14 LIFE CHANGING TIPS FOR RESETTING YOUR LIFE
Do you feel like you’re just constantly going through your life on autopilot? Resetting your life can be the perfect way to change and improve the way you live.
It can be the perfect avenue for starting fresh and reigniting our passion, determination, and drive.
For the past two years, I felt like I was stuck in this constant cycle of self-sabotage. My mental and emotional health was struggling.
Every day felt like I was just constantly living my life on auto-pilot. I used to be so driven and passionate about things but now, every time I look at myself in front of the mirror, I feel like that person no longer exists.
I was burned out. I was feeling overwhelmed with everything that has been going through in my life and instead of facing it and taking charge, I chose to run away from what I was really feeling.
But in the end, those feelings eventually caught up with me and I knew that I can no longer keep doing the same things over and over in my life and expect different results.
Time is fleeting and life is by far too precious to waste every moment of our lives feeling stuck, unhappy, and just living it on auto-pilot. I knew that if I wanted to improve my life, I needed to be willing to make a big change in how I was living. I needed to reset my life.
But what does resetting your life even mean?
Resetting your life can mean different things to each of us but ultimately, it is about facing and finally accepting the reality that change needs to happen and having the courage and strength to do the things necessary to improve our overall well-being and quality of our lives.
In this post, I will be sharing with you the steps I took that have tremendously helped me reset my life and start over.
These steps have not only helped drastically improve my life but also made the change and transition less overwhelming and scary.
I’m hoping that these will help you on your journey too!
How To Reset Your Life
1. Allow Yourself Some Time To Sit And Reflect
Before anything else, the first thing that you have to do to start resetting your life is to give yourself the chance to really sit down and reflect on all aspects of your life.
Taking this step can be difficult for others, like me. I was always so used to running away from everything. My feelings, my problems, instead of facing them head-on.
It was always like I was living in this giant bubble of denial, just pretending that I was okay, that my life was great, and that I was happy.
While I was navigating this change, I learned that the main things that you can do to make this step easier are acceptance, forgiveness, and taking responsibility.
In order for you to change and reset your life, you have to accept that there are areas in your life that you really want to change.
There are areas and parts of your life that are no longer making you happy and are only dragging you down.
And instead of blaming others for them and beating yourself up, the best thing that you can do is to forgive others and most especially forgive yourself. Give yourself compassion and grace.
Know that everyone makes mistakes. Everybody fails and the best thing that we can do is to take accountability for our actions and know that we can still change and improve ourselves and our life.
Also, take this opportunity to envision the life that you want. Where do you want to see yourself in the near future?
Be prepared to ask yourself the hard questions and answer them honestly.
2. Make A Solid Plan And Revisit Your Goals
After taking some time to reevaluate all areas of your life and figuring out what aspects you need to change, the next thing that you can do is create a plan.
Write down all your goals and it’s best to be really clear and specific about them.
After writing your goals, I’ve learned that one of the best ways to boost your motivation and help you be consistent with your efforts is to also write down your “why” beside each goal.
Knowing your why will make it a whole lot easier for you to be consistent with your efforts, especially on days when you feel low and unmotivated.
Every time you feel like giving up or just going back to your old patterns, read your “why”, doing this will give you the boost of determination and motivation that you need to do to keep going.
3. Create Actionable And Realistic Steps To Help You Achieve Your Goals
Now that you have a solid plan, the next step to reset your life is to create manageable steps that’ll help you achieve your goals and make your plans a reality.
This step was definitely overwhelming for me. Every time I look at my to-do list while I was struggling was a bit too much.
There were days when I felt like I was paralyzed by the stress, pressure, and everything that was happening in my life.
If you sometimes feel that way too, I’ve learned that the best thing to do to lessen the feeling of overwhelm is to create a to-do list that is perfect for you.
If you feel like doing a lot of things all at once can easily overwhelm you, the best thing to do is to break down your goals into smaller and more manageable tasks.
This will make things seem less overwhelming and a lot more bearable, especially on days when you feel so down.
