We all want the rest of our life to be the best of our life, and one of the ways we can do that is to give a shot at a new start. But the thought of a new start can often times feel daunting. Where do you even start?
Today we’re going to talk about how to make your life new. You’ll get suggestions, but also direction. And as you move into this new chapter in your life, you’ll feel refreshed and hopeful, which will set you up for success!
Make a change
The first thing you will want to think about is changing things up! I’m sure you have your own interests and ideas, but here are some changes to consider that have been known to cause lots of personal growth and quality of life down the road.
Move
One change you could make is to your environment, also known as moving. Now, moving won’t change who you are right off the bat. After all, “wherever you go, there you are”. That being said, it will require you to change over time. You will have to adapt to your new environment, and at least in the short term, will need to be more adaptable.
A new place will knock you out of your routine, and it will come with new opportunities. You will need to find a new favorite coffee shop or hangout place, assuming you move far enough away. You will be surrounded by new people and geography. And while it won’t happen overnight, you’ll get a new perspective on your old life. Especially if you make new memories.
Minimalism
A change that improved my outlook on life greatly a few years back was considering minimalism. We’ve discussed it at length on this site, so if you want to hear more about my story from slob to neat, start here. And if you’re looking to hear more about minimalism itself, check out this post.
But what minimalism (or even just the consideration of it) can do for you is multifaceted. First, as you start going through your possessions, you realize just how much of your past you’ve been holding onto. There’s something very psychological about creating clutter, and it happens slowly. You start to realize that maybe you haven’t processed this that or the other. And it can be a little overwhelming in the beginning, but as you begin to let things go (or consciously decide to keep other things), you start to come more fully into the now, and align more precisely with who you are (and want to become).
Subsequently, you start to realize your true priorities. You start to hold yourself accountable for how you spend your time, money, energy and space. Once you realize how much has been weighing you down, you begin to realize the things that have been breathing life into you. This gives you more emotional room to live, on top of the last and most obvious effect, which is the spatial aspect.
As you declutter and don’t replace with a bunch of stuff, your space becomes more open. You will physically have more space to live. This tends to also have a positive psychological effect on people. You don’t feel so boxed in. Not to mention, it’s easier to keep your home clean because there isn’t much to pick up. This physical openness helps you feel lighter and more at ease, and for many there is a side effect of spending more time on activities outside of the home, as you make the psychological switch from “it’s me and my stuff” to “life is expansive”. Ultimately, embracing more of a minimalist lifestyle is a great way to kickstart a new chapter of your life.
Veganism
Many people have heard of veganism and recognize it as “a good thing to do”, whether that is for ethical, environmental, or health reasons. That being said, a lot of people also feel like it’s something they “couldn’t do”.
There are many regular people who go vegan successfully, and you could certainly be one! It is important to do the things in life that we think are important, kind and responsible. If this is how you feel about veganism, I’d encourage you to give it a try. When you ask long term vegans about their regrets regarding veganism, the most common regret cited is that they didn’t do it earlier.
If you’re looking for emotional, social or lifestyle sustainability tips regarding veganism, check out eightyearsin.com, where there are all sorts of helpful discussions about this important topic!
Meditation
Maybe you want to make all sorts of changes in your life, due to dissatisfaction or frustration, but you find yourself stuck. Everything just seems too scary or difficult or pointless. If this is you, meditation might just be the habit you’re looking for to get you out of the slump.
Meditation can help calm your mind, and even your body, when done with regularity. It can help you take things as they come instead of worrying about what might come in the future, and think things through more rationally when they do come.
There are many approaches to meditation that you can take, and I would recommend looking around to find one that suits you. Here’s a good one for beginners, if you’re interested. And if you feel that meditation isn’t for you, you may instead want to try mindfulness, which has a lot of similar benefits.
Exercise/Gym
While it’s true that many people who start an exercise regimen quit, those who do not enjoy a whole host of improvements.
