How to Improve Your Life in 5 Easy Steps
Your life is in your hands so let’s guide it in the right direction!
We are all just a bunch of somewhat intelligent monkeys dancing on a “giant” rock flying through space trying to live our best lives.
Life is surprisingly simple, but we have a weird way of constantly overcomplicating it.
I have found that my life always ends up in a better place when I follow specific steps that help consistently correct its direction.
The following steps brought me out of a slump when I almost lost everything. They also helped me elevate my lifestyle when it was already going well.
Either way, pay attention to the common theme here… keep moving forward.
Step 1: Analyze where you are, and why you’re there.
It doesn’t matter if your life is perfect or horrific, regular reflection on where you are and why you’re there is incredibly important.
For example, after being forced to sell both my houses and move back in with my parents, I had to figure out where I screwed up.
I was “further back” in life than I was at the age of 24. A weird feeling, I must admit.
When the pandemic hit us, that same as many others, I was not prepared.
Losing 3 businesses meant that my monthly expenses were far more than I could afford.
And the CERB payments were not nearly enough.
I screwed up by having expenses that were too high and being too invested in an industry that got annihilated. My investments were not diverse enough.
The key is to do a similar analysis every few months so that you can keep course correcting yourself. That helps prevent taking a hit like I did.
For example, let’s say you started a new job, and you love it. You want to keep moving up the corporate ladder, but your current life does not help you do that.
By analyzing where you are, and why you’re there, you can then set goals for yourself to help understand where you want to go.
I’ll explain more in step 2.
Step 2: Set powerful goals
You’ve completed step 1 and you know where you are in life, and you understand why you are in this place.
Next, you want to create some realistic goals so that you can know what direction to head in.
It’s going to be very hard to get to a destination if you don’t know where the destination is.
If we go back to my example of going broke, I had to set new goals.
In 2020, I had the goal of becoming more spiritual while expanding a new restaurant I bought, and my underwear company.
I was trying to increase my investment portfolio, and maybe even open a 2nd restaurant.
Of course, March 2020 came around and my goals made absolutely no sense.
Being back in my parent's house meant setting new goals. The goals I set are what helped me get my life back together.
I knew that I got to where I was because my portfolio was not diverse enough, so my goals had to ensure that I wouldn’t repeat that mistake.
I also knew that I got to where I was because my monthly expenses were too high.
So, my goals also had to reflect lowering my expenses. With lower expenses, I could have more freedom to take risks on businesses in different industries.
You need to set goals in the same way.
Back to the other example - you’re in a job you love, and you want to set goals that help you move up the ladder.
That might include learning more about the industry you’re in outside of work, or even better, networking with those who are at the top of the industry, making friends with the executives, and going to conferences.
You could also set goals for yourself that help turn you into a more productive person so that you are better at work.
Setting a goal of working out consistently and getting good sleep would be a good way of doing that. You’ll have a sharper mind and more energy.
This will definitely reflect in your work.
Great! Now, you’re going to need to make a plan.
Step 3: Make a realistic plan
Goals will only ever stay as words on paper (or in your head) until you create a realistic plan that helps you achieve those goals.
It’s easy to write down some dreams. It’s hard to make those dreams come true.
Back to me going broke again, I needed a plan that would help me make more money, and build myself back up into the kind of person I wanted to be.
In order to make more money at the rate that I needed to, I would need a job that pays steady but has room for growth.
I started working with my old business partner and was able to get steady pay while having room for commissions and bonuses. With this structure, the more time I put in, the more rewards I would get.
Perfect.
I also needed to learn new skills so I could excel in different industries. After all, one of my biggest downfalls was being too focused on the hospitality industry.
So, I made a plan that forced me to learn daily.
I took courses in economics, writing courses and digital media advertising courses. On top of that, I started reading a book a week.
My plan ensured that I would continuously learn.
If you are trying to move up in your career, you will need to do the same thing. Make a plan that helps you achieve your goals.
How much time are you going to spend networking or learning more about your industry?
What conferences are you going to attend?
Eventually, your plan will need to be adjusted again though.
Step 4: Keep readjusting
The more you grow, the less effective your current plan will be. You will have to continuously make tweaks so that you can maximize your results.
As I started to make improvements at work and in my learnings, I realized that my mental bandwidth was placing limitations on me. I had some habits that were affecting me negatively.
Alcohol made my focus poor and ate up a lot of my plans. So, after a few months on my original plan, I cut alcohol so that I could step it up.
A few months later, my focus became a limiting factor again, so, I started changing my diet, started working out more and taking microdoses to help my mental clarity.
And then, I started running out of time.
My schedule was still tuned based on my old drinking habits. Going to bed late, and waking up late. That meant I was wasting about 2 hours a day.
I shifted my schedule to go to bed between 10-11 pm instead of around midnight and started waking up at 6 am.
This resulted in me having 2 hours to focus on learning more before going to work. This worked wonders.
You’re going to have to make similar adjustments in your plan consistently. That is going to require regular reflection and a lot of self-awareness.
That is one of the reasons I recommend meditating. It is so important to be aware of your limitations.
So, maybe as you are attending conferences and networking, but then you hit a plateau. That means it is time to readjust your plan to achieve your big goals.
That could mean you have to find new places to network. There are a lot of good networking groups you can join, or find some meetups, hop on Reddit, etc.
Whatever you are doing, you will have to readjust, and, be incredibly consistent.
Step 5: Be as consistent as possible.
Nothing great happens immediately. All great things require consistent work, some love, and time.
You know what they say…
“Rome wasn’t built in a day”. - Someone Awesome
Habits and actions compound over time. If you become 1% smarter each day, by this time next year you’re going to be pretty damn smart.
If you are working out every day, by this time next year, you’re going to feel and probably look great.
You have got to be consistent and to do that you have to create a great routine that will build healthy habits.
What time will you wake up?
How much will you read every day?
How many cold messages are you going to send a day?
Consistency is going to require discipline though… Do you think you can find the discipline?
If you want your goals bad enough, you will find it in you. If you don’t, well, your actions and results will speak for themselves.
Closing remarks
Our lives have so much potential to be awesome.
We really do ourselves a disservice by being lazy and selling ourselves short. It is quite a shame when you see people settling for so much less than they could have.
If you want to improve your life, you can. It’s all in your hands.
By following these 5 steps, you can make your life exactly what you want it to be.
Thanks for reading.
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