30 Motivational Advice on Taking Action, Especially #3.
If you’re looking to make changes in your life, read these 30 things to start doing on your own.
This unique list was written superbly by Marc and Angel Chernoff, who are the authors of 1000 Small Things Happy Effective People Do Differently. It’ll just take a couple of minutes but it’ll change your life.
30 Items to Start Doing on your own
1. Surround yourself with the best people. It’s important that these people, love and appreciate you, and encourage you to improve in healthy and exciting ways. Those are the ones who cause you to feel more alive, and not just embrace what you are now, but additionally embrace and embody who you need to be, unconditionally.
2. Start facing your problems. It’s not your issues that define you, but how you respond to them and get over them. Problems don’t disappear unless you take action. Do what you can, when you can, and acknowledge what you’ve done. It’s about taking small steps in the right direction, inch by inch. These inches count, they equal to yards and miles over time.
3. Being honest to yourself about everything. Be truthful about what’s right, in addition to what must be changed. Be truthful about what you would like to attain and who you need to become. Be truthful with every facet of your existence, always. Because you’re the one individual you are able to forever rely on. Search your soul, for that truth, so you truly know what you are. When you do, you’ll have a better knowledge of where you stand now, and you will be better be able to recognize where you need to go and the way to make it happen.
4. Start making your personal happiness important. Your needs matter. If you don’t value yourself, consider yourself, and stick up for yourself, you’re just sabotaging yourself. Remember, you’ll have to take proper care of your personal needs before you can take care of people around you. And when your needs are met, you will probably be much more willing and able to help those who require you most.
5. Start being yourself, genuinely and proudly. Trying to be someone else is a total waste of your time. Be genuine. Accept that each person has ideas, strengths and sweetness like nobody else. Be who you to ultimately want to be – the very best form of you – in your terms.
6. Start living in the present. Now is really a miracle. Now is the only moment you can be certain of. So stop thinking about how goals in the long run. Stop dwelling on the past. Learn to stay in the ‘here and now’ and experience existence as it’s happening. Understand the world for that beauty it holds, at this time.
7. Start valuing the training your mistakes gives you. Mistakes are okay. They’re the stepping stones of progress. If you don’t fail every so often, you aren’t trying hard enough and you aren’t learning. Take a risk, stumble, fall, after which get up and try again. Appreciate that you’re pushing yourself, learning, growing and improving. Significant achievements are nearly almost always made only after a long string of failures.
8. Start being more polite to yourself. If you have a friend who speaks to you in the same manner that you sometimes talk to yourself, how long can you allow that individual to become your friend? How you treat yourself sets the tone for how other people treat you. You have to love what you are or nobody else will.
9. Start enjoying what you currently have. The problem with a lot of us is that we believe we’ll be free when we get to a certain point in life. Unfortunately, it takes time to get to this point. On your journey, you’ll most probably change your goal and have a brand new destination in your mind. You’ll end up spending your whole life going after something totally new without ever stopping to savor what you have. So have a quiet moment every day when you first wake up, to understand where you stand and just what you have.
10. Start creating your personal happiness. If you are waiting for another person to help you be happy, you’re really missing out. Smile when you can. Choose happiness. Be happy with what you are now, and allow your positivity inspire your trip into tomorrow. Happiness is frequently found where and when you choose to seek it.
11. Start giving your opinions and dreams a chance. In life, nothing is a sure bet. You’ll never be 100% sure things will work, but you could be 100% sure that not doing anything won’t work. More often than not you just need to do it now! And regardless of how it happens, it always winds up just the way it ought to. Either you succeed or else you learn something. Win-Win.
12. Start believing that you’re ready for the next step. You are ready! You have all you need now to go ahead and take next small, realistic step forward. So embrace the possibilities that cross your path, and accept the difficulties – they’re gifts that will help you grow.
13. Start new relationships for the best reasons. Choose dependable, honest people who reflect who you are and also who the person you need to be. Choose friends you’re proud to understand, people you admire, who demonstrate respect and love – individuals who reciprocate your kindness and commitment. And learn from what people do, because a person’s actions tend to be more important than their words.
14. Start giving new people you meet an chance. It may sound harsh, but you cannot keep every friend you have. People and priorities change. As some relationships fade others will grow. Appreciate the potential of new relationships while you naturally forget about old ones that didn’t work. Embrace new relationships, knowing that you’re getting into unfamiliar territory. Prepare to learn, be prepared for challenging, and expect to meet someone who could improve your life forever.
Konstantin Kaminsky
15. Be in competition with a younger version of yourself. Be inspired by others, appreciate others, but realize that competition with others is pointless. You’re in competition with one person only – yourself. Try to break your very own records.
