day? That is part of my morning routine. And I have something really special that I'm creating this journal for setting our intentions for the day that's going to be quick and easy and just get you in the right place in the mornings. And I'm really excited about it. I'm working on it for myself because I... There isn't anything out there like this that I have seen. And it's just going to be something that you can use to get your mind right and to really help you with your promises and your habits. But that's for another day. But I just wanted to share that with you because I'm in the process of creating it. I'm super excited about it. And I just want to help everyone with their mindset and their mental health and just to feel better inside. And this journal is going to be just that. So I talked about having a morning routine and just getting in a couple things that I know have helped me and my mental health. And some examples are, like I said, having a daily gratitude practice, journaling, it could be reading a devotional, it could be praying, meditating, reading your affirmations, or just listening to an inspirational podcast in the morning as you're getting ready, just doing something that helps you work on your mental health and setting your intentions for the day, which is the most important is going to be huge for your mindset. Okay, let's move on to the next bucket, and that bucket is joy. And the purpose of this is just to spark some happiness, some creativity, into your everyday. You know, I think a lot of times as women, we have so many things going on in our life and we never stop to just add a little bit of joy into our lives. I believe that we need to bring in more light, more laughter, more enjoyment into our routines to avoid that burnout so we can stay motivated and happy inside and positive. We just have to add one thing that can help us feel good, that makes us smile every single day. And yes, sometimes that means we have to schedule it in. We have to think about it. Okay, how am I going to add some joy into my life? And that's what these happy habits are all about. It's being intentional about finding that joy in your life. And I know that might sound crazy, like writing something down that I can do every day that brings me joy, makes me happy, and makes me feel good. But it's huge because I know at the end of the night, I think, oh my gosh, what did I even do today? I don't even know. But if I set my intention in the morning, I will get it done. So when I set this intention of adding a little bit of joy into my life, I'm more likely to show up and do it. So some examples that I want to share with you that are on my joy list is laughing with a friend, even if it's at work or if it's on the phone, taking a walk with my husband or other little things that just make me happy, like my diffuser with my lemon essential oils and my stress away. That makes me happy and it brings me joy. Using my favorite face mask and my face products that I use. I absolutely love them and they make me feel good and it literally brings me joy to use them.

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And another thing that I like to do is have my warm lemon water at the end of the night. That helps me feel good and that brings me joy. I love it. My warm cup of coffee in the morning literally brings me so much joy. I love coffee. So that cup of coffee in the morning makes me so happy. Sometimes I'm thinking about it as I'm working out and I'm like, oh, I just have to get to my cup of coffee. It's just so simple. It doesn't have to be complicated. I'm not saying that you have to watch a two-hour comedy show to laugh and bring you joy. I Thank you so much. That could be something that brings you joy. It's just so simple. It doesn't have to be this nine hour thing. It literally can be five minutes that you do that brings you joy and fills your cup for that day. Okay, the next bucket that I wanna talk about is peace. And this is really to help you create some calm in your life. I want this habit to help you manage the stress and the mental clarity and protect your emotional wellbeing. That's what the peace bucket is all about. This peace bucket really helps in the evenings for me and it's just a way for me to slow down to really get my mind right for resting and I have to be very intentional about rest and turning my brain off I'm always on the go I'm always trying to think of the next thing and what do I need to do I mean you can ask my husband I never relax so I have to be super intentional about creating that calm and peace in my life and I try to do this especially at the end of the day I don't want to feel stressed when I'm going to sleep I want my mind to calm down and stop racing. I need this habit to help me to calm at the end of the night. So some ideas that you can do for your peace bucket is make a time every night that you put your phone away. There's no electronics or maybe put your phone into another room so that you're not scrolling on social media before you go to sleep. What I like to do at night is make some warm lemon water and that kind of tells my brain, okay, I need to relax. I need to calm down and get ready for rest. My husband, he loves to have a cup of tea before he goes to sleep. Other things that you can do is you can read a book before bed. You can take a warm bath. You really just have to find the things that help you feel good and help you relax. And that is the habit that you have to create at the end of the night. And you have to be very intentional about that. I love to scroll Pinterest. That actually relaxes me. I don't think