Leading a glorious life is a personal choice.
It’s totally up to you to decide whether you want to upgrade and improve your everyday life for a more optimal living experience or not.
It does take hard work, time and determination to get where you want to be in life, no doubt.
Day in, day out we live life without realizing the real meaning of life. Life becomes like a competition, where ideas and living standard can become influenced by things that really don’t matter that much in our life.
True meaning of life is something specific to you and the choices that help you realize the true meaning to your life is also specific, there are some things, which we can do to actually improve our lives.
While there are no fixed number of steps which you can take to improve your life, but from the point of my personal experience here are 6 steps that can help us to improve our lives:
1. Schedule your Time
Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.
– Alan Lakein
Time is the most precious resource of all that we have. And once we lose it, we lose it- it won’t come back to us again. Planning is the key to good time management. When we do not plan to use our time, our brain feels overloaded and it makes us feel overwhelmed. We find it impossible to do any task.
To effectively plan, I believe you need to:
- Review the things you need to do. What is already completed by you and what still needs to be done?
- Prioritize your tasks based on level of its urgency. Assess what really needs to done immediately and then dedicate your resources towards it to make progress. Finishing urgent work first and getting it out of the way brings a huge sense of accomplishment.
- Determine how much time you need to complete that task. Most tasks take longer than we expect (I find this happening with me most of the time), so be sure to take note of that as well. Sometimes we might be wrong in our estimations, but it will help us in progressing and keep us on track.
- Analyse how difficult it will be to complete a given task. It will help you to prioritize your activities on your to do list and assist you in determining how much time you need for that task.
Planning will serve as a road map for you in getting things done on time. You can plan your tasks the first thing in the morning or the night before. You will be able to effectively complete a given work by scheduling and this will give you time to also enjoy the things that matter to you.
Planning according to the system explained above will help you to get a good night sleep, as you will know what to expect and do the next day.
Block out distractions in order to follow your schedule.
Do not forget to take your breaks. Taking breaks give us an added boost to get more done.
Have your own reward system for having a productive week. We tend to be more productive if we are rewarded.
2. Simplify Housework
It’s an essential consideration when speaking of simplifying life.
A clean house radiates a form of pure energy that makes us feel at ease when we are at home. We feel good inside when we enter our home after a rough day at work.
However, not many of us bother about this aspect of our life. We tend to keep our homes un-organized and cluttered. We barely even find time amidst all the hustle and bustle of life to take out some time for our home. But you know what- we need to be more caring for our habitat. After all, we live there.
A clean home is a healthy and happy home.
But how do we ensure we have a clean home without spending too much time in keeping things in order in the house.
One simple rule is:
Simplify your home as much as possible.
Get rid of all unused stuff. Keep only those household items that you use daily.
The less you have, the less cleaning you have to do.
Which equals more time for you.
Have less furniture in the home .Keep only those that you need in the home. Furniture tends to accumulate dust and cleaning them can take time if you have more furniture than you need. Organize your home with the appropriate furniture.
Keep fewer utensils in the kitchen. Don’t overcrowd your kitchen counter. In this way, you can give it a quick wipe with a washcloth in a jiffy.
Make a plan for cleaning each part of your home such as floors, bathroom, bedroom, doing laundry and let’s not forget the outside backyard and front yard as well.
Tip: When you see dirt, clean it immediately. It just takes a few minutes. This system is called “Clean as you go” and it saves a lot of time. In this way, you will not have to clean every day- just when something needs to be tidied up.
3. Reduce Social Media consumption
While we can gain a lot by using social media, there is a lot to be lost as well. No doubt, that social media plays an important role in everyone’s lives. Social media can be very addictive to many people. We tend to get very obsessed with number of ‘likes’ we get and how well we can compete with other people.
We spend hours of our days on social media. Those hours can be spend on something productive that will transform our life one day.
Use technology mindfully. If you spend more time on your smartphones than in the sunlight then it’s time for a change. We spend a lot on time to portray our life as glamorous on social media while the reality is otherwise. Spending time on yourself rather than on social media, can do wonders for you.
We need to limit our social media interaction and live a real life rather than a virtual life without any meaning. Don’t go overboard and post everything about your life on the internet. Don’t wait for likes and comments from people who you might even not be knowing.
Instead of putting the best version of yourself online, be the best version of yourself in real life.
Social media fulfills our desire for attention. We want to be heard and appreciated. It’s part of our human nature. When we get likes and followers, we feel like a star in the limelight. But why do we seek other people’s approval? Why let someone who you do not know have a say on your life. Don’t be obsessed with your virtual life. Develop a habit to take control of it, if you don’t know how to limit your usage of social media.
Pictures are for capturing the beautiful memories of life. They are not for editing and putting on social media for getting likes from some unknown people, who don’t even care about you.
Connect with yourself. Get a life. Live a life that’s truly worthwhile and meaningful.
You’ll surely improve a lot in life and make the most out of it.
4. Be Independent
The art of being self-reliant and self- sufficient has its own perks. When we rely too much on others, we actually lose control of our own lives. Living life to the fullest requires our attention and action. It requires us to take control of it. That’s why being independent is important. Here’s how you can become independent:
- Look after yourself- When you are in good health and in good shape then only you will able to take care of yourself. You will able to take the first step towards an independent living by being physically and mentally fit. Follow a healthy routine that will help you live a healthy life.
