The low-risk, high payoff actions you need to take this year
The new year is upon us. It’s time for us to get focused and start taking action in the name of our futures.
by: E.B. Johnson
This year is going to be all about making changes, but perhaps not the changes we expect to make. Rather than wasting our time and energy on all the same old new year’s resolutions, we have to instead get focused on the low-risk, high payoff actions we can take for dramatic life transformation. After all, we can’t control the outer world, so we have to learn to control our inner world.
Life wasn’t built for spectators.
You’ll never change your life if you continue to waste time, and if you continue to avoid and follow a plan of inaction. True happiness comes when we find both the courage and the strength to move the hurdles in our lives. Life wasn’t built for spectators. It was made for action, and only those who step up to the plate will find success and fulfillment. Whether you want to improve your relationships or your career prospects, action is the only way to go.
It’s time for you to stop running from your potential. It’s time to stop avoiding change because you fear it. Action requires you to take a leap of faith, but that faith is in yourself so it is one you can make relatively safely. Believe in yourself and know that action doesn’t have to be major, expensive, or time-consuming.
There are so many low-risk, high payoff actions that you can take this year for big rewards. These are conscious and mindful interactions with self and with the world that allow us to grow and improve the feedback we receive from loved ones and our environments at large. We don’t have to overhaul our lives or relationships. We only have to take compassionate and thoughtful action toward making things better from the inside out.
The low-risk, high payoff actions you need to take this year.
Focus yourself and your intentions about improving your life incrementally with an inside-out approach. You don’t need to spend your savings on a gym membership, or overhaul your hair or your career intentions. Make these small and relatively risk-free actions your goal this year, and they will dramatically improve the quality of your life.
Building better friendships
Building better friendships is a low-risk action we can take, which can really improve our lives. Our friends form the base of our support systems and can even act as surrogate families when we struggle with our own. It takes little to build a real friendship. You simply have to reach out, open up, and make time for the people who want to see you thrive.
Pursuing honest wealth
Have you spent your life chasing someone else’s wealth? You can refocus your energy on creating that wealth for yourself and establishing a business or career which brings both fulfillment and sustenance. What skills do you have that could be valuable to the world? What passions do you share with others? These answers are a good place to start on the road to figuring out what we can create and establish for ourselves.
Investing in personal growth
Take the time this year to invest in personal growth. You need to improve your mental health and your self-esteem if you truly want to build a life you’re proud of. Invest energy in bettering yourself from the inside out and you will see your outer world transform in time too.
Learning how to self-care
How much time do you spend nourishing your physical and emotional body? Self-care is crucial in retaining the energy and focus we need to get things done and thrive. You should be setting aside time each week to spend time alone and rest and recharge your mental and emotional batteries. This doesn’t always mean spa days and expensive getaways. It means afternoon naps and walks in nature too.
Improving your partnerships
Fraught romantic relationships don’t only impact us inside, or in our homes. Turbulent love affairs bleed into other parts of our lives and can even shift our mood and ability to function cognitively. Improving your partnerships can still some of that turbulence and bring you back to peace. To do that, you have to first improve your concept of self, love, and connection, though.
Diversifying your skills
Believe it or not, diversifying your skills is one of the best ways in which you can improve your life this year with relatively low risk. Online courses have never been more accessible or recognized. In a matter of months you could teach yourself a new skill which not only boosts your confidence but also increases your options when it comes to your life and career.
How to find the courage to get going.
Knowing that the above actions are low risk is sometimes not enough. We still get hung up in fear and hesitation. We have to find the courage to get going, but that in-and-of itself is a process. In order to become the brave person we really are, we have to recall what true joy feels like and get excited about the future that we’re building.
1. Remember what joy feels like
Any action — be it low risk or high risk — can be hard to approach and even harder to conquer without a sense of joyful motivation. We have to be excited about taking action, and we need to be excited about the possible outcomes we may achieve. In order to do that we have to first remember what joy feels like and what it feels like when we do well by ourselves and for ourselves.
Sit back and think of a time in which you did something and did it well. Recall a time in your life when you achieved something, or you felt a sense of accomplishment or a sense of pride. Now, imagine that feeling again and how it would affect you after improving or bettering your life in some way.