For instance, regular exercise has been shown to give the individual better sleep, better overall health, less aches and pains, and less mood swings. Not to mention that if you are undertaking a body sculpting endeavor, seeing your new physique can give you a little self-image boost as well.
The fact is, while I never thought of myself as an athletic person, when I started moving my body I realized you don’t have to be an athlete to get these benefits. When you find a source of movement that you don’t hate, you feel physically better! So try new, active things. Yoga, swimming, hiking, dancing, lifting weights. You may be surprised what you end up liking if you give it a fair try.
Learn a language
This is one that may give you a knee-jerk response of “not for me”, which is fair, but bear with me for a moment. Many people think that learning a new language is too hard. But the real issue that they run into has nothing to do with difficulty. The truth is, the biggest barrier to language learning is exposure. The higher your exposure is to a language, the greater degree of success you will have in learning it.
Children learn their native language solely through exposure, but as an adult, we have shortcuts. We understand how the grammar works for one language already, and we can use that to make connections. So instead of learning from scratch what it means to talk about “them”, as in those people over there, you can just connect it to a concept you’re already familiar with. In this way, an adult can learn a language faster than a child naturally does.
But it’s because of these shortcuts that we tend to forget about the superpower of exposure. Exposure helps us passively make connections in our brain about how the patterns of this new language works. This makes us more naturally proficient. The other thing that exposure does, however, is it makes the new input more important. Your brain starts looking out for it and prioritizing it, making you more likely to remember words when they come up and able to use them when you need them.
So take a look at this post for why you should learn a new language. It truly opens up a new world for you, which is perfect for those who are looking for a new start in life. But remember, the true new start is when you introduce boatloads of exposure into your current life.
Meet/make friends
A part that is lacking in the lives of many nowadays is socializing. Sure, we have social media that keeps us informationally connected, so we know that our fifth grade best friend got married and has a dog now, but how often do we really get together with people? How many of us can really say we have active friendships?
If you do have friends that you can see, start seeing them regularly! Invite them over for dinner or go out and have a new adventure. Show up for their lives and invite them to show up for yours. It’s easy to say “life gets busy” and move on but it’s harder to deal with the real fears of rejection or judgement that come with opening up to others. Ultimately though, the science is clear. The consequences of loneliness are getting to our modern society.
For those of us without friends (or perhaps without friends close by) it is our task to open ourselves to new connections. Go out into the world. Join groups, show up at events. And when you do, say hi. Talk to people. The only way to know people is to meet them somehow, after all. Being more open to people is a skill that takes practice, but as you get more comfortable with it you will find that other people are really not that different than you. If you do something embarrassing, they probably can relate. Humans are human, that’s the great thing.
So get out there! Make memories and connect with people. Your life will become more vibrant and more healthy as a result. You won’t suffer as much FOMO and you will find yourself included, because you began including others first.
Read a self-help book
A wonderful part of living in modern society is that there is so much information out there. If you have a problem, someone has likely written a book about it. And you should read that book!
Being open to self-improvement can open many doors for you in life, not to mention a totally new outlook on yourself and the world around you. Go online or to your local library and start choosing titles that grab you. Even if the book doesn’t completely change your life, many will give you at least some food for thought. And some are truly gems!
Pick up a new hobby
We tend to underestimate how much our free time can set the tone for the rest of our lives. Trying new things for fun can help you stay inspired and motivated in everything you do, whether you are working, playing, or simply running errands.
The truth is, humans are creatures of habit. And we are this way because our brains are constantly trying to keep us doing what we know hasn’t killed us in the past. The problem is, even a creature of habit needs a bit of novelty now and then. If you’re stuck in a rut, you understand. Being chronically and existentially bored can do terrible things for your brain. You can start to even feel depressed because nothing is lighting you up inside.
