19 Simple Ways to Improve Your Life in 2019

A new year has begun and, if you are like most people, you are probably looking for ways to improve your own life. Perhaps you want to be healthier. Maybe you are looking to resolve past conflicts or improve your financial situation. Or, maybe, you want to quit smoking and drinking excessively.

Even if your life is awesome, you should continue to strive to become the best version of yourself that you can be.

Every year, people make many commitments to themselves to be happier and healthier but they often don’t create concrete action plans for how to achieve their New Year’s goals.

As a result, they forget why they set those goals in the first place and slowly life begins to get in the way. As the day-to-day life “gets in the way”, people end up just “existing” as opposed to unapologetically doing a few simple things that will improve their lives.

The truth is, there will always be things getting in your way, if you let those things get in your way. Then, the next thing you know, you begin to lose confidence in yourself as the year goes on. Year after year, you begin to lose more and more confidence in yourself as the vicious cycle continues.

If you’ve ever had that happen, you will know exactly what that feels like.

However, it does not have to be this way.

You can stop the cycle of resolutions and begin to revolutionize your life by making a few subtle changes to your thoughts, words and behaviors. As your thoughts, words and behaviors shift in a positive way, the results you achieve will also improve.

Therefore, I’ve decided to share a list of 19 simple ways to improve your life in 2019.

Let’s take a closer look at what they are, in no particular order:

1.Don’t make too many commitments to yourself or to others. When you chase too many goals and say “yes” to too many things, you end up not accomplishing many of them. As a result, you end up feeling like you failed, when in reality you just spread yourself too thin.

Seriously, though, give yourself a break! You can’t do everything. In fact, no one can.

Furthermore, if you promise things to other people that you can’t deliver upon, then you end up breaking their trust.

Therefore, don’t commit to things unless you are 99.9% sure that you can deliver, whether that commitment is to yourself or to others.

If you try to do too many things, you end up overwhelmed and stressed out because not one thing will have your undivided attention and relentless focus. We all have 24 hours in the day, of which 8 are for sleeping and 8 are for working (if you work 8 hours a day). Therefore, you only have 8 hours each day to chase your goals. So, make those remaining 8 hours count.

Pick no more than 3 big things you want to focus on throughout the year and chase those things like your life depends on it because it actually does. Once you’ve defined those things, you need to plan how to accomplish them because they aren’t going to magically accomplish themselves.

2.Finish what you start and finish strong. Get into the habit of finishing what you start, even if it’s something as simple as a book or a household chore that needs your attention.

The more times you quit things, the more likely you are to accept quitting as the norm.

During my first 24 hour run, I wanted to quit 16 hours in and call it a day. After all, if I had quit at 16 hours, no one would blame me and life would most definitely go on. My feet were hurting, I was getting tired and slightly upset that I wasn’t going to make it to 100 miles at the pace I was going, so you better believe I was ready to quit. Therefore, I could have quit at 16 hours and people would have thought I gave it a good try.

But then, I thought, if I quit, then that means I’ve allowed myself to succumb to the easy way out. At that moment, I realized that I couldn’t do this to myself so I stuck with it and ran/walked/crawled to ultimately end up with 81 miles, which at the time was nearly double the mileage that I was doing in one week.

You see, quitting is easy. Quitting is the path of least resistance and we all know where that eventually leads.

However, when you finish what you start, you will gain the kind of confidence that is needed to start and finish bigger things. To me, the 24 hour run was not just about the running. It was about making a decision to do the hard thing and finish what I started.

3.Reach out to at least one person a month who inspires you. When you reach out to someone you don’t know very well, you put yourself in a vulnerable position. The risk of rejection is huge and it never feels good.

By nature, we, as human beings, are wired to seek acceptance from other people. The thought of someone you idolize rejecting you or ignoring you is a very difficult one to stomach.

However, we need to stop thinking about the worst possible outcome and start thinking about the best case scenario.

