How to Get Your Life Together
The most crucial moments in your life will be defined by this
“Your ability to stay grounded in the midst of chaos.”
But what if life has been nothing but throwing purely hard times at you? You wake up one day and you feel like life sucks. Everything is just falling apart, whether that’d be work, family, finance, or all of it combined.
What if there is something you can do to bounce back?
Yes, there is.
When there is a hard time, there has to be a good time. When there is a problem, there has to be a solution for it. Life is simple if you really think about it.
Let me help you with a few things that you could do NOW to get your life together again.
Start Small
I believe that there is a reason why something happens. Life may give you lemons because of a thing or two.
Let’s say you’ve got problems. You are lost and you don’t know what career to choose. You are worried about your relationships with those around you and the number in your bank account seems to always be not enough.
You end up being super overwhelmed and you have no idea what to do first. Just a thought of it makes you want to vomit.
“It is hard to deal with all of these at once,” you tell yourself silently.
Well, it is indeed!
I think we should all agree that the most ideal solution for this is to take things one step at a time.
Nobody saves the world by solving everyone’s problems at one time. It takes time and perseverance to conquer all these fears we have.
Hence, for those of you that are under stress now, you could overcome your fear by doing a thing. A thing that doesn’t require too much willpower.
Imagine if your first action is very hard to be done, like climbing Mount Everest.
Would you ever change? I won’t.
If the first step is easy and manageable to be taken (and so is the second step and the following steps), I am sure we all could change at a slow but definite pace.
If James who literally spends 10 hours a day, scrolling on Instagram and Facebook to laugh at memes, were to turn his life around, he must have a lot to fix in his life.
It is definitely certain that not only does he have a phone addiction, he must also have troubles with his eating and sleeping habits since he spends all day staring at his phone.
Would James be able to overcome all of these at once? Absolutely, no.
It would take a lot of self-discipline to do that. He hasn’t been properly trained for it yet.
The only way to train him is by starting small.
Let’s say James has successfully taken his first-ever baby step, which is to fix his phone addiction. On his first day of changing himself, his phone screen-on time, which was originally 10 hours, has now become 9 hours.
Though it is still a lot, he’s made progress.
Imagine where he would be at the end of the month if he is consistent at slowly using less of his phone?
Small step is something that is a little outside of our comfort zone. Continuously taking these steps will lead us to feel slightly uncomfortable, but you won’t feel “that” uncomfortable, to the point you want to give up.
This is where the sweet spot is!
Routine
Once we have the ball rolling, we should keep that going. If the ball stops for a long period of time, you would feel lazy, and losing momentum is just around the corner.
“Momentum”
This is the keyword that I want to emphasize at this stage. Once momentum exists, it is easier to be productive. It gives you the motivation to do things in a sustainable way. And the way for momentum to existing is by having a routine.
“But I have a lot on my plate, right now! Work and family requires me to be ready at any point in time. I don’t think having a routine sounds like a viable option to me.”
It’s totally okay. As long as you could find ways to keep the momentum of you being a productive and not a lazy person running, that’s really what matters.
As a result of taking tiny steps consistently along the way, James has successfully decreased his screen-on time and maintained it to stay at a moderate level.
It’s been confirmed that he’s replaced those left-over hours for something more meaningful than going on social media 24/7.
He is now able to eat more regularly and he doesn’t have to sleep late anymore.
Now, he needs to maintain this healthy habit and sustain the momentum.
The routine that he chose is to read books in the living room whenever he’s free so that he doesn’t go on his phone too much like he used to.
James has consciously made a decision to not fall into the phone temptation anymore. Yay.
Routine is what holds you accountable and what helps you to be on the right track. It is purposefully made for you to keep taking conscious decisions so that a positive change would be possible to happen.
So,
These two simple but effective steps are the small bridge we all can use to get started in getting our life together.
I am fully aware that experimenting with these in real life would be harder than how it sounds.
But what other option is there for us to choose?
Taking action is the only thing we can do at this moment to change for the better. To be exact, taking EASY actions and having a ROUTINE are a way to go!
As a side note, it is fine to slack off a bit sometimes. It is just how we operate.
We are human and we live with our feelings and emotions. Human don’t operate as a robot does.
In a way, that’s a great thing about us.
Though we may not be able to maintain perfect consistency once in a while, feelings tell us what to do next.
Your feelings lead you to make great decisions in life. As a result, you would always find your way back, in case you’re stuck.
Keep in mind that you won’t figure out everything in life at once. It takes time for things to make sense. Change is one step at a time.
Hence, why not do something now and think about the details later?
