Everyone wants to have a better life. But in order to have the life that you dream about, you’ll need to transform yourself into a version of you who is ready to live that life. Transformation doesn’t happen automatically, and there are several actions you can engage in to work on bettering yourself and your life.
20 Actions
1. Stop Criticizing
First and foremost, before you can do anything to start to better your life, you need to stop criticizing both yourself and others. It is always easy to point out the mistakes of others, and more difficult to recognize your own mistakes. But either way, most people spend lots of time doing both, and this is a huge time waster and causes damage to your mentality.
According to Psychology Today, criticizing yourself can lead to negative thought loops that can hold you back from doing the things you love and are passionate about in life.
And thus, it’s time to stop these loops in their path by accepting who you are as a person and resolving to discontinue the self-criticism of the things that you can’t control in your life. And just like you need to accept yourself, you also need to accept others and respect that their journey is their journey and that it isn’t your place to be critical of them or the things they are doing.
2. Take Steps To Lower Your Stress
Stress can take a huge toll on who you are and how you react to situations that may come about in your life. And therefore, you need to take any steps possible to lessen the weight of stress on your shoulders. This may mean taking more time for your self-care routine than you currently do or even just taking a break from the things in life that cause you stress.
Self-care looks different for everyone. For some people, it may mean time off work just relaxing on the couch with a cup of tea. For others it may look like social time with friends or family, or maybe participating in a hobby you enjoy.
Either way you need to spend some time each and every day releasing your stress in a way that you will enjoy because you can’t hope to live a better life or become a better version of yourself while you are bogged down with stress.
3. Spend Time With Positive People
Besides just spending time with you, you need to ensure that you are spending time with people that love and support you through all of your endeavors. This is because it can sometimes be a challenge to maintain a positive mindset, and you will find it even more difficult if you are spending time with people who are negative all the time or negative about the path you are pursuing in life.
So, take a look at your social circle. Is it full of people that you enjoy being around that support you and want to see you succeed? Or does it have a few people who would rather see you crash and burn? It’s time to let go of the negative people in your group and resolve to spend time with people who will help you on your journey instead.
4. Stop Gossiping
Do you spend a lot of time spreading rumors about others? Or discussing someone who isn’t yourself? Imagine how you would feel if someone were talking about you in that same tone and way. Would you appreciate it? Probably not.
Part of having a better life is spending more time focusing on what you are doing and accomplishing. This means you need not waste time spreading around gossip that isn’t going to help you on your journey.
Beyond just wasting your time, gossip is rude, and it’s mean. To become a better you, this practice needs to stop. Working on embracing empathy can help you stop a particularly nasty gossip habit, and next time you meet up with your friends let them know that you don’t want to discuss anyone who is not at the table with you—as this will keep you from saying anything that isn’t nice about someone else.
5. Wake Up Early
Successful people wake up early, it’s as simple as that. And if you want to turn your life around, there’s no reason not to start with this one easy change that can transform your life. And the reason getting up early makes such a difference is because you will have much more time to get things done, as well as plenty of time to design the perfect morning routine for your life.
Now that you are getting up early, you won’t have to squeeze in an unhealthy breakfast on the way to work, or a rushed afternoon workout. You can accomplish all of these first thing in the morning before you start your day. You should also consider incorporating some personal care and meditation into your mornings as well—so that these tasks don’t get lost in the rest of the day either.
6. Let Go Of What You Can’t Control
How often do you spend thinking about the past? Or worrying about something that you have no control over? Whether you realize it or not, this is having a huge effect on your outlook on life. This is why you need to resolve not to worry about anything that you have no power to change, this includes anything in your past that you may be regretting.
Letting go of the past (which has already happened) will take a huge weight off of your shoulders. And besides just lowering your stress, this will also help you to remedy some of the issues you may have with self-criticism and other negative thought processes. This will additionally free up more mental space for you to fill with positive thoughts of the future and help you to focus on all the ways you are working to improve your life.
7. Take Responsibility
Letting go of the past isn’t enough on its own, you also have to accept that what has happened has happened and take responsibility for it. This will help your mind to come to peace with any events that may have had a negative impact on you. It will also help you to gain the respect of those around you and lead to you becoming a better person.
When you take responsibility for mistakes you have made in the past, this helps you to learn from your mistakes, as acceptance helps you to evaluate what you did wrong. If you are struggling with taking responsibility something in particular, it may help to journal about it, laying the event out in chronological order. This can help you to see what happened more clearly and the exact roles you played. You can also journal about things you could have done differently—this will help you to react differently in the future if you ever run into the same situation again.