4. Change Your Routine
Changing your routine can be a great way to shake up your life, especially if you are feeling stuck and low from the monotony of everyday life.
This step has been greatly beneficial in resetting my life. It helped me get out of the low motivation that I was feeling and it made me excited and more driven in improving my life.
When you’re making this change, I’ve learned that it’s important to start small. Change one routine at a time. Doing this will make it less overwhelming and so much easier for you to actually stick with it.
5. Let Go Of Toxic Habits
Another important part of resetting your life is letting go of the things that are only dragging you down and are harming your overall well-being.
You can’t reboot your life and improve it if you are still holding on to the same habits that were keeping you unhappy and stressed.
Identify what those habits are and, in this process, it’s important to be honest with yourself about your habits and instead of beating yourself up for holding on to them, be kind to yourself and remind yourself that it’s never too late to start over and improve your life for the better.
What I also learned while I was in the process of letting go of these habits is it’s very important to also understand why you were clinging to these habits in the first place.
What were the things that trigger these behaviors? Understanding the reason behind our toxic habit will make it easier for us to actually address emotion and the real problem behind it.
6. Practice Daily Gratitude
There’s no denying that if we are struggling in life, being grateful is probably the last thing on our minds.
If we are feeling stuck and unhappy, finding something to be grateful for may seem impossible.
I was guilty of this too, before I even decided to restart my life, I was going through struggles and tough times, I was being hit by one problem after another, and being grateful for anything was definitely not even on my mind.
I became bitter and angry. I didn’t realize that by choosing to only focus on the negative things that were happening in my life, I was actually robbing myself of the chance to be happy and to see the small good things that were happening to me.
I got so caught up in the negativity that I forgot to appreciate the good things that were still coming my way.
I know how tempting it is to just focus on the bad and forget about the good, especially if you are struggling, but let me tell you, doing this will not do you any good.
It didn’t help me in any way. It actually just made things worse for me. It made me irritable and it just made me feel hopeless.
When you’re in the process of restarting your life, take some time to appreciate all the good things that happened in your life. Big and small, acknowledge them.
And don’t forget to take this gratefulness with you as you start over and reboot your life.
Here’s a great post from Life Hack that’ll help you practice gratitude.
7. Don’t Be Afraid To Be Vulnerable
For the longest time, I have always chosen to bottle up all my emotions and went on with my day pretending that I was happy and perfectly okay.
When I was struggling, heartbroken, and devastated, I chose to continue putting on the facade that I was fine and that my life was great.
I kept doing this for years thinking that it was helping me but all along all those bottled-up emotions were building up and eventually they all caught up to me, making it even more difficult for me to face them.
I know how easy it is to think that it’s so much better to push all our feelings aside, bottle them up and just keep pretending to be happy.
But the truth is, this is only doing us more harm than good. The more that we run away from what we are truly feeling, the more that we are delaying our healing.
Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable will never make us look weak. To be honest, I find great strength in vulnerability. We can’t truly restart our life if we are still taking the pain and feelings of the past with us.
For us to heal and start moving forward, we have to allow ourselves to feel. Vent, cry, or even scream if you must.
There’s nothing wrong with being vulnerable. You are brave for doing it.
It’s time to set yourself free of that emotional baggage that you have been carrying for the longest time.
8. Don’t Be Afraid To Reach Out
Resetting your life can be challenging and overwhelming at times. There will be days when we start to doubt ourselves and our ability to improve and change our lives.
During those moments, it’s best to remember to never be afraid to reach out and find support. I know that some of us may hesitate to do just that thinking that doing it will only make us a burden to other people.
I was guilty of that thought too. But I want you to know that the people that truly love you will never see you as a burden.
There will always be people who are willing to listen and help you, people who truly care for you and love you.
You just have to let them in. Also, if you’re thinking that asking for help will only make you look weak, I guarantee you it doesn’t. Asking for help is never and will be a sign of weakness.
We all need support and help from time to time and it will never diminish our strength and bravery. It just means that sometimes there are things that are too big for us to carry alone.
9. Give Yourself Grace
There is no better time to give yourself grace and be kinder to yourself than now.