Record these feelings in a journal and be as descriptive as possible. Recall how that accomplishment brought on your emotions. Describe how those emotions affected your body, your confidence, or even the way you approached others and similar challenges. By reminding yourself how capable you are, you can get inspired to take a leap in the name of your improvement.
2. Get excited about your future
Once you’ve tapped back into that sense of joy, you can start to get excited about your future again. We have to know that we’re moving towards the things we really want when we’re working hard to change. This is often the only thing which is capable of keeping us focused when the setbacks and the hurdles begin to upset our plans.
Don’t dwell on the negatives you encounter or the mistakes that you make. Keep your head up and your eyes on the prize as you work to improve your relationships and the state of your environment.
The more excited you are about your future, the easier it will become to keep going when times get tough. Not everything will go your way. Some actions you take may not work out, or they may not payoff in the way you think you will. You still need to be excited about who you’re becoming and the opportunities you’re creating for yourself.
3. Build better support systems
Support systems make all the difference when it comes to thriving, changing, and overcoming. Sometimes, we don’t have the strength to keep going. We need to be reminded that we’re capable and we have what it takes to have it all. That’s when our friends can become the mirror by which we improve the way we see ourselves and the world around us.
Build better support systems for yourself by being a support for those who mean the most. Enhance your friendships by being a better friend and know that it’s okay to open up to and lean on the people we trust and respect.
It’s important to remember that not every person you meet will be a good fit for this support network. Focus on surrounding yourself with people who are honest, willing to be vulnerable, and supportive in a completely non-judgmental terms. Real friends don’t want us to do well on their terms, they want us to do well on our terms in any way which makes us happy.
4. Establish self-care routines
Self-care is one of the most powerful low-risk actions we can take to improve our lives. Far more than bubble baths and hot oil massages, we should seek to build self-care routines which nourish our bodies and our souls from the inside out. How often do you simply stop to be alone with yourself, your thoughts, and your emotions? Now is the time to start.
Carve out some private time for yourself each week, away from the kids and your partner, and anyone and anything else which distract or divide your attention. You only need an hour a week (or 15–20 minutes per day) to give yourself a chance to rest and recharge the right way (although more time is always better).
Fill this time centering on yourself. Journal about complicated feelings or issues you’re experiencing, paint, go for a run, have a nap. There’s no right or wrong way to go about establishing a self-care routine. Everyone’s looks different. Do what you need to do to go back into the world each week rested, recharged, and ready to face up to the challenges life has in store.
5. Re-boost your sense of self
There can be no real transformation in your life without reconnecting with your sense of self. You need to know who you are in order to know what you really want and what you really value in this life. You need to believe in yourself and you need to have a strong base of self-esteem so that you tap into the power that transforms your world from the inside out.
Focus first on rebuilding your self-esteem first. You are beautiful, capable, and worthy of having a high-quality life that is filled with abundance. Once you know (in your bones) that you deserve to be happy, you’ll have the confidence to begin pursuing those things which matter.
Self-esteem to hand, focus on the things which make you feel as though you have meaning and purpose. What do you want from your career? Your family? Your education? Part of knowing who we are is knowing who we want to be surrounded by and what we really want. It’s time for you to re-boost your sense of self from the ground up.
Putting it all together…
This year is another opportunity to change our lives for the better. To do that, though, we have to do it from the inside out through a series of low-risk, high payoff actions that teach us to be both strong and brave. There’s no major overhauls needed when it comes to making life better for ourselves. We can slowly improve our relationships and our opportunities the right way.
Remember what joy feels like, and remember what it felt like when you were in a stable, happy, and fulfilling moment in your life. When we recapture those moments, we can recapture our motivation. Get excited about your future and don’t be afraid to include your support systems in the ride. Allow them to bolster you and make you feel accepted as you confidently move toward a life which aligns with your happiness. Establish self-care routines which allow you to take a step back and recharge and reset your mental and emotional batteries. We have to nourish both our minds and bodies in order to thrive. Re-boost your sense of self and rebuild your self-esteem. Then you can move forward as the person you were always meant to be; by doing little more than committing to low-risk, high payoff action.
