Everyone will have those points in their lives where they think about where things went wrong, why their life didn't pan out into what their childhood dreams or their ambitious early adulthood goals were. Every single year, the majority of the people around the world set themselves ambitious goals also known as New Year's resolutions on New Year’s Day.
It is one thing setting yourself goals of changing your life for the better but it is another thing actually going through with it, in this article we are going to be exploring the question of can you change your life for the better?
Motivation Quickly Fizzles Out.
A general rule of psychology in life is that motivation for most will quickly fizzle out, many people will watch a motivational video online and feel an urge of excitement and motivation to take the necessary positive steps in their life but as soon as they encounter their very first obstacle their motivation levels will instantly drop.
This is why you need to take steps to maintain your motivation up such as constantly remembering why you want to better your life, additionally, a good thing to do is surround yourself with supportive people, for example, if you are trying to quit smoking then you should not be around other smokers but instead with family or friends that will help you get through the cravings easier. Moreover, it is important to truly understand why you want to achieve your goals and what the end benefits will be of taking those steps and overcoming those obstacles.
Being Too Ambitious.
A big downfall of people that are trying to change their lives is that they will set themselves very ambitious goals, which in reality is not a good thing as they are just setting themselves up to fail. A much better strategy is to set yourself goals that you can reach if you put in a bit of hard work rather than having goals that even if you put in the maximum amount of effort you will not be able to do.
For example if you have just started jogging, you should not set yourself the goal of running a marathon within a month of starting to exercise as this is not just a too ambitious goal but will also have a negative impact on your physical health.
Furthermore, by setting yourself very ambitious goals, you risk demotivating yourself and damaging your mental health as you will constantly be failing even though you may put in an extraordinary amount of work and effort.
Setting Realistic Timeframes.
Time is another major constraint to changing your life, you have to use your time effectively, you can't just procrastinate for a large amount of the day and then decide to pull an all-nighter in order to catch up and not hinder your progress towards your goal.
This sort of strategy will only end up costing you more wasted time as when you are tired and sleep-deprived you are not able to function at your optimum therefore you will make a lot more mistakes and you will not be able to learn as effectively with studies showing that people that are sleep deprived find it 40% harder to memorize new information than people that have slept between 7 and 8 hours.
Furthermore, this point is also related to the point above about being too ambitious, you need to set yourself a realistic amount of time that a task will take you. For example if your goal is to get in shape, then realistically this will not take you a few months but instead a year or more depending on the current physical shape that you are in.
Keeping in Mind the Issues That Will Arise.
When considering the question of can you change your life for the better, an interesting topic of psychology in life arises. More often than not individuals that are not experienced in planning for the future will make grandiose plans and timetables which may not be ambitious and may have realistic timeframes however will not assign time for those moments in life that are unexpected such as getting stuck in traffic or your pets falling ill for example.
Furthermore, if nothing happens to go wrong, the estimated amount of time that you had in mind that a task would take would likely take much longer due to unforeseen problems. For example, if you decided to cook dinner for your family, you may have set 30 minutes of your precious time to carry out this chore, but in reality, it may end up taking 2 hours due to some of the ingredients taking longer than expected to cook.
Don't Forget to Take Accountability.
Setting yourself goals and working hard is all good, but you need to also leave time and remember to take accountability for where things have gone wrong. The worst possible thing you could do is to make mistakes, not learn from them and then continue to constantly repeat those mistakes which will all just slow down your progress towards achieving your goals. You can learn more about taking accountability in your life on the LeoSystem.news information portal.
You shouldn't be embarrassed to share your mistakes with other people, as this will strengthen your relationship with that person as well as give you the opportunity to learn something from them and the mistakes that they have committed throughout their life and journey of self-improvement which is different for everyone, which can end up saving you a lot of time and energy by avoiding mistakes that they have made and vice versa.
Remember to Rest.
Working hard is a good thing, but you should not overwork yourself and you should also not allow work to overtake your entire life as life is very short and you need to do things that you enjoy doing as well as put some time into maintaining the relationships with the people that are important in your life.
You have the time to rest and recharge your batteries, you should also employ resting and having time off as a reward for your hard work and the progress that you have made, this will further motivate you to work harder and keep you focused on the main long-term goal that you have in mind when you are putting in all of this hard work.
Doing Things Smart Is Important.
Can You Change Your Life for the Better? Anyone can change their life for the better but the truth is that most of the time it is better to work smarter rather than harder. You should make use of all of the support and tools that you have to your disposal, for example, if your goal is to get into shape then it is important to not just exercise but also to make sure that you are eating the right kind and amount of food as these two factors go hand in hand in terms of losing weight and optionally building muscle if that also happens to be your goal.
Alternatively, if the goal that you have in mind to better your life is to start your own successful business, then you should remember to delegate tasks between employees to allow you to focus on managing and expanding the business as well as further educating yourself on the important related topics. It is key to strike the right balance in such regards, and also keep in mind that you will get smarter about certain topics as you become more and more experienced.