How to Adjust Your Life

Once you become aware that your life requires adjustment, you can take specific steps to make it happen. Your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions are all interconnected, influencing, shaping, and nurturing one another. You have direct control over your thoughts and behaviors: altering them will help you adjust your life. Apply the methods listed in this article to any area of your life that you're aiming to adjust.

Define personal goals. Find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for at least 30 minutes. You'll need a piece of paper and a pencil. If you're at home with others, politely ask them not to disturb you while you're working. Turn off any music, TV, or electronic devices that might distract you. Set your phone to silent mode.

Consider what ‘adjusting your life’ means to you. Once your life is adjusted, what will it look like? Who will be the first to notice when your life has been adjusted? Take all of these into account as you reflect on which areas of your life need to be changed.

• It's completely normal to begin with a broad scope. Simply aim toward the idea of what you want to gain from life.
• For example, you might ask yourself: 'What do I want to contribute to the world?' or 'How do I want to grow as a person?'

Write clear, concise goals to guide your way. Vague goals like: 'I want to be happy,' or 'I want to lose weight,' are difficult to achieve. Goals should be set with the SMART criteria: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-based.

• Such goals will help you track your progress and determine if you're on the right path. So, instead of: 'I want to lose weight,' you could write: 'I want to lose half a kilogram each week until I weigh x kilograms.' You’ll decide what adjusting your life means to you.
• It's also normal if you want to write down your goals several times before finding the right one. Write down your thoughts if it helps you process them better. Writing down what you think can help you detach from your thoughts and become more objective.

Create a plan. Break down your goals into smaller, more manageable steps to achieve each goal individually, or at the same time if necessary. Remember to write specific, time-limited, and measurable goals. For example, if your goal is to 'secure a job with salary x within a month,' you can break it down into:

• Research job listings on company websites and LinkedIn (Day 1: 2 hours)
• Write a personal profile (Day 2: 1 hour)
• Ask friends to review your profile (Days 3-4)
• Submit your personal profile (Day 5)
• Follow up on your job application one week after submission. (Day 12)

Place the paper somewhere visible. Keeping your goals and plan in clear view will help keep you motivated. Stick them on your mirror/fridge/take a photo and save it as your lock screen; anywhere you'll frequently see them.

• Read your goals every morning. This will refresh your commitment to achieving them. Don’t just glance at them: make sure to read them thoroughly. Start your day with a refreshed awareness of your goals and intentions. This is essential to achieving them.

Take personal responsibility. Acknowledge your role in reaching your current position, whether intentional or accidental. Taking responsibility doesn't mean shouldering the blame for something, it means being accountable for yourself. You know you play a part in shaping your quality of life, so you'll realize you can adjust it. Remember, you can only control yourself: you can manage your actions and influence others, but you can't control them or the outcomes of what you do.

Research the problem. Having a clearer idea of how you ended up in an uncomfortable situation will help you avoid making similar choices in the future. Reflect on the lessons you've learned from past mistakes. Consider your social relationships, family circumstances, things you've said and done. Think about your feelings regarding the event or if there's something you're trying to avoid. These insights will guide your next steps.

Identify the obstacles you may encounter. Make a list of all the challenges that might be or are preventing you from reaching your goals. Think about your own behaviors, the people you'll need to talk to, the efforts required for reconciliation, the things you need to acquire or let go of. Consider the kind of people you're dealing with and the actions you're taking together. Obstacles will vary depending on your circumstances.

Think of solutions. For each obstacle, come up with a list of solutions. What's the best way to approach the challenge? Do you need to adjust your schedule? Will you need help from others? Think of multiple ways you can overcome the obstacle if it arises. Weigh the pros and cons of each situation.

Identify behaviors preventing you from achieving your goals. Understanding these behaviors can help you find and implement alternative actions to reach your goals more easily. What you do is the key to adjusting your life.

• On a separate sheet of paper, list all the actions you're currently doing that are stopping you from realizing your goals and adjusting your life. These might be daily habits or behaviors. For example, you might stay up too late watching TV, which causes you to be late for work, or you might eat three desserts after every meal, impacting your diabetes.

Identify the type of behavior. Figure out the time and place where you're most likely to engage in a certain behavior. For example, if your goal is to ‘lose x kilograms in x weeks until I weigh x kilograms,’ but you eat donuts when stressed, stress is the trigger you need to pay attention to.

• Think about what made you act in a certain way or what led to an uncomfortable situation? If you have a habit of overspending and getting into debt, is there a specific thought, feeling, or opportunity that drives you to shop? Sometimes the root cause is a deep secret, and sometimes it's right in front of us. Give yourself time for some gentle introspection. Ask yourself when a particular problem or behavior tends to occur — you might find the answer there. Are there feelings or thoughts you're trying to avoid? As you were growing up, did you ever see someone exhibit similar behavior?

List effective alternative behaviors. Now that you understand which behaviors shape your current life, think about what you can do to help you reach your goals and adjust your life. The next time you're stressed, you could practice deep breathing exercises or apply other relaxation techniques. Or instead of spending two hours scrolling through Facebook or Tumblr before bed, you could spend 30 minutes browsing the web and dedicate the remaining 90 minutes to doing something that could help you succeed.

• Alternative behaviors don't have to be completely different actions. You might reduce the time spent on one activity and allocate the remaining time to another task.

Replace ineffective behaviors with effective ones. The next time you feel like doing something harmful to your life, choose to do things that help you reach your goals. This will require you to actively choose a new behavior. You’ll need to practice self-control.

• Consider asking friends to help you change your behavior.
• Remember, you don't have to hate something to stop doing it. You just need to feel more motivated to do something else.

Start now. You tend to convince yourself that you will do it tomorrow or after something else happens. Procrastination stems from the fear of failure. The more you hesitate to change, the longer it will take you to adjust your life.

Surround yourself with positive people. The people around you will significantly influence whether you achieve your goals. Seek out individuals who can motivate you and help you improve yourself. Share your plans with someone trustworthy and ask them to support you in making life adjustments. They may offer advice and valuable resources that you hadn’t thought of on your own.

Evaluate your progress. The plan you created earlier will help you determine if you're on track. Since goals are time-bound, you need a schedule to follow. Problems can arise when you're unprepared, and your plan risks getting delayed. This doesn’t mean you're not making progress; it just means an unexpected obstacle has appeared. Don’t treat this as an excuse to quit. Think of solutions and treat the obstacle as a factor. Remind yourself of the original reasons you wanted to adjust your life.

Keep going. Adjusting your life won’t happen overnight. You need time to break old habits and practice new behaviors. Results will take time. You might find yourself criticizing and berating yourself. Remind yourself that negative thinking leads to negative actions. If you slip back into old habits, it doesn't mean you’ve failed and need to start over. Remind yourself of your goals and the reasons you wanted to adjust your life in the first place.

• Life doesn’t have to be 'broken' and in need of 'adjustment.' In the context of this guide on 'How to do something,' the word 'adjustment' is used as a synonym for 'change.' Your life is still developing and progressing.
• You don't have to 'want to change' to take action. For example, you don’t need to 'want to quit smoking' to succeed. You just need to desire something (like healthy lungs) more than your desire to smoke.
• We all criticize ourselves; some people are more critical and do it more often than others. You are not alone.
• Try to build a support system to help you achieve your goals. This could be anyone from a friend to a group of family and friends. Find someone trustworthy who will encourage you to stay focused on your goals.
• Always remind yourself of your goals.