There are a lot of things that I wanted to change about myself. I wanted to lose weight, eat healthier, go to the gym, be happier… Yeah, there was quiet a bit. I can’t say that I achieved everything I wanted. But that’s because I realized I didn’t have to. Let me teach you how to turn your life around.
Your Circle of Influence
Here is the first step. It’s not easy to do, but then again… Change is never easy. One has to realize that you cannot change others, or know what they are thinking. You can only change yourself and only you know what you are thinking. This is essentially your “circle of influence.” Your circle of influence is anything that you can control. Thoughts, feelings, and actions. These are within your influence.
In order to be happier in life, you need to know that you can’t control everything. Once you understand that, most of your stress will go away. You can only control your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. With this control that you have over yourself you can become happy.
For example, you can change the way you think. Instead of thinking you don’t Want to take out the trash, you can think that you Will take it out. You Can’t improve your writing skills; to you Will improve your writing skills. Just by changing a few words in your thoughts can bring about great change. It takes time and practice. But it will definitely improve your everyday mood and feelings. You can even think: “Washing the dishes does Not annoy me. Washing the dishes lets me have time to think to myself.” Or another example could be: “Her calling me names does Not upset me. I Will Not let it bother me.”
Positive Thinking
Here is another piece of advice on how to turn your life around. Think positive. I know it sounds easy. And simple. But we all know that is not the case. We are all hard wired to remember anything bad that happens to us, or at least how the incident makes us feel. Why? To help us learn things. We learn lessons quicker by remembering how bad it makes us feel. Like when we first learned not to drink hot chocolate straight away because we burned our mouth the first time we tried it. This is why it is so hard to overwrite what we were born to do naturally and have a hard time remembering good things.
This is where constant practice comes in. Along with full awareness. I want you to try to do a simple exercise right now. List 10 good things that happened to you today. It’s okay, take your time… Was it easy? Probably not for most. This simple exercise is something that I want you to practice every day until it becomes natural. I want you to write them down every day. It can even be the same things as the day before. Just write down 10 things you are grateful for or good things that happened to you.
I say grateful or good things because being grateful can also lead to a happier life. You learn to appreciate what you have. It’s okay to want more from life, but you can still be grateful for what you got now too.
There’s this saying “fake it until you make it.” This is true as well. You smile and tell yourself that you are happy every time you are upset, you eventually become happy. It is strange how the brain works. Especially when your actions affect your thoughts and mood instead of the other way around. We smile when we are happy. Our brain is wired to release certain chemicals when we are happy. The act of smiling thus releases the chemicals that make us happy, or at least less stressed out. Interesting right?
How to Turn Your Life Around by Asking a Lot of Questions
I know this a strange one. You wonder how this can improve your life. Well inquiry and curiosity are something not all of us are good with. To improve ourselves and our lives we must constantly ask questions. Start broad, then get more specific. Like this: How do I become happy? In order for me to be happy I want to lose weight. How do I lose weight? I eat healthier and exercise. How do I eat healthier and exercise without losing momentum or quitting? And so on…
You do this in your every day life to improve yourself. It requires a lot of critical thinking and self reflection. But it helps us set goals in life and gain knowledge where we need it. Nothing is ever easy. So you will not arrive at an easy solution.
For me, I had to ask myself, do I want to lose weight? No. I did not. So what did I want? I wanted to be healthier. I realized that I didn’t need to lose weight, but I was not eating right. In order for me to eat healthier I planned every meal for the week in advance. Another thing I did to gauge my health, I told myself that I need to bench press my own weight as it is a sign of being physically fit. And I worked toward that goal. I naturally lost weight in the process, but that was not what mattered to me.
Becoming a healthier human being was my goal. And I got there. It was a struggle to get there. And it still is a struggle as it is always an uphill battle. I may have fallen off the wagon a few times, but that’s okay. The knowledge that I am getting healthier made me happy. It still does. I hope you all learned how to turn your life around by reading this. It’s not a cure-all, but it is the first step to improving your life.
Response Magic