5 Simple Things You Can Do Today To Improve Your Life
Go from feeling like crap to feeling rejuvenated and inspired again.
It’s been a strange and rough last few years, impacting both our mental health and overall life in general, and with 2021 nearing its end, there’s no better time like the present to start working on ourselves.
Why wait till 2022? Get ahead of everyone.
By making a few little adjustments, you’ll be able to not only improve yourself but improve the quality of your life in a way that will make you feel rejuvenated and inspired again.
With that being said, here are a few things I’ve been doing that can help you as well.
Unplug.
You’re exhausted and drained because all you do is worry, read negative articles online, watch the news, and frantically scroll through Facebook (or is it Meta now?).
You need to take a moment and step back from all of the negative bullshit.
For the last few months, I’ve noticed that my mental health has taken a drastic left turn. I’ve felt overwhelmed, drained, and extremely irritable.
After having a conversation with my boyfriend over the way I’ve been feeling lately, he offered up some solid advice:
“Maybe you need to just take a break from everything. It’s not healthy working yourself up over stuff you read online at 7 in the morning. Why don’t you try and set some healthy boundaries this week and see how that makes you feel?”
What you can do:
Take seven mornings off from social media in a row.
Don’t read anything, don’t go on Twitter the moment you wake up, don’t listen to any podcasts about anything that might trigger negative emotions.
Instead, try calming music or an audiobook. I always need something in the background when I wake up in the mornings, which is why I would listen to podcasts that would inform me of the latest news — now I’m making it a priority to listen to peaceful piano on Spotify or a fiction novel on Hoopla.
Take a step back from negative individuals in your life or anybody who brings you down.
If you want to be happy and successful, you need to surround yourself with people that are on a similar journey.
I’m not saying people are the problem, but we’re only human. If all of your friends are going out and encouraging you to hang out with them, you’re most likely going to say yes to them. Which is why I say cut it off at the source.
If your friends don’t give a crap about improving their life and encourage you to be like them, don’t be friends with them.
If there’s someone in your life who constantly brings a plague of complaints and negative energy into your world, cut it off.
What you can do:
Evaluate your friendships. Some people stay in bad relationships with people simply because of history. Is it worth being friends with someone who constantly makes you feel like crap all because you’ve been friends for a long time?
Is it worth sacrificing what little free time you have on individuals who aren’t on the same journey of improving their lives?
Declutter your life and space.
Decluttering your environment and your mind can instantly boost your energy.
Research published in the journal Current Psychology found a direct link between procrastination and clutter, and according to Dr. Boyes, organizing our spaces can benefit our mental health and processing capabilities, because it “requires our brains to plan, order, sequence, make decisions, overcome anxiety about decisions and overcome procrastination.”
In addition, it can also increase confidence.
“People can feel held back by their mess. Long-term mess often reflects our past selves, so decluttering can make us feel we have a fresh start, which can be energizing.” — Dr. Boyes
What you can do:
In recent videos, I talked a lot about how I felt incredibly down after the last few months, and something that genuinely helped me was decluttering my apartment, rearranging my furniture, and investing in a few new household items.
It almost made me feel like I was creating a new space to cater to my needs. I wanted to feel organized, so I bought bins to help in that aspect, I wanted to feel light and airy, so I replaced my pillows and blankets with white-colored ones. I wanted to feel cozier in my apartment, so I rearranged my desk and purchased candles and a new mug.
In addition to decluttering my space, I also focused on decluttering my mind.
Journaling is the easiest way to declutter your mind. I try to do a page of journaling every morning while sipping on coffee and listening to relaxing music. This is one of the best ways of stopping those anxious thoughts you get.
Treat your body better.
It’s easy to eat junk, lounge on the couch all day, drink soda, consume ample amounts of alcohol when you’re out, get Dominos delivered.
It’s hard to go to the gym; it’s hard to make home-cooked meals that taste good. It’s hard to drink water when you can have a Redbull instead or another cup of coffee. Or soda.
It’s easy to pull a bag of chips out of the cupboard and eat the whole thing and justify it by saying, “I’ll take a walk tomorrow,” or, “I had a rough day! I deserve this.”
But ultimately, all of those things will make you feel like shit, and if you want to improve your life and feel more confident, then you need to make some improvements in your diet.
I know so many people who complain about how “easy” it is for some people to eat right and exercise. It’s complete bullshit. It’s not easy for anybody.
The difference between you and someone who lives a healthy lifestyle is that they take on the challenge and power through temptation. You succumb to it.
What you can do:
I don’t know what your current level of physical activity is, nor do I know what you eat throughout the day, but the best piece of advice I can offer is to sit down and evaluate yourself.
- Do I exercise daily? How many steps do I get in per day?
- How much water do I drink? Do I even drink water?
- Does my diet consist mainly of processed foods?
- Do I feel energized by the foods I eat? Or do I feel like taking a nap after breakfast?
I try to exercise 5–6x per week, with walks daily as my job is sitting in front of a computer. My goal is to pee clear 3–5x a day in order to ensure I’m properly hydrated. And as for food, I simply try to make healthy food choices throughout the week. I eat pizza and drink alcohol too, but I do it in moderation.
Living a healthy lifestyle doesn’t have to be complicated or restrictive.
Improve yourself through education.
Do you ever just feel dumb? No? Just me? Okay.
After finding myself in situations with people who know a whole lot about everything and not being able to add to the conversation, I decided it was time to start learning.
I wanted to have something to offer. I wanted to be able to pull out an interesting quote or a thought-provoking opinion rather than dumbly agreeing with whatever was being said.
I’ve never been good at academia; I’ve always been extremely selective about what I enjoy listening to or learning about. For instance, in school, I zoned out during math on a daily basis, but English was my favorite subject, and I could sit in that class for 8 hours.
Something I strive to do now is to improve myself through education online or by reading books. I don’t have a teacher telling me to learn math or do any crazy science projects; instead; I have myself seeking out learning opportunities that align with my interests.
Studies show that learning throughout our lives can improve self-esteem, increase life satisfaction, optimism, and belief in our own abilities. It can even help those with mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety.
What you can do:
Everybody has something that piques their interest, and fortunately for us, we live in a world where we can literally learn anything online nowadays.
Back in high school, I remember thinking how amazing it would be to learn about psychology in college or how great it would be to take a course on the topic to see if it’s something I’d be interested in pursuing, but I couldn’t afford it.
A few weeks ago, I found an accredited course on psychotherapy for less than $20. I’m currently learning all about the subject from the comforts of my home.
You have the chance to take your life into your own hands and make something incredible out of it.
Identify your genuine interests and pursue them. And if you’re undecided, find some free intro courses online to figure it out.
Don’t wait for the New Year to start improving yourself. You can implement these habits today.
- Unplug: Take time off social media. Pay attention to how much happier you’ll feel when you’re not bombarded with negative news online.
- Cut negativity off at the source. You know that friend who always wants to party and get smashed even though it’s a Tuesday and you have to work? Yeah, maybe reevaluate that friendship.
- Declutter your life and space. How cluttered is your desktop right now? What about your closet?
- Treat your body better. When’s the last time you ate something that benefitted your body? When’s the last time you drank water?
- Improve yourself. Turn that trash TV off. Read a book.