Image via Complex Original
When it comes to making changes at the top of the year, you can set yourself up to fail—or you finally stop being a total asshole to yourself.
This is a 9-step process to feeling good. Forget all those productivity posts that serve to remind you that other people are (apparently?) machines who have no other responsibilities except to “life hack” their way to success! riches! joy! Those people are eye-roll-inducing and you need none of that bullshit when you’re trying to live in your actual life and make it better, one step at a time. The average person is not aspiring to be Elon Musk, so let’s all stop deifying this sort of robotic attitude toward our lives. You have shit to do and you want to make some changes.
Here’s a good guide to start with.
1. Do a thorough, exhaustive, and honest review of 2015.
In order to make true changes, you must start where you are. And, in order to know where you are, you need to take a pause to do an analysis of your present circumstances. This is how you push the reset button, by emptying out the past year (or more) and seeing, truthfully, where you are. You’ll do a review and realize you’re not as far off from where you want to be, that all you need to do are make a few minor adjustments. Click here for a PDF you can print to do your own review of 2015. Sure, it’s not January 1, but you can start today. It’s never too late to stop beating yourself up for what you haven’t done yet. You’re not falling behind. This is your life. You can change it today, this hour, this minute.
2. Forgive yourself for every time you disappointed yourself in 2015 (and 2014, 2013, 2012...).
Whether you did the review of 2015 or not, the first step towards change is to forgive yourself for what you think you did “wrong” in the past. Trying to rectify your life from a place of shame or frustration is hardly the best mindset to be in for lasting success. When make life changes as a way to outrun your own disappointment in yourself, you’re already holding the change up to an impossible standard. Forgive yourself completely. And then, start at the beginning.
3. Separate what you think you should want from what you really, deeply desire.
We all have a running tally of what we’re not doing or who we haven’t become yet. While in many ways, these visions of better versions of ourselves are motivating, sometimes they are born from a lot of “shoulds.”
You should want this much money. You should want this kind of job. You should want to travel. You should, you should, you should. Anytime something comes up in your mind as a desire and the word “should” is attached to it, think of that “should” as a big fucking siren going off telling you to pay attention. Shoulds are born from someone else. They are steeped in shame, telling you what you're expected to be, as opposed to who you are or who you desire to be. Identify what you deeply desire, what success and happiness look like to you, and focus entirely on that. Abolish the shoulds.
4. Do a realistic analysis of your priorities and your energy supply.
Here’s the thing about making changes: there are the imagined hurdles that we make up in our mind to keep us from success: rejection, failure, or any of the fears we have attached to our truest desires. Then, there are realistic hurdles, such as financial resources, time, and energy.
Each person has a finite amount of literal time—hours in the day, days in the week—and, as important, a finite amount of creative or emotional energy. Theoretically, could you write your book after your demanding full-time job? Yes, but you have to be brutally realistic about how you truly feel at 6p.m. when you’re home from work. The biggest blind spot to change is that we all overestimate our time and energy resources.
So, be realistic about when you can add or subtract certain things from your life. Once you’re aware of your time, energy, and priorities, you can start to add small, incremental goals and habits into your life.
5. Develop a right-when-you-wake-up routine that is both lean and personalized to your specifications.
Did you know that making your bed once you wake up is one of the most productive things you can do? It signals to your brain that you’re in an action mindset and gives you the first feeling of accomplishment for the day. The best way to start your day positively is to follow a routine you’ve developed yourself.
There are tons of articles out there detailing like 100 steps you should take in the morning, but I think that’s all bullshit. You don’t need to be drinking bone broth (ew) or taking 68.5 degree showers to put you into a positive state of mind for the day. But, I do think there’s a ton of value in developing a routine that works for you, no matter how big or small it is. Even if it’s waking up, making the bed, and sitting on the floor for one minute to breathe before scrolling Twitter and Instagram. A right-when-you-wake-up routine doesn’t need to be 20-steps-long to be effective. It just needs to keep you mindful, present, and aware that you’re taking care of yourself and putting your own needs at the forefront of the day.
6. Identify the 1-3 things that would drastically alter your life if you did them consistently.
Most people can only focus on a few priorities at a time. And, since the majority of people aren’t floating artists being funded by their parents, most of us have to work, pay our bills, do taxes, clean, do our laundry, and all sorts of boring-ass shit that needs to get done. In order to make important and high-impact changes, you have to match your priorities with those realistic time and energy constraints from number 4 up there.
