It’s no secret that we all go through peaks and valleys in life, but what do you do when you get stuck in the dip?
I’ve spent the past decade looking for the answer, and today, I’m sharing what I’ve learned with you.
If you want to “turn your life around” or “get your life together”, there are a few things you need to know first.
1) There’s no timeline. Even though I’ve noticed a difference in myself today compared to one year ago, there’s always room for improvement. There’s also always room for taking your time and going at your own pace.
2) Life will take you everywhere and anywhere. Just because you get back on track today, doesn’t mean you’ll stay that way forever. It’s normal to fluctuate.
Now that we’ve covered that, let’s get into what I started doing to completely transform my life.
I’ve broken this down into three main sections to make it easy for you. If I had this list a year ago, it would have saved me a lot of trial and error.
Each section represents an area of life you’ll need to focus on to turn your life around. Your health, your "why", and your relationship with yourself.
Your Health
We’re starting this off with a common saying you’ve probably heard before - health is wealth.
I’ll be frank, I’m pretty young - but I’m not that young. I’m at that age where you can tell you aren’t as athletic as you were when you were 17. And I’m vastly aware that’s due to my life taking me in a different direction.
At 17, I was playing sports in high school and eating with no perspective of consequence.
A year ago, I noticed my knee felt strange on my morning walk. I was exhausted after a fairly normal hike.
A year ago, I realized something needed to change. In order to continue living a healthy and happy life, I needed to take control of my health.
For me, that looked like meal prepping, prioritizing daily movement, and implementing achievable (yet still challenging) metrics to track my progress.
So, step one to turning your life around is to gain control over your health. Learn what your body likes…and what it doesn’t. Learn what healthy recipes you love…and the ones you’d happily never have again.
Take time to truly understand what health looks like on you, because it really does look different on everyone.
Once you have that understanding, start implementing habits into your day-to-day routine that support your health goals. I started meal prepping, and that made all the difference.
On top of that, I’ve set daily step goals to hold myself accountable. 10,000 steps a day sounds hard, but through daily walks (and a treadmill under my work desk), I can make it happen.
Learn how to make it happen for yourself.
Your Why
The next stage of turning your life around involves your ambitions and your “why”. Think big picture - what do you want to do with your life? Your career? Your time?
Let’s define ambition before we go any further. According to good ol’ Google, ambition is “a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.”
And your “why” is what motivates you to keep going. Maybe that’s family, a goal you have, or your ambition to achieve something great.
After I graduated high school, I went and got my real estate license almost immediately. I spent the next two years putting myself through college by selling real estate on the side. My “why” at the time was to graduate with no debt.
After I graduated college, I continued practicing real estate as a filler. I started looking into starting my own business online, and that then became my priority. My “why” at the time was to grow my business into something I could do full-time, without needing supplemental income.
Your “why” is going to change, it’s normal for that to happen. We go through different phases of life that impact what we want to do - what we want to achieve.
So, how does figuring out your “why” help you to turn your life around?
When you know your “why” in life, you stop looking at tasks or objectives at a surface level.
I’ve found that this really makes a difference when you’re faced with something you don’t want to do.
If my “why” is my desire to build generational wealth for my future family, chances are it will outweigh anything I put it up against.
Procrastinating starting your work in the morning? Think of your why.
Want to quit after your idea didn’t work? Think of your why.
Let your “why” be the reason you keep going, that’s how it will help you turn your life around.
Your Relationship with Yourself
Last but not least, the third area you need to focus on to turn your life around is your relationship with yourself.
I spent years working against myself and never with myself. To this day, it’s what I regret most about my life.
When you don’t have a good relationship with yourself, it’s easy to feel defeated - it’s easy to get stuck in a slump. Negative thoughts and emotions command your attention, and it’s not a simple fix.
I’ve spent the past year learning to build a relationship with myself. For me, that might look like going on a solo date or maybe something like spending intentional time with myself while out on a walk.
Daily or weekly self-care practices are also so important to include in your life, and I’ve found that they really changed the way I viewed myself. Not physically, but emotionally.
I started to feel more compassionate and patient with myself. If I missed a workout or went past a deadline, it was no longer this dramatic experience that I would beat myself up about.
Having a relationship with myself allowed me to live life a little lighter, and it played a big role in turning my life back around.
When you learn to truly care about yourself, it becomes hard for you to watch yourself in a slump. You feel motivated to get yourself out of it.
I think it’s so important that we build this commitment to ourselves since after all, we’ll spend quite a bit of time alone throughout our lives.
By focusing on those three areas of my life, I was able to really turn my life around in one year. While there’s always room to grow, progress is something to be celebrated.
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