When I was in university and in high school, I struggled a lot with my self-esteem. So, I made it a point to challenge myself by contacting people I wanted to learn from, successful business people and others whose stories inspired me. Sometimes, I got crickets but other times, I actually got responses, useful advice, help and made connections.

4.Decrease the length of time you spend scrolling through social media. I’ll be the first to admit that I spend quite a bit of my spare time scrolling through social media (I’m working on changing that). As a result, what ends up happening is I notice that an hour or two goes by and I haven’t accomplished anything that evening. Then, I feel even worse.

It’s very important to try to limit our screen time.

I admit, some of the time I spent on social media could have been spent better if I was writing, reading a book or making connections with people in real life.

While social media allows you to make connections with people you wouldn’t otherwise get to connect with, promote your business, and potentially helps you find fun events to attend, don’t fall into the trap where you are just mindlessly scrolling through your Facebook and Instagram feeds.

5.Perform at least one random act of kindness a month (or preferably a week). When you perform an act of kindness, you feel good. You don’t have to build a school in Africa for it to be considered an act of kindness. You also don’t need to give $10,000 to the local homeless shelter if that’s not an option for you.

Start with small acts of kindness.

Buy a coffee for a stranger in line behind you at the coffee shop. Compliment a coworker on her new haircut. Hold the door open for an elderly person or a person with disabilities.

Do something that makes you and the person you are doing it for feel like they matter. Because, yes, they matter and you matter too.

6.Exercise for 30 minutes a day, no matter what the exercise is. Forget the gimmicks, fad diets and all the other programs you see that promise you will lose 30 lbs in 30 days and get a six pack in 4 weeks. Realistically, if you move for 30 minutes a day, every day, you will see an improvement in your health.

Having good health is the starting point for being able to pursue all your other goals.

Some ideas include: go for a lunch time walk with your coworkers, run around with your kids, go up and down the stairs at your house, or hit the gym on your way home from work. Whatever physical activity you enjoy doing is the best thing for you to be doing.

I had a client a few years ago who didn’t originally like the gym and thought of fitness as a chore. She originally started working out because she wanted to lose weight. Then, after we worked together for a while (over a year) and she saw that she was getting substantially stronger, she fell in love with working out, found another activity she enjoys doing and never stopped being active ever since.

As a result of our work together, she changed her mind-set about exercise and began to enjoy the process of getting stronger rather than trying to fit in with some arbitrary standard of what society defines as “beautiful”. To this day, I think she is beautiful (inside and out) and she will always have a friend in me.

Photo by Heath Moffatt. Outfit: Adidas Sports Bra, Public Myth Leggings, Saucony shoes.

7.Say “Thank You”. When someone does something for you, say “Thank You”. Ultimately, no one owes you any favors so the least you can do is thank them. People will always remember how you made them feel. When you say “thank you” to people for what they’ve done for you, you are telling them that you appreciate them.

Every person on this planet wants to be appreciated.

Saying “Thank You” is one of the easiest ways to show your appreciation for the other person and it doesn’t cost you anything.

8.Make time for your hobbies. If there is something you love to do, you should keep doing it. Whether it’s knitting, decorating, drawing, running, making music, taking pictures-do it.

Hobbies can help you achieve work-life balance and enable you to make connections with like-minded people.

Also, if you get good enough at your hobby, you may be able to make a side-hustle out of it for some extra cash.

Hobbies also inspire creativity within you and clearly make your life more enjoyable.

9.Be open to trying something new, preferably something that scares you a little bit. Trying new things allows you to expand your mind and learn something about yourself in the process.

You can’t possibly grow if you aren’t willing to go outside of your comfort zone even a little.

For example, if a friend asks you to go skydiving, you should definitely give it a try even though you’re terrified of heights. Up until I went skydiving, I was afraid of heights too.

Skydiving, in spite of being afraid of heights just a little bit. Jumping out of that small plane was actually fun. The folks at Capital City Skydiving were great to us!