- Take responsibility of the things you are assigned to complete- taking charge of the tasks that you are given, trains us to become independent. It prepares us to take on the challenges that lie ahead. We become more capable in solving problems and get a feel of what’s it like to handle life.
- Make plans for yourself- having a plan for yourself puts you on the path to success. Everyone has a set of goals that they want to achieve in life. Plan your life and goals in such a way that they make you realize your full potential one day. People who are ambitious, move closer towards their goal everyday and they are the ones who can truly harness the art of being self-reliant.
- Work Hard, Work Smart- if you don’t want to rely on anyone, then react towards your goals by working hard and working smart. Getting financially independent is perhaps one of the biggest steps you can take towards becoming independent. You need money to manage most part of your life like paying rent, buying groceries, buying a house, car and many other things which you may need in the future. If you do the work, your source of income will be secure- opening a world of opportunities for you.
- Do what you love- to make life worthwhile, do what you love. Who knows if it makes you a highly successful person one day? If you examine the lives of all successful people, they all did what they loved and that’s why they are successful. Life is all about the choices you make. So chose what you deserve.
- Learn new skills- this will add value to your professional life. It can help you land a better job or you can start your own business. Learning a new skill has immense benefits for life. There are a lot of online courses available on the internet which you can do. So, take action now and learn a little, read a little every day.
- Review your life- analyze your life and make a list of things for which you are dependent on other people. Study that list and try to do those things for yourself. Slowly start implementing those strategies as you get older or when you are about to start college or when you have already crossed 18 years of your life. Take some help from people who can teach you how to do that stuff for your own self.
Get your Finances right
To achieve financial independence, you need to manage financial resources wisely.
What you earn must be planned accordingly to be used.
Money is the thing that we all have to work for.
And if managed properly, we can manage our life properly.
The first step that you must take is detailing all your financial goals.
Make a list of all the things that you spent your money on. In this way you will be able to retain your money for a specific purchase that you wish make. You will feel focused and motivated and in control of your finances.
Secondly, you need to spend less than you earn. If you have a habit of spending a lot of cash, that needs to stop, if you don’t want to deplete your financial resources. Forgo the habit of living from paycheck to paycheck. Always aim to save a portion of your income. It will be of great use in the future. You can establish an emergency fund with that money.
Learn to invest your money as well. By investing you can create more wealth. Make money work for you by investing. Invest in assets that will multiply in value overtime. Saving your money in a bank account will not do you that much good as investing them would.
Take out some time and find out what you can invest your money in. Leaving cash in bank is just like leaving a glass of water in the desert to evaporate. Do some research, read some books on investment if you have to.
Have a budget for your expenses and keep track of where you spend your wealth.
Diversify your income sources. You can build a secondary income source.
6. Quit those bad Habits
We form habits and then our habits form us.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Habits form a major part of our lives. It is up to you whether you want good or bad habits to stay in your life. Having bad habits destroys our life and pushes us down the road to misery. Needless, to say that we all have some form of bad practices in our lives, that we can’t just seem to get rid of. Sometimes we overeat, many people just cannot seem to get rid of smoking and drinking and some just can’t help stop procrastination. Everyone seems to be dealing with at least some form of bad habits.
Good news is that we can change that.
If a habit can be learned, it can be unlearned as well.
It takes time, patience, will power and understanding the nature of your bad habits to break them down.
Here are some ways, which might be effective in curbing those bad habits:
- Visualise your worst self with those bad habits. How would you be after some time if you didn’t get rid of that bad habit? Inquire that within yourself. Picture yourself, how you look, feel, behave? Once you find the answers to those questions, you will find the inner strength to let go of that nasty habit once and for all.
- Visualise your best self without the bad habits. Imagine how you would feel without your bad habits. What would your life be like? You would be moving away from your bad practices and moving towards becoming a better you. You would have more energy to pursue the things that hold meaning in your life.
- Accept your bad habits. We can change our habits, and identifying the problem is the first step. By accepting your nasty habits, we tell ourselves that there is problem in our lives and that we need to fix that. Once we have decided to fix the problem, our mind will act upon this instruction and try to remedy the problem. Acceptance gives you self-honesty, which leads you towards having an accurate perception of yourself. Most importantly, by accepting- you give yourself the power to break your bad habits.
- Have a burning desire to make your strategy work. You can get this burning desire from own self and up your chances in eradicating your bad habits. This burning desire comes from having an unrelenting desire to have a successful change. To get successful change you need to invest your vital energy in making change happen.
- Find out what triggers a specific habit. One of the most effective ways of removing bad habits is to recognise what triggers that habit so you can remove environmental cues. Just remove the cause of the bad habit and the effect will be gone as well.
- Increase your knowledge and awareness on why you need to get rid of that bad habit. Every time before you put your bad habit into action your brain will remind you about its consequences by acting upon that new information which you have fed into your brain.
Well, of course, these aren’t the only methods that we can use to improve our lives, there are other methods as well. I’ve listed 6 methods here, that I found could help us in living a better quality of life. But the key thing that we must remember is:
Do what best works for you.
Sometimes you’re just one decision away from living the life that you have dreamt of.