5 Ways to Reset Your Life Without Starting Over
Udumbara
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Most people don’t need an entirely new life. They just need a reset. The difference between those two paths is less than you might think.
Chances are, your life isn’t as bad as you feel it is. Sure, there are parts you don’t like, but there are also aspects that you’ve worked hard for and wouldn’t want to throw away.
The impulse to start over and blow everything up is natural, but it’s somewhat immature. It comes from the part of you that wants to feel good right now, but isn’t thinking about everything that would be involved.
5 Doable Life Resets
By implementing these resets in your life within the next week, you'll likely begin seeing big changes within a couple more.1. Reset Your Environment
Start by decluttering one room in your house. Ideally, a high-traffic room, such as your kitchen or living room. You want to get the biggest bang for your buck. Especially look for friction points in the room—things that annoy you or slow you down. Stop and think of a solution that might create ease and flow. You’ll find the right balance through experimentation. Decluttering one room is a great place to start because it provides tangible evidence that you can take action to improve your life.2. Reset Your Time Usage
Figure out where your time is actually going. I recommend physically tracking your time on paper for several days in a row. When you’re done, sit with it and look for two things: areas where you are spending way more or way less time than you expected. In the following week, you’ll be tempted to change everything, but concentrate your energy on one decisive win instead. Block out a 30- or 60-minute period each day—ideally early on—to work on your targeted win.3. Reset Your Inputs
We live in times of true information abundance. The problem is not finding interesting or useful things to take in, but rather filtering through it all without overindulging. Just like eating too much healthy food can make you fat, consuming too many books, blogs, posts, and podcasts can leave you intellectually flabby. We need to be “doing” far more than we’re “taking things in.” Take a month to pare back your inputs to a small handful of those you enjoy or benefit from most.4. Reset Your Habits
There are probably a few habits in your life that are pillars—they support everything else. If you can get these habits in order, good vibes and motivation will likely naturally cascade into other areas, without additional effort. For me, getting to bed at a good time—without a phone in hand—and going for a nice walk first thing in the morning are two big habits to settle into place. Figure out which two or three habits can be pillars of well-being in your life, and try to make them stick. Don’t weigh yourself down with any other goals until they are firmly in place.5. Reset Your Health
One of my pet theories of human behavior is that most people are too complacent. When things are good, complacency is not too far off from contentment. However, I’m often surprised by how little people are willing to change when things aren’t going well. They might tweak a few things in their life, but they don’t make big changes that might give them a real breakthrough. I recently made a huge change to my diet, just to see what would happen, and completely changed my baseline energy levels. I’ve seen other friends radically alter their approach to exercise with similar benefits. My advice is to think bigger.If You Only Do One Thing
Like you, I research and read articles, experience a spark of inspiration, but rarely make a change. Information is only useful to you if it improves your life. It doesn’t help if it’s a good idea that only makes you feel better for a minute. In fact, there’s a danger that you’re just “getting by” on these little hits of dopamine, dreaming about a better future. If you want things to change, you have to do something.I gave you five ideas, but you certainly don’t have to do them all at once. If you’re like me and prone to overthinking things or overcomplicating them into inaction, I challenge you to just pick one of the five and focus on that one alone before moving on to the next.
If I could only do one thing, I would either change my diet or drastically change my information consumption. Both choices will probably have me feeling worse for about a week, then unbelievably better. You owe it to yourself to push through that first week to see what life could be like on the other side.
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