Another example is if a friend of yours presents you with a side hustle opportunity, don’t immediately discount it, particularly if you are even slightly interested in it. Even if you don’t end up doing much with the opportunity presented to you, you may take that as an opportunity to learn some new skills that can make you more valuable in your workplace. This leads us to point #10.

10.Always strive to improve your both your hard and soft skills. The truth is, you are never done learning because it’s impossible to know everything. New information always emerges and what you knew five years ago is most likely obsolete now.

You should strive for continuous improvement, even if that improvement is small.

When you have a strong desire to learn and improve, you are showing your manager and your colleagues that you are willing to take responsibility for your own development.

Learning new skills keeps things interesting and it helps you advance within your organization so you can continue to reach your career milestones. It is up to you to get the feedback you need form your manager so that you can work on figuring out the best way to improve your skills.

No matter how good you are, how much your know or how awesome your yearly performance reviews are, you can always strive to do better and you should.

11.Always put your integrity first. When you act with integrity, people trust you. When people trust you, good things happen. People want to work with and do business with trustworthy people.

If you have a history of being dishonest, ripping people off and have a win-lose mentality, then you will have a hard time in the workplace and in life.

You may get away with it for a short time, but sooner or later, people will find out.

The problem with constantly lying and covering things up is that eventually you will get caught in your lies. If you’re lying and cheating, you will, deep down, be living in fear of being caught.

Ultimately, when your moral compass isn’t pointed in the right direction-it’s almost impossible to be happy.

I know a guy who did a number of shady business deals and was always out to win at the expense of others.  I knew for a fact that he was not a happy person. In fact, he ended up losing a lot of friends, family and business connections overtime. Luckily, I haven’t seen him or talked to him since 2011 and I hope to never run into him again (I’m sure others feel the same way about him).

It’s very important that you stay true to yourself and to others. Do not compromise your integrity in order to make short-term gains. Whatever you choose to do, it needs to align with your values.

If integrity isn’t part of your values, then, unfortunately, I have no comment.

12.Get rid of at least one thing per week that you no longer need. If you haven’t used or worn something in a few months, then that means you really don’t need it that much.

Getting rid of clutter is liberating.

You can either sell the stuff you don’t need or give it away. One thing per week may not seem like a lot, but by the end of the year you should be able to get rid of at least 52 items. That’s 52 items that are no longer taking up precious space in your house.

We often accumulate too much useless stuff. Think of how much money you would have saved if you didn’t buy the things that are just sitting in your house now collecting dust.

As a side note, once you get rid of clutter, invest your money in experiences and in your future, as opposed to buying more things.

13.Do at least 2 things during the year that physically challenge you. Doing physically challenging things that you know you can accomplish if you have the right attitude towards them will further inspire you.

Accomplishing something that you knew would be hard to do gives you the confidence you need to pursue the bigger things.

For me, that was running marathons and then completing an ultra-marathon. However, when I started my running journey, even trying to run a faster 10k was (and still is) physically challenging.

If you have never exercised before, then no, I don’t advise you to sign up for a marathon, an ironman, or an ultra-marathon. If you do that, you will end up injured, overwhelmed or disappointed. The challenging activity you choose to do must match your current abilities. At the same time, it must push you just slightly outside the comfort zone.

14.Stop saying negative things about other people and holding grudges. Yes, I get that the person may have wronged you in the past. However, when you constantly talk about who did you wrong, you are choosing to relive that negative experience over and over again.

It’s one thing to see your negative experience with someone  as something that you overcame and that you learned from.

However, complaining about all the people who did you wrong and how so and so is an a–hole isn’t going to make your life any better and it most definitely won’t change the past.

I once read a quote that says: “Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

I admit, this one is hard. It took me almost a decade to get over all the bullies in high school, but now I’m proud to tell my story about that experience in a much different way. I share this story now to show other young girls that they too can unapologetically chase their dreams and goals regardless of how many people shot them down in school.

15.Hang out with people who lift you up, who dream big, who are success-minded, who respect you for who you are and who work hard. There is a saying that you become exactly like the people that you spend the most time with. Therefore, you must choose your friends wisely.