8. Consume Positive Media
Whether you like it or not, media is a huge part of modern-day life, and many people, possibly even yourself, spend hours a day consuming media. Media includes everything from TV, to books, music, and even social media. And if you are spending hours a day entrenched in negative media, this will have a huge impact on your mental mindset. And this is why you need to make every effort possible to only surround yourself with positive media.
Positive media will help to boost your mood. And consuming the positive media of someone who has overcome a situation you are trying to best can work wonders towards keeping you on the path to success.
Try to start your day with a positive music playlist, then avoid any negative media, like the news, that could serve to damage your mood. Scrub your social media and only follow people who make you feel good about yourself, unfollowing anyone who may be presenting a negative viewpoint of life. And when it comes to reading, find a non-fiction memoir written by someone you respect and read their book so you can learn from it and feel good about the journey you are undertaking.
9. Accept Change
Change is part of life, and instead of fighting it at every twist and turn, your life would go much more smoothly if you would learn to accept it for what it is—something good.
The strongest people who accomplish the most in life do so because they accept that change is a good thing and an important part of moving forward. Just think of someone in your life who is opposed to change. Are they a fun person to be around? Probably not because they are always complaining about how much they hate change.
In order to accept change, you need to be confident in yourself and your abilities to handle anything that life may throw at you. This will make change less scary and help you to embrace the changes that may come your way. And if you are still struggling, think of it this way, do you want a better life? Well, that’s a change and you’ll need to learn to accept it in order to experience it.
10. Take Risks
Besides just accepting change, learning how to take risks is also a critical aspect to becoming a better version of yourself and having a better life. Although change can happen independently of risk, any massive change worth mentioning in your life won’t come unless you take a risk.
Risks don’t always have to be end-all situations, even just going out on a date with a handsome or beautiful stranger could be a risk that creates a crazy change in your life. But remember that there are two types of risks, foolish risks, and calculated risks.
A foolish risk would be riding a bike with no helmet, while a calculated risk would be taking a new job even though the pay is less so that you can work at your dream company. When you take calculated risks, they won’t feel as scary as you’ll have already evaluated all the possible outcomes of the situation. And taking a calculated risk can help lead to massive change in your life and yourself for the better.
11. Don’t Repeat Mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes at some point in their life, this is to be expected. What sets successful and unsuccessful people apart is how they deal with their mistakes. As mentioned above, a successful person takes responsibility for what happened, evaluating their role in the situation, and resolving not to make the same mistake again.
On the other hand, a foolish person will resolve to make the same mistake over and over again, always blaming someone around them and never taking responsibility for their actions. Like negative thought processes, this is another loop that you can get trapped in. And once you are trapped in it, you will effectively prevent yourself from making any sort of meaningful change in your life. So don’t let this happen to you and instead resolve to learn from your mistakes, that way you won’t be destined to repeat them, nor will you let your mistakes trap you in a life you don’t want.
12. Live In The Present
Living in the present is a powerful lesson for all those who learn it. It can help you to let go of the past, as well as be more aware of what is going on around you. But living in the present is both a mental and physical thing.
It’s mental in that you don’t dwell on the things that have happened in the past as well as don’t letting decisions you made in the past effect those you are making in the present.
But in addition, living in the present means you let go of people who are no longer in your journey. It means that when you are out with a friend, that you put your phone away and give your focus over to the person you are with.
Someone who lives in the present knows that time is valuable, and that tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone. They give their all and their best each and every day because they aren’t sure what tomorrow will bring. If you want this to be you, stop procrastinating or putting off till tomorrow what you can do today.
13. Be Grateful For What You Have
It can be difficult to live in the present if you aren’t grateful for what you have, thus bringing up the next point on the list. Although being grateful may seem like a superficial thing, it really is an action that can transform your life in ways you never thought possible.
Often times people are brought up with the thought that they never have enough, that they always need to be acquiring more. Or, even worse, they are taught that they as an individual are never enough and must constantly be striving to be someone else. And although it can be good to work towards self-transformation, a major aspect of happiness is being grateful for what you have as well as who you are as an individual. This can also help you to make more thought out decisions that will better your life in numerous ways.
If you struggle with gratefulness, try journaling about it. Just make a list each and every day of all the things, people, and personality characteristics you are thankful for. This will help you to become more aware of all the amazing things you have going for you in your life!
14. Always Keep Learning New Things
Another key action for having a better life is to always keep learning new things. This is important because when you stop learning new things, not only do you lose a sense of curiosity that helps to keep life fresh, but your brain also begins to age and become more forgetful. And this can lead to a lot of frustrations when it comes to living a life you want to live.
Therefore, you should make every effort possible to try to keep learning new things. If there is something you’ve always been passionate about, but never had the chance to do, you should take the opportunity to do it, after all, there is no time like the present!
And even if there isn’t a class you can take in the subject you want to learn, you could also read a book about it or watch a documentary about it, as both of these things still qualify as learning.
