Table of Contents
When life is in a rough patch, the goal is to move past it. What about when life feels great, and you’re just coasting along? There’s still room to make it better, always. Changing your life doesn’t have to be about moving from bad to good, it can include moving from great to amazing. After almost a year and a half of simply surviving a pandemic, most of us have areas we want to improve. No matter how life feels right now, you can take small steps to move it further to where you want to be. Check out these actions you can take to start changing your life today.
- Decide Your Life Purposes
If you died today, what do you want people to remember about you? What do you want others to hear at your funeral? Your life purposes don’t have to be world-changing. Who do you want to impact? What do you want to achieve? Asking yourself all of these questions can guide you into deciding what the purpose of your life truly is. Don’t limit yourself. Your purposes can be family, friend, career, travel, financial, or even religion related. You can have more than one life purpose. Your purposes in life may shift as your season of life changes, but they always act as a guidepost in all you do.
- Use Those Purposes To Set Goals
Goals are incredible tools in evaluating if your life is moving in the direction you want it to go. Setting SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound) helps you truly assess if you’re meeting goals, by holding yourself accountable to a measurable act in a certain amount of time. You can’t measure the goal of being a better friend, but you can measure the goal of having dinner with a friend by the end of the month. When you are able to achieve your goals, celebrate yourself! When you aren’t, consider if the goal is truly attainable; if it is, hold yourself accountable for a new time frame and try again.
- Stop Comparing
The average American has $90,460 in debt. While this includes every kind of debt (mortgage, auto, student loans, credit cards), it’s a LOT of debt. When you start feeling like you need to keep up with the Joneses, to have the latest iPhone or prettiest house, your life can begin to feel worthless because it doesn’t seem quite good enough. You can start changing your life right now by stopping. Stop comparing how you measure up against others.
People will admire pretty, fancy things you have. In the end though, you won’t be remembered for your things. Your impact on others doesn’t come from your belongings (other than more of the comparison game). Instead of considering how you measure up against others, look at how your life measures up against those life purposes you have chosen for yourself.
- Drink More Water
One of the best commitments you can make for your health is to drink more water. Staying hydrated can prevent headaches, improve your energy level, and even aid in weight loss. Consider what actions you can take to hold yourself accountable for drinking enough water each day.
- Do you have a favorite water bottle? Order 3 or 4 and fill them all with water, so if they’re all empty by the end of the day, you know you’ve had enough.
- Order a water bottle with time labels on it to help you track water consumption throughout the day.
- Find an accountability partner. If you typically eat lunch with the same person, they can ask you about your water intake at lunch each day. As a teacher, I once had a student who committed himself to reminding me throughout the day to drink water, and visited the water fountain to fill my bottle anytime I needed it.
- Make Healthier Food Choices
Ya’ll, I love bacon. I think I could eat it every day, it’s so delicious. However, I want to live as long as I can, and bacon isn’t the way to do that. So I limit myself; I shoot for bacon once a month instead. Longevity is a much more ideal choice than a few tasty strips of meat.
There will always be a healthier food choice to make, and it can feel completely overwhelming to consider all the options you have. If you want to eat healthier, start with the smallest, easiest change you can make. Do you perpetually skip breakfast or grab McDonalds because you don’t have time in the mornings? Make a smoothie you can drink on the way to work. Replace just one unhealthy snack with a fruit choice instead.
- Be More Active
The advantages of physical activity are seemingly endless: better sleep, longer life span, stronger bones and muscles, reduced diseases, happier mood. Yet it’s also easy to find an endless list of reasons not to be physically active: too busy, too tired, it’s raining, you don’t want to be sweaty, you don’t know how, you don’t have the right clothes. Change your life by changing your mindset.
Physical activity doesn’t have to be an hour at the gym each day. It can be a walk with your dog or calf raises while you stand in line. It is important to find a balance of endurance, strength, balance, and flexibility exercises. Investing a little more time in being active can have short and long term effects: a happier, healthier life now and hopefully years added on to the end of your life.
- Say No
You know who feels the worst when you say no? You. It may feel like you’re failing the person who’s hearing no. And honestly, they might be pretty disappointed. Ultimately, though, you’re overthinking it way more than they are. Sometimes you need to say no because what you’re being asked to do doesn’t line up with those life purposes you’ve set. It could be because you’re already overcommitted. You can choose to say no and explain, or offer an alternative, but remember, “No.” is a complete sentence.
