Whether an issue concerning employment, dating status, time of year or some other factor has you wanting to make some big life changes, you’re in luck! Instead of dwelling on an unpleasant past, you can start fresh today in order to create a happy present and future. Jeffrey R. Holland has said that “every day ought to be the start of a new year and a new life.” Whether you’re looking to physically, financially, socially or emotionally redesign your life, here are a few tips and tricks to help you on your course.
Physically Redesigning Your Life
Upgrading Your Body and Health
Through healthy eating and regular physical activity, you can redefine your health, look and self-esteem. While decreasing your risks of developing conditions like obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, you can burn fat and reveal a whole new you. Although watching your calories and exercising more may not feel easy, redesigning your own body is one of the most straight-forward ways to actually help you feel different and more positive about life.
Revamping Your Living Spaces
If you’re stuck in a rut, a cluttered home that features the same furniture layout and artwork designs for the last twenty years may be contributing to your sense of lifelessness and static. If the budget is tight, you can make changes by simply rearranging your furniture rather than buying new pieces. You can also go through the house and finally throw away, or give away, all the useless items you’ve been hanging onto just in case. If you have a specific source of frustration, like a crowded bathroom or not enough cupboard space in the kitchen, look for DIY tutorials that offer useful directions on how to create cheap but useful organizational solutions.
Financially Redesigning Your Life
Improving Your Work Opportunities
If you don’t like the job you have but feel unqualified to seek out better alternatives, maybe it’s time to go back to school or get some other kind of training and certification. It can be scary to quit what you’re doing and simply hope for the best so minimize your risks by continuing to work while you take part-time classes, for example. Determine if you can qualify for any sort of grants or scholarships to help you pay for the kind of education that will help you to increase your work opportunities.
Repairing Your Debt Situation
If your expenses exceed your income, and particularly if you’ve been living like that for some time, you’ve got a real problem on your hands. Debt is a haunting matter, which has been described by J. Reuben Clark Jr. in this way:
Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.
If you’ve been living outside of your means, reevaluate your purchasing habits and create a budget that you can stick to. Put aside money each paycheck so you can effectively repay your debt and get out of such bondage. Work with a financial advisor, as needed, in order to determine how you can best recover your financial health.
Socially Redesigning Your Life
Rebuilding Your Social Life
If you’ve recently ended a long-standing relationship and feel overwhelmed by the thought of getting back into the game, you may be unsure on how to go about revitalizing your social life. Even if you’re not the type to energetically float from party to party, you can still meet new people and make new friends through simple means such as signing up for a new yoga class, a group cooking lesson or even a craft class. Join different clubs, try out new hobbies and venture over to new hang-out scenes in your neighborhood.
Improving Your Current Relations
Even when you already have a core group of friends that you generally enjoy spending time with, you can still find yourself dissatisfied by the weekly routine the group has come to adopt. If you want a break from the same-old, same-old traditions, redesign your social interactions by encouraging the group to try eating at new restaurants, engaging in different activities and inviting new acquaintances to join in on the fun.
Emotionally Redesigning Your Life
Rehabilitating Your Outlook on Learning Opportunities
Whether you’re nursing emotional pains from losing your job, having a fight with a loved one, feeling depressed about your health or any other topic, emotional distress can place a serious burden on your physical and mental well-being. Even though it can be difficult to see the good in the world when you’re going through a hard time, you can revamp your line of thinking in order to always be thankful and positive.
Joseph B. Wirthlin’s mom used to tell him, “Come what may, and love it.” Upon reflecting on her words, he pondered: “How can we love days that are filled with sorrow? We can’t—at least not in the moment. I don’t think my mother was suggesting that we suppress discouragement or deny the reality of pain. I don’t think she was suggesting that we smother unpleasant truths beneath a cloak of pretended happiness. But I do believe that the way we react to adversity can be a major factor in how happy and successful we can be in life. If we approach adversities wisely, our hardest times can be times of greatest growth, which in turn can lead toward times of greatest happiness.”
Restoring Your Spirituality
If you’ve lost your trust in a higher power than yourself, you may feel listless and in need of something to change. Restoring your faith and implementing daily religious practices including prayer, pondering and scripture study may be enough to provide you with the all the changes in life that you desire. Even if externally your circumstances don’t drastically become different, internally your emotional and mental power to handle your situation can dramatically increase.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
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