16. Start cheering for the other people’s victories. Start appreciating what you like about others and let them know. So be happy for people who are making progress. Celebrate his or her victories. Be grateful for his or her success. What goes around comes around and eventually the people you’ve cheered for will start cheering for you.
17. Start looking for the silver lining in every cloud. When times are hard, and you’re feeling down, take a couple of deep breaths and find the silver lining – the little glimmers of hope. Remind yourself that you can grow stronger from all of these tough times. Be mindful of your success and victories – and remember everything in your life that’s going right.
18. Start forgiving yourself and others. We have all been hurt by our own decisions and those of others. When we dwell on bad experiences of the past, that bitter taste gets relived again and again. Forgiveness is the only cure. It doesn’t mean you’re erasing the past, forgetting what happened. It just means you’re releasing the bitterness and instead choosing to gain knowledge from that experience and keep on living.
19. Start helping people around you. Worry about people. The more you help others, the more they will want to return the favor. Love and kindness begets love and kindness.
20. Start listening to your inner voice. Talk about your opinions with people close to you, also leave room for your own intuition. Believe in yourself. Say what you ought to say. Do that which you know inside your heart to be right.
21. Start being mindful of your stress level and take short breaks. Slow down. Breathe. Give yourself permission to take a break, regroup and proceed with clarity and purpose. When you are at your busiest, a short break can refresh your mind and increase your productivity. These short breaks can help you keep your sanity and lets you reflect on your actions so you can be sure they’re consistent with your goals.
22. Start appreciating the small moments. Rather than wait for big events – marriage, kids, big promotion, winning the lottery – find happiness in all the tiny little events that happen every single day. Small things like getting a cup of coffee early in the day, or the warmth of a homemade meal, or the pleasure of discussing something you enjoy with another person, or even holding hands with your partner. Appreciating these small pleasures every day makes a great impact in the quality of your life.
23. Start accepting things when they aren’t perfect. Remember, ‘perfect’ may be the enemy of ‘good.’ Among the greatest challenges for those who wish to improve themselves and the world is the understanding of how to accept things as they are. Sometimes it’s easier to accept and understand the world and individuals as they are, instead of attempting change everything and make everybody aim for a hopeless ideal. No, you shouldn’t live a life of mediocrity, but learn how to love and measure things when they’re not 100% perfect.
24. Start working toward your goals each day. Remember, your journey of 1000 miles starts with a step. Anything you dream of, begin taking small, logical steps every single day to get it done. Choose to make a move! While a lot of us decide sooner or later in our life to answer a calling, only an astute few people really focus on it. By ‘working on it’, I am talking about consistently dedicating yourself towards the final result.
25. Start being more open about your feelings. If you are hurting, take the space and time for you to hurt. Talk about it to your loved ones. Let them know the truth about your feelings. Let them listen. The simple act of getting things off your chest and out in the open is the first step towards feeling good again.
26. Start taking full responsibility for your own life. Take ownership of your mistakes, and be willing to accept steps needed to fix them. Either you are taking responsibility for your life or someone else will. You’re the one who can directly control the outcome of your life. We all have obstacles in life. However, you will need to take responsibility for your life to overcome these obstacles.
27. Start nurturing your most significant relationships. Bring real, honest pleasure to your life and also the lives of people you love by letting them know just how much they mean to you on a regular basis. You cannot be everything to everybody, but you can be something to a few people. Decide who these people are in your life and treat them like royalty. Remember, it’s not important how many friends you have, but the quality of friends you have.
28. Start focusing on what you can control. You cannot change everything, but you can change somethings. Spending your time, talent and emotional energy on stuff that are outside your control is a recipe for frustration, misery and stagnation. Invest your time wisely and in what you can control, then act upon them now.
29. Begin focusing on the potential of positive outcomes. Your brain has to accept it as true before you can start doing the work. The best way to overcome negative thoughts and destructive feelings is to identify opposing positive feelings which are more powerful and much more effective. Pay attention to your own thoughts and replace negative ideas with positive ones. It doesn’t matter how a situation happens, just concentrate on that which you want to occur, and thereafter go ahead and take next positive step.
30. Start realizing how wealthy you’re at this time. Henry David Thoreau once stated, “Wealth is the opportunity to fully experience existence.” Even if times are tough, it’s important that you keep things in perspective. You didn’t fall asleep hungry yesterday. You can choose what clothes to put on today. You didn’t spend one minute living in fear. Some might say you’re incredibly wealthy, so make sure to appreciate everything you have.
(Credit: Marc and Angel)