substantial changes. You might feel like giving up before you even get started.
What you need is a way to kick start the changes that you want to make in your life – and here
are ten ways to get started today.
#1 Change Your Routine
One of the simplest ways to start improving and changing your life is to change something that
you’ve always done. And it doesn’t have to even be related to the goal that you have in mind.
When you want to make changes in your life, you want to get the ball rolling somehow. To get
that momentum going, try changing small things in your life today.
For example, have you ever driven to work and not remembered how you’ve gotten there? Not
only is this a scary notion, but it also can be a great lesson in being aware of your surroundings
and how they’re getting in the way of your self-improvement.
Here are some simple ways to change up your routine today:
- Take a new route to work
- Eat a meal during a different time of day (i.e. eat breakfast at dinnertime)
- Change the order of your exercise routine
- Get up earlier or later than you normally do
- Do different chores around the house or ignore chores that you always do
comfort and that ‘settling’ that might be getting in the way of the changes that we want to make.
Start the changes right now by changing other, not-as-important parts of your life. You may be
surprised at how different the world looks and much more likely you are to believe that bigger
changes are indeed possible.
#2 Look in your closet
In Feng Shui decorating principles, when you use certain colors and positions of furniture in
your house, you can affect greater changes in your life. Taking this idea a step further, when
you want to change something about your life for the better, doesn’t it make sense to start
changing your surroundings?
A simple way to do this (without spending your money redecorating your house) is to simply
change your appearance for a day.
You can do this by simply getting out of your clothing rut and trying something that is completely
unlike you. For example, if you wear black all the time, try wearing a bright and boisterous
color. If you’re someone that likes to wear colorful outfits, try something more toned down.
The point is to approach your outfit as you would your life – by changing it.
Your outward appearance can make your feel more confident in yourself because you know that
you look as good as you feel or at least, as you want to feel. And that confidence will show up
in your actions as well as your interactions with others.
People can’t help but respond to change. When others notice that you are holding your head
differently, they will begin to respond in kind. This is why you will hear the term, ‘power suit’
quite often. By putting on a costume of sorts, you can create a new you – a more powerful you.
If you feel that you don’t have anything in your closet to wear that will help you feel differently,
it’s time to start thinking about new ways of wearing certain pieces of clothing together. Maybe
you can simply wear a crazy pair of socks under your classic business suit. Or perhaps you can
choose larger earrings or a silly necktie.
Whatever makes you feel differently about yourself, try to incorporate that into the way that
you’re dressing yourself today.
#3 Don’t lie
What would your day be like if you didn’t lie about anything? Think about it for a moment. We
all seem to lie about something during out day, even if we don’t realize it. When our food comes
at a restaurant, we might say that there’s nothing else that we want, even if the wrong order
comes out. Or when we’re heading to a movie, we might say to our friend or partner that we
really don’t care what show we’re going to, even if there’s one that we really want to see.
Why do we do this? Because we don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.
However, in most cases of lying, what we’re really doing is not being truthful with ourselves and
our needs. By considering what someone else thinks, we can place the responsibility for our
happiness on someone else’s choice – and one that typically doesn’t match our own
preferences.
On the other hand, when we lie, we’re also not taking responsibility for our own actions and their
consequences. When we lie to our boss about a project or the bill collector, we’re avoiding the
issue at hand – and now allowing ourselves to learn from the mistake.
To change your life, you need to stop lying to yourself and everyone around you. This isn’t to
say that it won’t be a tricky thing, but it will be something that will dramatically change the way
that you approach your life.
Not lying for one day will make you slow down and really think about everything you’re about to
say and why you’re saying it. In doing so, this will create an opportunity for you to learn more
about the way you think and where you might need to make changes in that thinking.
For example, when you stop lying about whether or not you can talk to someone on the phone,
you might find that people that you really don’t care to talk to can be asked to call back at
another time, leaving you time and energy to do the things that you really want to do.
And that creates the space for you make the changes that you need to make.
Some call it ‘authenticity’ while others call it being an honest person; in any case, trying to be
true to your self and to others is a simple way to instigate a new way of living.
#4 Think like an optimist
Many experts will tell you that when you change the way you look at things, you will change
your life – and it’s true. If you’re sitting around expecting the worst of things, you’ll be certain to
find the worst of things. You’ll find all of your mistakes along the way to your goals. You’ll
notice all of the problems with your plan. And then you’ll stop trying because you’ve noticed that
everything is going wrong.
This is where a lot of people fumble on the way to their happiness and the changes that they
want to make. By trying so hard to recognize the bad things in their life, they forget about those
things that are working well.
For just one day, try to see your life through the eyes of an optimist – a complete optimist. This
might seem silly at first, but what you’re doing is bringing another perspective, an objective
perspective into your view of the world.
Optimists look at the world as though it only has good things to offer and in that thinking, they
see the opportunities for learning and growth, rather than the obstacles in their way. Instead of
getting upset about the car that cut them off in traffic, they hope that there wasn’t an emergency
that caused the driver to need to go so fast.
Optimism takes practice. What you might want to do is start thinking about your life as though it
were the life of a good friend that you have. When you sense that something is wrong in your
day, try to change your thinking to being more positive. For example, when your friend loses hisor her job, you don’t tell her that it was because they were the worst employee (though you
might tell yourself this), you tell them that it wasn’t their fault and that there must have been
another reason.
When you start treating yourself and your life the way that you would treat a good friend, you
start to see possibility in life, rather than problems.
An optimist is simply someone that strives to look for the good in everything. Just for today, you
can try to do the same. Is it a realistic way to be every day? Who knows? But what you are
doing is allowing your life to be as wonderful as you want it to be, and maybe as wonderful as it
already is. You just weren’t looking for it.
#5 Don’t have any expectations
How many times have you been disappointed? Probably hundreds of times, right? However, if
you think back to your times of pain and loss, many of these instances were the direct result of
having some goal in mind that wasn’t reached or some expectation that wasn’t met.
What if you gave up your expectations for a day? For one day, what if you said that you don’t
really care about what happens?
When you start to attach how you feel to something that’s out of your control, you are setting
yourself up for feeling badly. There’s nothing wrong with having goals and wanting certain
things, but when you start relying on the outcome to derive any happiness from it, you can
actually be stifling change and growth in your life.
In truth, expectations are just wishes and hopes. There’s nothing wrong with them, but many of
these same thoughts are based on a number of factors that you can not control – even if you try
to.
For example, you can’t control how someone reacts to something that you do or say. People
are autonomous and will respond in any way that they see fit. When we start to attach our
personal feelings on how someone else reacts, we are setting ourselves up for feeling bad
about our lives and our selves.The point of eliminating expectations is to start focusing on what’s happening right now – what
you can control and what you can’t. If you’re in a bad situation at work and your boss is yelling
at you, you can’t control that. However, you can control how good of a job you do – though your
boss might still yell at you anyways.
Just for today, try to remember that all that you have in your life is what is right in front of you.
Step back and recognize that true change can only come when you stop making it the end all,
be all of your existence. If you’re trying to lose weight, for example, all you can do right now is
eat better right now. You can’t expect that the meal that you eat today will affect you weight
loss in the future.
Nor can you expect that the one chocolate bar that you have today will ruin your chances of
weight loss.
Try to understand that expectations to which you attach your self-worth and self-esteem are
generally not worth meeting. It’s not about not setting goals for yourself, it’s about not making
the bar so terribly high.
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