Shweta Shh
157 pts
Rising Star
Hi, I am a part-time freelance article writer. I love reading and writing about a variety of topics. My favorite subjects are self-help and technology. Thanks!
Are you bored of your same old routine? Wake up-Eat-Work-Sleep-Wake up again. This monotonous drone of life may sometimes feel suffocating. If such thoughts are troubling you often, maybe it's time to start a new life! Before you panic, please note that you don't have to revamp your entire life to start afresh.
With patience and discipline, we can change our life successfully and completely renew them over time. Doing some simple small everyday changes will help you make some major changes over time live life anew! Some of those ways are,
1. Build some courage:
It's natural to have a little fear while thinking of changing your life, but it's better to think of the positivity it will bring in the future.
● Analyze what is troubling you and think over whether those fears are real. Most of our fears are only in mind, and overthinking about them only makes it worse.
● You can repeat positive mantras to help build confidence like "I deserve a good life. I am not afraid". This will also help you overcome your fears.
2. Learn new things:
You have achieved success in your career and are craving for something new. You can always join colleges or workshops to learn new skills.
● Join hobby clubs to learn new hobbies like gardening or cooking. This can bring a new variety to your everyday dull life.
● You can even join online classes or take a part-time online course from college so that your regular life is not interrupted while learning something new.
3. Create a list:
Think over your life and make a list of your likes and dislikes. Now try to reduce your dislikes while spending more time doing activities you love. However, also keep in mind realistic things like do you have the finances to afford the things you like. If not, make a well-thought-out plan to change the situation. Making a list also gives you a lot of clarity while deciding a final plan for your new future.
4. Decide what you want:
You may be starting a new life for many reasons; either you want to or maybe are forced to do so.
● It could be a personal tragedy or a move to a new place by choice. Whatever the case, make a clear goal in your mind about why you have decided to take this step.
● You will feel more positive about your future once you have decided your motive for starting over.
5. Own your life:
It's easy to allow others to handle the steering wheel of our life. It takes great courage to own and handle our own life.
● You can start with something small, like packing your breakfast before work instead of a takeaway from a cafe. Making your food gives you a sense of responsibility towards your well-being
● Being responsible for ourselves and our actions is incredibly freeing.
6. Find roadblocks:
On this new journey, you may find yourself facing many obstacles. If you meet these heads on, you may just get stuck. It is important to envision your path and make plans beforehand to tackle these roadblocks. e.g., make sure you have enough financial cushion before leaving your regular job to start a new business.
7. Revise your plan (if needed):
After creating the first set of plans, you may get some new ideas when you step away for a while. You will need to add or subtract your plans before you can finalize on a path.
● The important thing to remember is not to rush the process and properly analyze your options and ideas while changing your plans.
● It is also important to keep your likes and dislikes, wants, and needs while deciding on a concrete plan.
8. Challenge your comfort zones:
Starting a new life means accepting new challenges and changes. But, along with challenges come risks.
● You will need to get out of your comfort zone and face life and its risks if you want to make some change.
● Like, you can start by saying no to your boss for extra tasks even if you do not dare to switch companies right now.
9. Ask for help:
Making changes towards having a new life is a huge decision. Having the love and support of family and friends helps a lot while going through this change.
● You can seek advice from loved ones who have made a new start in their lives themselves. Ask about the challenges they faced and overcame.
● If you are starting anew after a tragedy, seek help from a mental health professional to help you heal and with any difficulty adjusting to the new changes.
10. Tap into creativity:
Constantly being online or on your devices gives rise to mental fatigue. The pre-frontal cortex of the brain can rest properly when relaxed in nature. So, it's important to detoxify from technology from time to time and unwind. This encourages creativity and also gives you new ideas and inspiration for starting afresh.
11. Be patient throughout:
It takes a long time and patience to create a new life. We will be able to control only certain parts of this process. You will adapt to your new life in time. You just have to relax, keep working and trust the process.
12. Meaningful social circle:
Another aspect of starting your life afresh can be seeking out the company of someone new. But, don't forget to maintain your close relationships from the past in the process.
● You can make a list of the qualities you like in the people of your present circle. Any characteristics that are common among them or anything endearing to you. Take this list to parties and events where you go to meet some new people and try to strike friendships.
● Look to get into groups or close to people who share the qualities in your list so that you know what to expect beforehand from them. It's also important to meet other people who don't share those qualities as they say, 'Variety is the spice of life.'
13. Create a support group:
Trying to start life again needs really strong emotional support for people. If it is done due to some traumatic events, then it can be pretty emotionally draining over the entire process. It is important to have your support system cheer you on during such times.
14. Analyze the consequences:
When you decide to take certain decisions to make changes in your life to start again, it is important to consider the results of your actions.
● Like, breaking off relations with family members or friends can be very hard to mend. You must consider how hard it would be if you decide you want those people back in your life.
● These changes can be hard to undo and must be done after careful consideration.
15. Become part of a cause:
As social creatures, we have a constant need for interaction with others. Finding a charity or foundation that works for a meaningful cause can be a great way to restart your life. It could be an environmental cause or a social justice movement. Whichever, be the case, it would be a great start to your new life.
16. Practice daily mindfulness/awareness:
This is a really good way to flip your dull life around. The practice of mindfulness or meditation will calm your mind and increase your focus. This also has many health benefits.
● Every day starting with five minutes, find a quiet room and do yoga or just meditate silently while fusing your thoughts in the present. You can also listen to positive reaffirmations while meditating to start your day on a great note!