Maybe you want to journal first thing in the morning or have a consistent exercise schedule. Okay, so put the journal in a place you know you always are (mine is on my dining room table even though it clutters it up, I don’t care because I know I sit there and have my breakfast every morning and I can’t stare at the damn journal without writing in it).
Or, for consistent exercise schedule, that doesn’t mean you become a drill sergeant with yourself and go from no exercise to making yourself exercise at 6 a.m. every single morning until the day you die. You can try something like: take a walk after work for 20 minutes three times a week. Or, instead of cutting certain foods out of your diet all together, think about adding something into it. Tell yourself you’ll eat a serving of leafy greens three times a week.
You can’t scare your habits off by forcing yourself to be a routine-driven machine. Start tiny. Tinier than tiny. Miniscule! Once you generate some momentum with yourself, you can add in another day of exercise, a bigger writing goal, an even healthier way of eating. At the beginning of the year in particular, we can be so ambitious about making changes that we set ourselves up for failure. Don’t set yourself up for success (which often means an impossible goal)—set yourself up to feel good. The whole point is to feel better and to feel good about yourself. Make little changes that feel good and gather the momentum needed to keep going.
7. Write a list of everything that scares you and distracts you from doing what you want most.
Identifying your fears and shortcomings are as important as identifying priorities. Some asshole said “if you want something bad enough, you’ll do it” and I’d like to punch that dude in the face, because he’s wrong. Because, actually, you can want something really bad and still find a million (really rational) reasons not to do it. Because, uh, HUMAN NATURE. So, you have to know where you’re most likely to slip-up and what triggers you to disappoint yourself.
Do you know that if you come home from work and immediately start watching an addictive show on Netflix that you will not move from the couch the rest of the night? Put a Post-It on the remote to remind you that you will not feel good about yourself if you spend 6-11 p.m. binge-watching a show.
Do you know that dinner is the meal that sends all your healthiest intentions out the window? Make sure your fridge is stocked with things you REALLY love to eat for dinner and can readily cook when you get home.
If you want to start a side hustle, think about everything that scares you about that. Are you afraid of failing? Of never being successful enough to lift you out of your day job? You need to air out those fears and counteract them with something positive.
To make lasting changes, you have to predict your where you’ll get tripped up and circumvent that, essentially, outsmarting the inner saboteur that lives inside all of us.
8. Identify what you will do when you run into any of the hurdles you listed above.
Once you’re entirely clear on how you’ve sabotaged yourself in the past and what other self-imposed traps lay ahead, you can develop some tactics to avoid those traps.
When you have an idea of what your brain does to sabotage you, you become better equipped to stop it before losing your momentum. You can put the running shoes by the door. Or, if you let yourself off the hook too easily, you can get an accountability buddy
When I was getting into the routine of meditating every morning, I set a reminder on my phone for a time when I knew I would be awake and home the majority of the week. It didn’t feel great to have to resort to something decidedly un-zen such as reminding myself to meditate, but it worked. I had to turn that damn reminder off every time and I felt like an asshole if I didn’t meditate for at least two minutes. Even though meditation brings me calmness and clarity, I know I wouldn’t do it as consistently without that reminder. So, I developed a system that forced me to meditate and eventually it became a habit that I no longer feel stressed about doing each morning. But, the only way I knew that reminder was necessary was because I was brutally honest with myself and admitted how easily I could fall off track.
9. Abolish perfectionism and control.
Staying in the process means forgiving yourself constantly. You’re not a fucking robot. You are a person, not a productivity machine. You’re allowed to fuck up. You’re allowed to forget your routines and habits for weeks and weeks until you start it back up again.
You’re supposed to get lost, find your way back again, and get lost all over again. That is growth. That is figuring it all out as you go. That is giving yourself permission to try and find what you like or don’t like and to stop and start as many times as you damn well want.
Make changes kindly and thoughtfully without reverting to that asshole drill sergeant that seems to pop up the moment we feel good about ourselves. And, remember: the point is to feel good about YOURSELF. So, have compassion for yourself. You’re enough as you are and the whole point to making changes is to gain a deeper experience with yourself and the world around you.