Whether you want to look great in a bathing suit, stop feeling so tired/stressed/anxious all the time, or live a more prosperous, happy, balanced, healthy and more fulfilling life, here’s “the secret” of the world’s healthiest, happiest, most successful people:
They choose to take action while others sit back and watch.
If you really want something to change in your life, just start. Not next week. Not tomorrow
Right freakin‘ now.
Because those tiny, seemingly insignificant steps every day will compound into great accomplishments over time.
For years I thought I had to wait until I was “ready.” To start working out … eat better … finally launch the business I dreamed about.
Then I said, “Screw it, I’m just gonna start.”
My life has changed in ways I couldn’t even imagine as a result.
Yours will too, if you stop waiting/wishing/hoping and just start.
Change is inevitable … so embrace it.
Most people accept their fate and blame circumstance for their misfortunes. They play it safe and never question the status quo. They live a life of fear disguised as comfort. They’re “busy,” yet can never seem to find time for themselves.
Others make the time. They do whatever they can, within their bodily limits, to make themselves better.
Because they know it’s an investment in themselves.
And as a result, they create the life they want.
You will go through some really tough stuff along the way.
Life is hard, there’s no doubt about it, as most of us have experienced the past couple years.
Without the darkness, there is no light.
But I’m here to tell you I’m walking proof that all the adversity you will go through in life only makes you stronger and better prepared for this moment.
You have to take those first couple steps though.
They’re the hardest but also the most important.
Your life is a blank canvas.
And your success largely depends on how you choose to see things.
Study after study proves that your mindset can have a dramatic impact on whether or not you accomplish your goals in life.
If you’re struggling with something, do these five things and I guarantee things will get better for you:
Step 1: Take a baby step
Take things one step at a time. If you’re trying to lose weight, for example, start with just a couple minutes of exercise every day. Small steps are what lead to big successes. Here are some small things you can do today:
- Cook a healthy breakfast.
- Do yoga for at least 10 minutes.
- Take a 5-minute stretching or walking break every hour.
- Read one inspirational article today.
- Record what you eat in your food diary.
- Look for healthy recipe for dinner.
Step 2: Write it down
If you don’t already have a journal or planner, drop what you’re doing and go get one. They’re that important. Use it to capture your thoughts, plan your day, and track your goals. Here’s what I do every day, as an example:
- At the start of every day I write a positive quote at the top of my daily planner (today’s quote is “Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it”).
- Next, I write down everything I plan to do over the course of the day to accomplish my goals (for example, “Write new blog post, network with 3 people, lift weights for 45 minutes, find recipe for healthy dinner”).
- Then, I evaluate what I accomplished at the end of each day in these four categories:
- Mental: What did I learn today? How did I challenge my mind? What did you read, write, or listen to that expanded your mental capacity and got you closer to your goals today?
- Emotional: Who did I choose to spend my time with and what did I do? Did I take time to mindfully engage in happy, positive experiences with friends and family?
- Physical: Did I exercise and eat healthy today and take care of my body? How so?
- Spiritual: Did I take time to breath, give thanks, and stop to connect with the world around me?
This strategy will help you manage your time better and increase your self-confidence and healthy habits over time.
Step 3: Get support
Friends and family can help encourage you, increase your accountability, and help you cope with setbacks. That’s why social support is so crucial to overcoming any obstacle in your life. Find a friend or family member who lives a healthy lifestyle, and have the courage to ask for their help. You’ll be happy you did.
Step 4: Visualize your results
Visualization is a powerful tool that can drastically enhance your level of self-efficacy. In the book The Social Animal, author David Brooks says your subconscious mind processes up to 200,000 times more information than your conscious mind. Spend 5 minutes each day visualizing both the journey and the end result you seek. Forming a mental picture of yourself taking the steps required to reach your goal creates a lasting image in your brain that your subconscious will bring to reality.
Step 5: Do things that make you laugh and smile every day
Create experiences every day that make you happy. Spend time with people you love. Keep an uplifting book by your bedside for words of encouragement before you go to sleep or when you first wake up. Take a walk outside with your significant other. Experiences are infinitely more valuable than things.
Dream big but start small. Focus on your mindset first and you will open doors to anything and everything you want to accomplish in life.
Bonus: Here are 40 of My Favorite Inspirational Quotes
- “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” -Aristotle Onassis
- “All our dreams can come true–if we have the courage to pursue them.” -Walt Disney
- “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart. -Helen Keller
- “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” -Napoleon Hill
- “If you can dream it, you can achieve it.” -Zig Ziglar
- “Everyone has inside them a piece of good news. The good news is you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is.” – Anne Frank
- It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” -Abraham Lincoln
- “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” -Tony Robbins
- “Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.” -Charles Swindoll
- “I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.” -Audrey Hepburn
- “When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” -Harriet Beecher Stowe
- “You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality in the mind next to honor “ -Aristotle
- “There are moments when troubles enter our lives and we can do nothing to avoid them. But they are there for a reason. Only when we have overcome them will we understand why they were there.” -Paulo Coelho
- “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” -Buddha
- “If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.” -Oprah Winfrey
- “The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it.” -Chinese Proverb
- “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” -Albert Einstein
- “First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.” -Aristotle
- “The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- “Every day I will renew my commitment and think about the benefits that come from it.” -John Maxwell
- “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” -Bruce Lee
- “People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time–even when hard at work.” -Marcus Aurelius
- “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be”. -Lao Tzu
- “”In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.” -Tony Robbins
- “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” -Helen Keller
- “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.” -Henry David Thoreau
- “If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.” -Micheal Jordan
- “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” -Stephen Covey
- “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” -John Lennon
- “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.“ -Friedrich Nietzsche
- “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” -Steve Jobs
- “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt
- “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” -Vince Lombardi
- “Somehow I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C s. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.” -Walt Disney
- “If you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable.” -Marcus Aurelius
- “I am thankful for all of those who said NO to me. Its because of them I’m doing it myself.” -Albert Einstein
- “He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.“ -William James
- “The best revenge is massive success.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” -Robert Frost