Saying no gets easier the more you do it. Don’t feel guilty for believing in the value of your time, whether it’s time spent working toward a goal or time spent resting. Don’t equate being busy with being successful or happy. Finally, don’t be afraid to say no to yourself when you begin to feel stretched and stressed.
- Prioritize Rest
There’s a saying that proves true: “You can’t pour from an empty cup.” We’ve heard it. We’ve read it. And we’ve learned to ignore it. There will always, always be something more that needs to be done. Another load of laundry. Another task for work. Another article to write. Another appointment to attend.
When we constantly take care of the more without taking care of ourselves, resentment can build quickly. Exhaustion will kick in. Your brain and body need respite time. Rest doesn’t have to be a Netflix binge. It can be a few hours with a book or a walk with your best friend. Rest in doing something that you want to do, not something you have to do.
Even Olympic gold-medalist Simone Biles takes a day off each week to rest from her training. If a woman with NINETEEN Olympic gold medals can prioritize taking time off to rest her brain and body, so can you.
- Take One Small Action
Big life goals feel incredible to set and to achieve, but the in-between is where the magic happens. Or sometimes you’re not ready to dive head-first into something new, but you can do something small that’s related. If you want to drink 64 ounces of water every single day, add in one extra glass of water. If you want to be a better friend, send a short text checking in with just one friend of yours. If you want to do something absolutely wild and committed like running a marathon but right now you can’t even run a mile, just run as far as you can today.
One action, no matter how miniscule, is enormous compared to no action at all.
- Commit To Being A Lifelong Learner
I recently heard someone share, “An expert is not necessarily the person in the world who knows the most about a topic. It’s the person in any given room who knows the most about a topic at hand.” IBM reportedly predicted that by 2020, human knowledge would be doubling every TWELVE hours. Your life will change for the better when you commit to always being a learner. Whether it’s about your new hobby, technology updates, or a historic event, knowledge is a powerful tool.
The world is full of engaging, interesting information. Read the plaque at the historic site. Visit the museum on vacation. Talk to your friends about current events. Nelson Mandela had it right when he said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Change your life and change the world by always learning.
- Change Yourself
Years ago, I had a conversation with a coworker, and walked away with a gross feeling. I realized that much of the conversation had been gossip. Much like a milkshake, it felt great in the moment, but not so great later on. I realized that I didn’t want to be *that* person; I wanted to be someone with integrity who others could trust. I began to reshape my conversations and respond neutrally when I knew it wasn’t my place to share personal information. I began to feel more trustworthy and honorable.
Leo Tolstoy wrote, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Norman Vincent Peale said, “Change your thoughts and you change the world.” There is a great deal of value in self-improvement; our circle of control may be small, but we have complete authority over our own words, habits, thoughts, work ethic, and reactions.
- Invest Your Time Wisely
525,600 minutes. 525,600 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes. How do you measure? Measure a year? (You’re so welcome.) (And don’t forget about this gem.)
Only half a million minutes are allotted to us each year. Each day, month, year of your life is ultimately so fleeting. As we age, time seems to speed up. When you have children, it starts to travel at warp speed. Sleep and work dominate the hours of each day, but it’s up to you how you spend the remaining time of your day. If your time is invested in a screen during most of those hours, consider alternatives. Time is one thing we can never regain, so deciding how we want to spend it is a gift to ourselves.
- Read more
Reading opens a portal into the world. Don’t read to impress others, read what brings you joy. It could be the newspaper, young adult novels, comic books, biographies; each text sharpens your brain and expands your knowledge. It could be an audiobook on the commute to work. There’s something out there for everyone.
Don’t buy into the myth that you don’t have time to read. I know a mom with five kids who typically reads at least ten books a month; I’ve seen footage of her kids running and playing while she lays on the couch with her latest novel. I know another woman who carries books everywhere she goes, and finishes several books a month by simply reading in those small moments of waiting.
Kendra Adachi, author of The Lazy Genius, has an incredible rule for herself: start a new book within 24 hours of finishing the last one. By staying committed to the habit of reading, she doesn’t lose momentum or prioritize everything else over reading.
Find what works for you and let it guide you. Read what you want, when you can.
When you commit to changing your life, you commit to a happier self. Respect your mind and body by working toward being the best you can be. Which step will you take first?
