I’m going to change my life! Things are going to be different!
People always say things like that. Then they get up as late as possible to make it to work on time, block people from changing lanes in traffic, eat junk, listen to news, read celebrity gossip, talk behind co-workers backs, half ass their job, road rage a few more commuters while texting, go home, microwave more junk, get drunk and watch TV, a combination of celebrity gossip and news. Somehow their lives don’t change.
So how many days does it take to change your life, assuming you actually try?
One day.
Every day.
The rest of your life.
Each day, try to do something different. Change up your routine or schedule. Do something you wouldn’t normally do. Don’t do something you would normally do. Take a risk that you’re afraid of. Talk to someone you normally would avoid. Take a different route home.
Focus on things that have a good chance of making a positive difference in your life. Leave your cell phone at home (if this sentence makes you poop yourself in terror, you are an addict!). Drive, cook, eat, walk, live, without any television, radio, music, or other distractions turned on. Get up earlier. Go to bed earlier. Take a walk outside. Write something. Help someone. Be nice to a random stranger. Write a list of everything you loved when you were 12 years old and find a way to start doing more of these things. Throw away your junk food and start cooking real meals again, like actual human beings used to do. Take some time off from caffeine and alcohol.
Do any one of these things, or any other positive change to your routine (most people are very predictable creatures of routine), and you have changed your life. In one day.
Sure, you probably haven’t changed it very much, but you are moving in the right direction. Change something the next day. And the next. Keep doing that. The results will compound and snowball.
The key to changing your life is to actually take action and start changing things. It is a nice romantic thought to think that you can just take massive action one time and have everything be different. We all hear those stories about the guy who gets frustrated at his corporate job, quits and moves to some tropical island and meets the love of his life while living in fabulous wealth. If you know how to do that, stop reading my advice and go do it. I have no idea how to do that.
Realistically, things rarely work that way. Changing your life, whatever that means to you, requires methodical daily progress. Make each day better than the last. Don’t focus on some destination and try to get there as fast as possible. Human nature is that when you reach your goal, you’ll want something more.
Focus on being better every day than you were the previous day. That way, you will change your life every day for the rest of your life.