Pinterest is a social media. You don't have to see everybody's things. You just kind of like look at recipes and house decor and all those kinds of things. That relaxes me at the end of the night. And that's a great habit that I like to have at the end of the night with my warm lemon water and I'm sitting in my bed. I have my diffuser on. The lights are lower. It's just a great vibe. And just to create that intentional vibe Peace in my life has helped me sleep better and helps me to feel good. Okay, so this takes us to our last bucket and this is all about connection. And connection reminds us that we're not alone, whether it's connecting to others, to ourself, or even something greater. It just helps us feel seen and supported and we can make someone else feel seen and supported too. That's what this is all about. So what I love about this last bucket with connection is that I have become super intentional about making my relationships with others stronger. You know, We're all so busy and sometimes we have to be super intentional about spending quality time with the people we love or just letting someone know that you don't see every day that you love them or that you're thinking about them. It even helps me become more intentional about connecting with my religion. And you might not be religious and you might not believe in a higher power and that is totally fine. But for me, it helps me be more intentional about prayer and being grateful for the things in my life. You know, we can go throughout our day and just come home at the end of the night and be like, okay, did I even connect with anyone today? Was I intentional with my kids? Was I intentional with my husband? Did I reach out to a friend just to say hi that I never talked to that much? You have to be intentional about these relationships. So under the connection bucket, there are so many things and so many ways that you can work on connection. And some examples might be being more intentional with your family and being present in conversations that you're having and reminding yourself that, okay, your kids and your family are such a huge part of your life, you have to make sure that you are being intentional and being present with them. You can maybe send a text to a friend and let them know that you're thinking about them. Send someone a compliment, say a compliment to someone in person. And And that quick act of kindness, like complimenting someone or dropping off a coffee to a friend or offering to help someone or just listening to someone when they have something to say, it's going to help you both feel connected and it's going to help you feel good inside and it's going to help them feel good inside too. I also think it's really important to have little connection points with yourself as well and make sure that you're being kind to yourself and do a little check-in. Are you treating yourself with kindness and how are you feeling? Thinking about how you are talking about yourself or thinking about yourself. Is it positive? Is it negative? Just having those little check-ins with yourself can help you feel that connection with yourself and really start to appreciate who you are and love yourself a little bit more. I love to journal and do those types of things in the morning and that has really helped me connect with myself and my values. So I really think that this connection piece is such an important part of the framework. Okay, so that is the framework for the happy habits and I hope that this episode was helpful for you. This framework that I subconsciously created that I didn't even realize I was doing changed my life and has helped me feel better mentally and physically. It has helped me show up for my days and I just feel better inside and I can tell a difference when I don't incorporate some of these habits into my everyday life and now I make it an intentional practice to make sure that I do these things every single day. Am I perfect every single day? I Absolutely not. Are there days where I don't touch on one of the buckets? Yes, that's just part of life. It's not about being perfect. It's just about being intentional about feeling better inside. What I've come to realize is that if I want to live a life with more intention and really show up as the best version of me, I have to be intentional about planning this out because I'm busy. I want to feel good inside. I want to feel happy and I want to get to the end of the night and say, okay, I did these things that helped fill my cup and I want the same for you too. too. So if this episode resonated with you and you really want to start being more intentional about adding these little habits into your life, I would love for you to go to the show notes and download the free Happy Habits Guidebook to help you create your own happy habits. I'm getting so excited. I'm like using my hands when I'm talking right now. I know you can't see me, but I'm really excited about it. And I want you to feel better emotionally, physically, and I just want you to create these meaningful ways that you can feel better inside yourself. So If this sounds like something you need right now, go over into the show notes and download the free guidebook. If this episode was helpful, I would love for you to share it with just one person. It will help me grow this podcast and help as many women as I can. So I'd like to leave you with an affirmation like I do every episode to help you get you through your week. And that affirmation is the habits I create honor who I am and who I am becoming. Thank you so much for being here and I will see you on next week's episode. out.