15. Have Routines
In order to have the life you want to live, it’s important that you develop routines for a lot of your everyday activities. This will not only save you time, but it will help you accomplish all that you want to accomplish in life.
When you make routines, you automate tasks that you complete every day, and this allows your brain to complete them without you having to consciously think about them. This gives you more mental time to think about other things.
Life won’t always be perfect, and this is the main reason you develop routines—so that when things start to go wrong, you’ll be able to maintain the tasks that you’ve developed a routine for. This will also help you to stay on track even when the times may seem dismal and dark and like you will never achieve your goal. And the routines you’ve developed might even help you to feel more secure as you overcome whatever challenge life has presented you with.
16. Always Plan Ahead
Developing routines for your most basic tasks is a form of planning ahead. But besides just creating routines for the things you do every day; you also should plan ahead for everything you possibly can in life. This is because planning ahead also helps to keep you on task, and it can keep you from getting deterred by obstacles life may throw your way.
For example, say your alarm doesn’t go off in the morning before work. If you’ve developed a strict routine where you wake up at the same time every day, then it’s likely your body will wake up naturally.
But even if it doesn’t, if you’ve taken the time to plan ahead and get everything set out for yourself the night before, it’s likely that you will still be on time since you just need to grab your things and go!
This is why you need to plan ahead whenever possible. Plan for the next day, the next week, even a month ahead is okay to plan for. This also includes planning your finances in advance. This way when an emergency pops up you won’t be scrambling to get back on track and can handle the bump in the road with ease.
17. Stop Complaining
This action is critical to bettering yourself and your life. You need to stop complaining. This is because complaining is a pointless time waster. If you don’t like something about your life, then make an effort to change it. And instead of wasting time complaining, spend your time finding things you are thankful for in your life.
Look at it this way, if you don’t like your job, this may lead you to complain about it. But instead of wasting time complaining to your coworkers, you could be using this time to take a training or re-writing your resume so that you can apply to the company of your dreams. Plus, no one likes a complainer. You’ll gain much more respect from your friends and coworkers when you speak about the good parts of your work rather than the bad.
18. Don’t Compare Yourself To Others
It can be a natural response to compare yourself to those around you. But even though this comes easy, resist the urge to do so. When you constantly compare yourself to others, this will lower your self-confidence, and possibly send you on a negative thought spiral. Instead, you need to know that you are amazing just the way you are. This will help you to better yourself and your life.
For those who struggle with self-image issues, it can help to purge your life of toxic social media, because it creates unrealistic expectations of human beings. It can also help you make a list of all the amazing qualities you do have and remind yourself that you are amazing just the way you are. And don’t forget to remind yourself that there is no one on this earth that has been on the exact same journey that you have embarked on.
19. Be Open To New Ideas
Now that you’ve embraced that change and risks are actually good things, it’s also time to work to be open to new ideas. This means that when someone brings up trying something that you haven’t tried before, don’t automatically shoot them down and instead consider what they are proposing.
This will help you to experience new things and meet new people that could make a difference in your life. Don’t shy away from conversations with people you may not know—you never know when someone you may meet may change your life!
And now that you aren’t judging, you shouldn’t have any problem speaking with new people you may meet along your journey. Keeping your mind open to new ideas may also help you to solve problems or hurdles you may be facing in your life.
20. Learn to Live Mindfully
The number one way to transform your life and you is by learning to learning to live mindfully. Mindfulness isn’t some one-time task, but rather it is an action that takes your entire being to complete. Living mindfully means being aware of what is going around you, being thoughtful of other people, and working to create yourself the best life that you can.
Living mindfully connects almost every action on this list, and if you employ the previous 19 tasks on this list in your life, you will be surprised by how mindfully you are already living. But what you haven’t accomplished in your life so far, you will with mindfulness. Mindfulness can help you to do everything from lose weight, get into shape, and meet new people who can make a profound impact on your life.
It can be difficult to maintain mindfulness in your life, and if you find yourself struggling, you can always write out your thoughts in a journal, or take an online course in mindfulness, as both of these things will help to keep your mind in the right place.
Final Thoughts
It’s okay to want a better life and a better you, but in order to have those things, you need to be prepared to work for it. This list outlines 20 different actions you will need to employ in some way or form in your life in order to make the kind of change you want to see. It’s possible that you may not need all of them, but you will definitely need to do a large portion of these actions to succeed.
Once you’ve added these actions to your daily life, you may just be surprised by how smoothly everything runs and the amazing changes you see. Of course, there is some maintenance involved in keeping this new life you have discovered, but if you truly instill habits and routines in your life, then keeping up should be no problem at all. Just remember to always be grateful, respectful of others, and most of all, mindful of your actions and the world around you.