If you are hanging around with people who constantly complain, feel sorry for themselves, who put others down and who criticize your efforts, then you must change this situation as soon as possible. This is a toxic situation that you must get out of as quickly as you can because it’s not helping you at all. While it’s ok for people to feel frustrated and complain once in a while, if complaining is the only thing that your current friends do, then you should seek out new friendships.

You need to be around people who bring out the best in you and who strive to become the best versions of themselves.

I know, this sounds cliché, but it’s a very valid point.

Two of my great friends! These guys are awesome, inspirational and wise.

16.Get a side hustle to make some extra money on top of what you earn from your full-time job. Even if your wage is good, you love your job and your boss is legitimately one of your favorite people, you should still strive to create additional sources of income.

The rising costs of living have almost made side hustles a critical success factor in ensuring that your finances are in check for many years to come. A side hustle will allow you to save more for emergencies, pay off your high interest credit cards, potentially enable you to take that dream vacation as well as help you pay off your mortgage faster.

While money by itself does not buy happiness, it provides us all with peace of mind.

When you know that you have money saved for emergencies, for your future and for your kids’ future, your stress levels will definitely go down. The less stress you have, the better your life (and health) will be.

Your side hustle should preferably be something that you are passionate about or that you think you can learn new skills from. Ideally, a combination of both.

17.Take your vacation and enjoy it. Even the most motivated and driven people need a break. You need to have some downtime where you don’t do much at all. There are even some research studies that show that people who take their vacations are more productive and creative than those who don’t.

Taking vacations also helps improve your health, clears your mind and contributes to your overall satisfaction with life, even if you love your work.

If you think that you can’t afford a vacation, I got some great news. Your vacation does not have to be expensive for you to enjoy it. In fact, just taking a few days off to stay at home, sleep in, read a great book, spend time with family and friends is going to be extremely beneficial. Therefore, don’t despair if you can’t afford an expensive vacation to Fiji, although going to Fiji for a week or two would be pretty awesome.

18.Every week, at the end of the week, write down 5 things that you were happy about that week. Many people have programmed themselves to focus on the negatives. This is part of the reason why news stories that feature tragedies are more widely read/watched than “feel good” stories. We are programmed to seek out the negatives and we need to make a conscious choice to focus less on the negatives and more on the positives.

If something negative happens to you, dwelling on it isn’t going to make your situation any better. If you have a problem, think of a few possible solutions as opposed to dwelling on the problem itself.

When you think of all the positive things that happened to you that week, you will begin to see the world differently.

Sometimes, this is extremely hard to do especially when the problem that you are facing seems too difficult to solve. Try to focus on the good. It could be that you were able to make it to the gym 4 days of the week or that you saved some money on your car insurance or maybe you won a small prize. The things you list don’t need to be life-changing milestones in order to be considered things to be grateful for.

19.Improve your nutrition and supplement as necessary. While the goal is to get as many of the essential nutrients as possible from natural food sources, this may sometimes be easier said than done especially if you have a hectic schedule and are always on the go.

You should not confuse “good nutrition” and “dieting”.

They are not one and the same. Dieting implies a temporary approach, where you cut out specific food groups, usually with the goal to lose weight. On the other hand, good nutrition is a lifelong habit, where you consistently strive to eat well. Good nutrition means limiting processed foods, excessive amounts of sugars, and supplements with 100 ingredients 95 of which you can’t pronounce and don’t know what they are.

I admit that I definitely need to work on the sugar thing. Running marathons and ultras is not a good reason for me to be eating too many bags of cookies, bowls of ice cream, cakes and chocolate bars (even though they taste amazing).

If you are very busy and you must take supplements, try to look for supplements with more natural ingredients. I definitely try my best to take supplements with high quality ingredients.

Dieting is not the solution to your health problems but good nutrition can help you feel substantially better.

My “diet” is not perfect but I’m proud that I’ve definitely come a long way since my university years.

Even if you do only half of the aforementioned things, your life will definitely turn around for the better.

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