You are going through this big change and basically starting a new chapter in life, instead of beating yourself up and criticizing yourself for every little mistake and flaw, it’s time to give yourself compassion, love, and understanding.
I know it’s so easy to constantly be our worst critic. Yes, sometimes that can be a good thing, especially if it helps motivate us but the problem really starts when we constantly criticize our every little flaw and mistake.
Doing this can greatly harm our mental health and not to mention our self-esteem and confidence. If we constantly talk negatively towards ourselves, sooner or later we will end up doubting our capabilities and stop believing in what we can do.
10. Try Something New
Resetting your life can also be a great opportunity to get to know yourself more. It can be a great avenue to start stepping outside your comfort zone, try something new and learn more about the things that you love and don’t.
We can use this time to learn and develop new skills and explore new and wonderful things that life still has to offer.
I know that sometimes stepping out of our comfort zone and trying something new can be pretty terrifying, I know how that feels.
I have never been good with change but sometimes we have to open ourselves up to change and step outside our comfort zone for us to grow and learn.
11. Make Time For Self Care
Resetting your life can have its ups and downs. It’s not always easy and exciting. There are days when the changes can feel so overwhelming that’s why it’s so important to take care of yourself and make self care a priority.
I know that when we have so much going on in our lives, taking care of ourselves and our needs is not always on top of our to-do list.
And if we are being really honest, most of the time it’s not even on it. I was guilty of this for years. I continued to push myself to exhaustion.
Taking my needs for granted without realizing that doing that was greatly negatively impacting my mental health and happiness.
Because you see, for us to continue navigating life and taking care of other people, we have to take care of our needs too.
We can’t keep ignoring ourselves without expecting any consequences to our well-being. Remember that making yourself a priority is not selfishness. I truly believe it is a necessity.
12. Set Healthy Boundaries
How many times have you overextended yourself to other people?
How many times have you said yes and committed to things you never wanted to do in the first place because you were so afraid of disappointing other people?
I couldn’t even count on both hands the number of times I was guilty of doing this. I wanted to be validated so badly that I continued to say yes to other people just so I can feel worthy and enough.
If you feel this way too, I want you to know that you don’t have to do anything to be worthy and enough, because you are already enough just as you are now.
You are already worthy of love and happiness. You don’t need other people’s validation, the only validation that you will ever need is your own.
I’ve learned that if you want to reset your life and improve it for the better, one of the best things that you can do for your mental health and well-being is to set healthy boundaries.
Remember that it’s never wrong to set clear boundaries. Setting boundaries is a sign of self respect and self love. It means that you value your time and your needs enough to say no to things that will only cause you stress and anxiety.
13. Start Loving Yourself More
You’re going through a big change in your life, use this time to start falling in love with yourself again. Chances are when you were feeling stuck and unhappy before deciding to reset your life, you may also have been taking yourself for granted.
You may have also forgotten how amazing you are. I know you have heard the term self love more than a thousand times.
But truth be told, even if we will hear it a thousand times more, it’s still something that we can’t easily do.
I feel this way too. My journey toward loving myself was not a straight line. Most of the time it felt like I was taking one step forward and five steps back.
What I’ve learned from this is that self love is really a journey. It is not something that we can master overnight. It is actually a conscious choice that we have to make every day.
We have to choose to love ourselves even during difficult times. We have to choose to love ourselves even during those times when we feel so broken and down.
It’s time to start falling in love with yourself again. To help you get started on this wonderful journey, take this 30 day self love challenge.
14. Remember That It’s Perfectly Okay To Take Small Steps
This is probably one of the most important things to remember when you are resetting your life. I know there are times when we just want to accomplish and master everything at once.
We push ourselves to take these huge leaps, thinking that this is the only way to achieve our goals.
I thought it was too but what I’ve learned the hard way is that sometimes constantly doing this will only lead us to feel so overwhelmed that we end up paralyzed and unable to actually push ourselves to do anything.
Please know that it’s perfectly okay to take small steps. Sometimes is not always about those huge leaps that we take, it can also be about those small and easy steps that we choose to take every single day, even on hard days.