That’s why it’s important to do things that challenge you, or maybe even are a little bit silly. It helps lighten things up and makes you a more well-rounded, well-adjusted person. It knocks you out of your scrolling and gets you up and doing something. This gives you more experiences and memories and keeps your life fresh and off of autopilot, which can steal years from you. It also helps you not dwell too much in your past, simply by diverting your focus onto the many interesting things that are happening in your own life!
So learn to make sourdough bread or grow houseplants or do your own nails. Start a podcast or write a book or become an expert in something obscure. It’ll mix things up and put you in a completely different headspace.
Reflection
All that being said, getting a new start in life isn’t always about going on the offense and making changes willy-nilly. Often times, it involves more self-reflection than that. Especially if we’re just feeling a vague sense of “stuckness”.
If you know you want something more for yourself but don’t know what that would be, you’re not alone. Here are some questions to help navigate that.
What do you regret?
A good rule of thumb in life is to first, sniff out what you regret. What things do you remember that you said or did that just make you cringe? This is a good line of thought, because it shows that you have already started to grow as a person.
All you need, once you have figured out your regrets, is to curate a way forward for yourself that will carry you away from that kind of behavior or thought in the future. If you’ve done things wrong, strive to do what you can to make them right. But barring that, the only way forward is, well, forward!
What have you always admired but not been/done?
One of the most precious things that we have access to in this life is admiration and inspiration. If you are a little more inclined toward the negative, you may feel it more as jealousy. Either way, wonderful things happen when we focus that idea for ourselves, instead of focusing on what others have.
What I mean is, if you admire something about someone, you could very likely do it, become it, or have it for yourself. And if you are jealous of what someone has, it would do you well to remember that the problem is not really that they have that thing, but that you feel that you can’t have it. Focus not on taking it from them, but on getting your own!
Once we get in line with what we want in life, what we’re really doing is prioritizing. And prioritizing is, in some ways, the magic key that puts everything together.
What is your biggest fear in life?
They say that there are fewer things more motivating than a cautionary tale. I’ve found that the cautionary tale doesn’t have to be a real person. I’ve also found that there is one constructive use for fear and negativity, and that is to use your negative imagination to come up with the most chilling fantasy of how you could let your life turn out. No, we’re not talking about things that could happen to you, but rather, how you could become.
What would really be the most unfortunate version of you that you can think of? What fills you so much with cringe and fear that it lights your fire? Sometimes our own judgement is the best way to gauge what track we need to be on in life.
What makes your life harder?
If you’re more prone to analytical thinking, try contemplating what is it that is making your life more difficult than it has to be. What skills or character traits are you missing that could further your existence in a valuable way?
You can do this over time, by writing down instances during your day to day life where you feel uncomfortable, challenged, or out of your depth. And then, from these curated moments, you can figure out what might help revolutionize your life. But it isn’t just negativity that can give you an edge, either.
How do you want to help others?
Another (opposite) perspective to think about getting a new start is to look around you and ask where you can fill a need. If you have skills and emotional bandwidth to be a great help to others, it is a very rewarding thing. Not to mention, you will be doing the world a great service!
What do you hope your legacy will be?
And finally, although it is the most open-ended question, you may get immense value out of asking yourself what you want your legacy to be. (If this idea intrigues you, take a look at this past post about legacy. It can be quite overwhelming to think about at first, especially since there are endless things that could be included in your list. However, they say the unexamined life is not worth living.
When you start to pattern your life based on what you want your legacy to be, you’re moving with intention, and that is one of the biggest superpowers in this world.
A good way to start is by distilling your legacy down into values and characteristics, and then building up from there, instead of thinking about the endless “good things” that you could or should be doing. For example, you may want to be thought of as kind. Then you can brainstorm how to show others kindness.
Thank you for reading my thoughts! I hope that they help you with your new start in life, and that they gave you some food for thought about where life could take you. Be sure to subscribe to the blog for more life discussions, and share this post with someone you think could use the information. Let us know in the comments, what kind of life are you looking to live?
