How to change your life: Application Guide by Leo Babauta

You will never change your life until you change something you are doing on a daily basis.

Mike Murdock

Start with a simple question: What do you want your life was?

Would you like to become a writer, musician, designer, programmer, polyglot, a carpenter, an artist that draws a manga-style, an entrepreneur or an expert in any field?

How do you plan to achieve this? Do you want to write your wishes on a piece of paper, put it in a bottle and throw it into the sea in the hope that they will be fulfilled? Alas, the universe will do the work for you. You will have to take up their lives with their own hands.

Have you set yourself a big and significant goal to be achieved by the end of the year or in the next three months? In this work does not end. Probably because of their life experiences you have already understood that the establishment of long-term goals does not always work. How often such a strategy leads you to achieve this goal?

On the basis of its 7 years of experience, during which I have carried out various experiments, I managed to bring law: "

Nothing will change until you start the daily changes».

I tried to come to a system with weekly changes to things that must be done in a day, a large monthly purposes and many other variations on the theme. None of it worked, except for daily changes.

If you do not want to change their daily life, then you and generally do not want it to change the planned route. You just like the idea of ​​learning to draw / talk in Japanese / play guitar / programming and so on. But in fact, you do not want to do anything.

Take the same of yourself and begin to change your life every day. Let us know how it's done!

How to send your good desire to track daily changes

For clarity, we list several objectives:

• grow thin
• to write a book
• win your own procrastination
• fall in love
• to be happy
• travelling aroun the world
• drink more water
• learn Spanish
• learn how to save money
• do photos
• read more books

How, then convert these ultimate goals in daily changes? Think about the daily activities would help you to move and be closer to your goal? Sometimes the detail is not easy. Therefore, I suggest, for clarity, some examples:

Lose weight. Start walking every day. First, for 10 minutes. A week later - on 15. Then, 20... One day, when you walk 30-40 minutes a day, make a new change - start to drink water instead of soda and soda.

To write a book. Write for 10 minutes a day.

Conquer procrastination. Each morning find the most important task for the day and work on it 10 minutes before you go to grab the browser or mobile.

Fall in love. Go somewhere every day and meet new people. Or working day after the day of working to become a fascinating man.

To be happy. Follow every day things that help make the world a better place, helping people.

Travelling aroun the world. Start saving money (see. next paragraph). Or start selling their stuff as long as all your belongings do not fit in a backpack. Then hitchhiker.

To save money. Start gradually reduce your costs. Start with having to take the habit of eating and cooking at home. Sell ​​the car and start to walk, ride a bike or train. Find a smaller house (adapted version for Russia -, remove the smaller apartment). Instead of buying things and services to be engaged in those that do not will fly you a pretty penny.

Drink more water. Drink water when waking up, and then every hour when doing a break (about once per hour).

Learn Spanish. Teach offers Spanish using c program Anki and listen for 10 minutes a day training record in Spanish (for example, there are free lessons here).

Make more pictures. Take pictures during your lunch break (but not what you eat) and publish them to your blog.

Read more books. Read every morning and before you go to bed.

So, you get the idea. Not all of the above examples are ideal, but you can always come up with something that works better for you. The point is to do it every day.

How to implement the daily changes?

This method is very simple to implement and, if you'll just follow him, he will lead you to the result:

1. One change at a time. You can break this rule, but do not be surprised if in the end failed. Work on one thing in the last month before adding another change. Add new change only if successfully coped with the first.

2. Start with small changes. I've already said a thousand times about this, and yet, no one remembers it. Start with 10 minutes a day or even less. If the change is difficult for you, better start with 5 minutes. If you can not, and with 5 minutes, reduce the interval to two.

3. Follow the steps for instilling new habits in the same time. Of course, not literally the same moment at exactly 6 am, but when the same trigger in your daily life: once you drank first a cup of coffee in the morning, immediately after arriving at work, after returning home, after brushing your teeth, taking a shower, breakfast, waking, lunch or inclusion computer.

4. Share your intentions with someone. Better with a few people. Make sure that these are the people whose opinions you respect. For example, I made a commitment to my friend to learn PHP Tynan every 10 minutes a day. I assumed this obligation also to my wife, the readers of my blog, my children and many others.

5. Be responsible. Every day I fill Google-table data as how many minutes I have been doing every day (talking about the new things that you try to bring into your life). For example, as programmed. And access to this document there with my friend, which I wrote above. He controls me. A tool that you use to maintain internal discipline does not matter - it can be posts in Twitter, Facebook or personal account to the person who helps you. You must be sure that your partner controls you every day and every month. If he does not, then find another person who agrees to help you.

6. Install a punishment or a reward depending on the result. The most important motivation for doing that esliv failed to instill in themselves a useful habit, people will respect you less, and if you were able to - it will respect you more. If your accounting system is not configured in this way, you will have to find a new way to make it work. You may have to change the partner who helps you. You can also add your performance of daily tasks bit of fun. I promised to eat sushi from China, if not meet expectations for yourself daily changes (I have them Run, because to eat a whale to me tantamount to eat a cow or a child, that is, impossible). In another case, I promised that sing a song in front of strangers in Japanese, if you suddenly fail. Make the consequences for themselves unbearable, if you miss two days is simply impossible, if you missed three days. You can establish yourself and reward, if you suddenly do not miss a single day during the week.

7. Enjoy the change. If the performance of the new daily action you feel tired, or execution of these actions for you something like the routine, then you are doing something wrong. Find a way to get pleasure from these actions, or eventually you will leave this venture. Or, find other things, whose appearance in your life carries more weight for you.

That's all. Follow these 7 simple steps and your life will change. Each of these steps execute. You can start changing your life today.

And what have you done today to change your life?

A year later, you will be sorry that did not take effect today.
Karen Lamb