21 Actual Ways to Improve your life in 2021 (Really make improvements) Continued
By The Eff there’s another one of these articles
Quick Summary:
Want to Improve your life?
Most improvement articles are drivel
Here are 21 actual actions you can take right now to make huge strides across finances, fitness and happiness
Part 1 went over the first 13 ways to improve your life in 2021. We continue with Part 2.
14) Sleep
You are not getting enough quality sleep.
Again, not going to throw a bunch of science terms at you. We all need good, deep, restorative sleep. It helps regulate hormones, cells to synthesize protein, tissue to repair, form memories, mood, depression, and Immune Function
Things you should be doing:
Go to bed earlier
Turn off electronics
Keep phones away from bed
Cool down your room
Get it as dark as possible
Limit caffeine and stimulants near bed (atleast 6 hrs)
No alcohol before bed
All things you should have heard before. So let’s not eff around and call it what it is, get off the social media and go the eff to sleep.
15) Learn a new skill
We all forget to keep learning. If you stop learning you stop growing. Therefore, doesn’t matter what it is, go learn. There are free resources all over the internet. For instance, Kahn Academy or even youtube.
16) Rediscover your balls (or Lady Balls)
No don’t walk into the office tomorrow, take a poop on the floor and smack the firmest booty on the way out (No matter how much it looks like he works out).
This is about building back some self-respect.
Does someone bully you into working late and not give you credit? Say no for once.
Alternatively, is there a girl/guy who keeps saying “they like you but it just isnt the right time”? Block that number and move on.
Do you have friendships that are one sided? Someone who constantly teases you? Heck I don’t know…does your goldfish swim around the tank and acts like he forgot who you were 3 seconds later? That ungrateful orange jabroni doesn’t even care about that time you were cleaning his replica Ariel bowl decoration and he jumped out into the sink and you dove your hand into the garbage disposal to save him.
Point is, You need to reclaim your self-respect If you let people walk over you they will. If you demand better you get it. Do something today. For instance, even just a small ‘no’ when you would normally reluctantly say yes. When you see that everyone won’t immediately abandon you, then you can scale into standing up more.
And if someone is willing to burn you over you expressing your desire they aren’t someone you want around you anyway.
“If you let people think they can or think they can’t, they will”
-Old Irish saying by Lil’ Engine O’Could
17) Reframe to an Abundance Mindset
This is an important topic. An abundance mindset is one where you see the world as full of opportunity. It was coined in a great book from 1989 “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People“. It is based on there being enough in the world that you should strive for win-win situations.
The opposite is a scarcity mindset, which is one where you approach all interactions as a zero sum game. If the other person gets something, it is coming out of my potential profit.
The rest of the book has other helpful rules that can improve your life, this is one of the most impactful I believe.
Truthfully, this is the one item on the list I still struggle with the most. Growing up poor, you grow up in a world of scarcity. Even as I was closing in at 7-figure net worth, I would be at a party where someone provided garbage fast food pizza and I would grab 4 slices in my first pass just to make sure I had mine. Therefore, it is a large undertaking to shift your mental model to realize that there is so much money and opportunity in the world and everyone can come out a winner.
Abundance thinking makes a huge difference. You will be less jealous, more gracious, and build deeper friendships.
18) Floss Everyday & Brush twice a day
No elaboration.
If you can’t do this…Nasty.
And no Ed, wearing a mask doesn’t allow you ignore this. There is still a ton of health benefits.
Note it says AND Floss. If you are unable to floss everyday, it shows the kind of lack of discipline and self-control that will make it very hard for you to do anything to change your situation and improve your life.
19) Go Do THAT thing
What thing?
That thing. You know the thing. That one thing you won’t shut the eff up about. That one thing that is always just one lame excuse away from you doing it.
Go do it.
You want to play guitar in a band? Go find a band and play.
You want to make an app? Start coding.
Everyone has that ONE thing they have on a pedestal. It has become sacred. It is your day dream.
Make 2021 the year you give it a good try. Maybe you fail, maybe it isn’t all you imagined, maybe it works. Go find out. This could be the pivot to a new career or role that makes your situation start improving exponentially. You only get 1 go around in life, so why not try it.
20) Get in a Physical Fight
No not with a stranger on the street. Serious, don’t do illegal stuff.
Go to a boxing gym, MMA gym, dojo, krav maga, something and train a bit then spar.
Likely, you get your butt beat. Guess what, good.
First, you get the exhilaration of a struggle. Ignore the fact it will show you how unprepared you are to actually defend yourself (especially you Susan who thinks your soft fat 40-year old body would be able to easily defend against an attacker with a ball kick and then using your keys in your fist like one of the failed wolverine prototypes). Forget about the fact it will finally get you to stop saying stuff like “he should have dodged the punch and arm-barred him” out loud next time you watch a movie or fight on TV. All those things are immensely helpful by themselves.
The biggest benefit is facing someone, learning to think under pressure, and develop a bit of grit. When you have legitimately been fearful of physical harm, it makes other stressors seem less imminent. You want to improve your life, you learn how to deal with stress and be cool under fire and people will look to you to be a leader.
Honestly, they made an entire movie & subculture around this concept of creating a club to fight and I absolutely loved every minute of Legally Blonde.
When you get hit in the mouth, you learn what kind of person you are. Do you reflexively swing back? Do you curl in the fetal position and cry? Do you back down from the challenge or belligerently dive back in head first? At a bare minimum it won’t be a complete shock if you ever do actually get hit one day.
“Everyone has a plan till they get hit in the mouth….[then like a rat, they stop and freeze in fear]”
-Iron Mike Tyson (Foreal, I am not eff’ing with a Tyson quote)
21) Stop Worrying
It’s 2021, so it’s the ‘Rona edition. Take the precautions you need to be safe, but don’t let worry and stress consume you. You can only control what you can.
Days go slow, but decades fast. You don’t want to miss out on years of life for something you have minimal control over. People are notoriously bad at quantifying risk. Heart Disease and cancer still cause more deaths annually in the United States.
No, don’t go licking doorknobs, but staying inside under the covers is not healthy. I have a coworker and she is losing chunks of her hair from stress over the virus. Find a balance between working out, getting outside, interacting with community, and de-stressing. Please.
At a minimum, see rule #1 and stop complaining so I don’t need to hear about it. And with that we have come full circle.
Wrapping up
These are my top 21 ways to improve your life in 2021. Notable exceptions from this list were “create a rainy day fund with 6 months of expenses” and “pay down debt”. Those are super valuable life improvements, but given the financial situation most people are in, I felt the effort would be better spent on learning (yes this includes the $100 in crypto to learn that it isn’t scary to start and incentivize you to look into it), getting healthier, and building a less fragile financial base.
If you can get a steady second stream of income, you can use all of it to pay down debt and build your rainy day fund. Spending effort growing your money coming in is abundance thinking, the money is out there, you just need to get it. That is a lot easier than scarcity thinking that you have a small amount of money available and you are trying to squeeze another dollar out of your current situation to do both.
Put these 21 actions into progress and watch your life improve.