● Studies have proved that mindfulness lowers blood pressure and aids in regaining mental clarity over time. This practice has also been stressed upon time and again by the great mystic Deepak Chopra.
17. Assess your finances:
Money is the elixir for all our needs. So the less our needs, the less is we work for money.
● To be able to start your new life, you must calculate your budget according to your desired lifestyle and needs.
● Check your financial boundaries and come up with a plan and budget so that you can save and manifest your desired lifestyle.
18. Manifest goodness:
When you are considering a new life, you also need a vision of what it looks like. You can manifest this goodness by creating a vision board for your new life and goals.
● Also, invite your friends and family while creating it as their reaction to pursuing new things can be a mirror for our expectations.
● Associate yourself with new words and browse through magazines and newspapers to find new places, people, and items that you can relate to for your future dreams.
19. What are you leaving behind:
Okay, so you have decided to start a new life. Before going ahead, it's good to think at least once about all the things and people or relationships you will be leaving behind. You should ask yourself if you want to give that up and go ahead with a new start. After all, it's like they say, you don't realize the value of a thing till it's gone.
20. A backup plan:
Suppose after a few months or weeks, it all goes to waste. You may start getting nostalgic and want things back the way they were. What would you do in that case? You will need a backup plan after that.
● You may start getting homesick about your previous place and want to move back. But you can't because you have sold it.
● It's better to try out the new things or places before deciding to permanently take the jump as you may want to reverse your decision later on. Doing a trial run will give you an idea if you want to pursue this path or not. If you can't do a trial run, at least keep a go-to plan if things fail.
21. Quit unpleasant habits:
Another meaning of beginning a new life could be giving up old nasty habits like drinking, smoking, or even drugs. This is important for advancement in your personal life. You owe yourself a chance at a good life, and if you can't kick these old habits, none of the new habits will fall into place.
22. Adapting to new cultures and people:
In a new place, the way of living might be very different from what you are used to. Before moving to a new place, ask yourself if you are ready to change and adapt to new ways of living?
● New places often bring new kinds of people. You must be ready to accommodate and adjust to making new friends.
● Open yourself to new experiences and proactively go to meetings and clubs to make new friends.
23. Unrealistic expectations:
Oftentimes, we look at a fresh start through rose-tinted glasses and have high expectations of what it's going to be like. But, the reality is that life be it new or old, is full of hard and happy moments. So, it's good to be prepared mentally for rough times as well in your new journey.
24. Believe in yourself:
Most of the time, we think a lot about what people think of us. When people say we are stupid or that we have no talent or are worthless, we tend to believe them easily. Having self-belief during such times seems hard.
● But what other people say about us is less important than what we think of ourselves. It may seem impossible right now, but you can restart, and you can keep going.
● You have to start believing in yourself and all the things that make you awesome!
25. Use your voice more:
As mentioned before, a new start may mean trying new things or even getting a new habit. Starting to voice your opinion about things and standing up for yourself is something everyone must start doing as a new change. Life is about you and your wants, not anyone else's. So find your voice and start standing up to those bullies.
Conclusion:
When we think of restarting life, we always think of turning it upside down and doing it overnight, like in the movies. But this is far from reality. Starting a new life requires a lot of planning and patience. It is a slow process that happens bit by bit and day by day. Once you start a habit, make sure to stick to it even if you can't see the results in the short term. These changes are only reflected over the years.
We can start with small changes like cooking healthy food at home or walking a short distance to work or school to improve our health. Eventually, these small changes make a big impact in turning our lives completely around. When we look at our lives, we realize that we are constantly changing and renewing our lives every few years by constantly changing our habits.
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Inherent/Acquired: Almost ninety percent of people are born self-obsessed. The degree may vary, but it is present in everyone. There are very few truly altruistic people in the world.
● Self-awareness is cultivated through years of meditation and analysis of our inner selves. It takes time and patience.
● No one is born truly selfish. Mostly bad circumstances or childhood trauma induces selfishness. It becomes a way to protect themselves from future bad or painful incidents.
Everyone has at some point been both selfish and self-centered. Depending on the situation, people tend to shift from one trait to the other. So it's very hard to draw a proper line between the two. But too much self-obsession can lead to selfishness.
Self-centeredness is present in all of us from birth. It comes from a desire to protect and improve ourselves. It's almost akin to our instinct to survive, albeit not as important. Selfishness may stem from bad occurrences in life or previous trauma. Such incidents drive us to fulfill our needs before others. This trait comes from a place of protection of the self. It is similar to the instinct of self-preservation.
There is a very fine line between the above three traits as they fall on the same spectrum of emotions. So how do we know to avoid being selfish? How do we embrace centering our self and becoming self-aware? Let us look at some major traits to identify the same.
1. Needs of others v/s self:
This is an important factor to distinguish between the three personalities.
● Self-aware people think about others as much as themselves. They understand that sometimes the needs of others may be more urgent than their needs. So those need to be fulfilled first.
● Self-absorbed people give their desires priority over others. But, once they are achieved they help others attain success too.
● Selfish people are the extreme of the lot. They always put themselves first. Even when they have got success they don't bother about others.
2. Positive/Negative reframing:
Every emotion or trait can be classified as positive or negative. But, there are also ambiguous traits like self-absorption which can be both, depending on the intensity.
● Self-awareness is having a thorough knowledge of the self through analysis and meditations. It is always good to be aware of our nature, strengths, and weaknesses. It helps us live a calm and happy life. And so, this trait falls into a positive frame.
● Self-centeredness if gone overboard can cross into selfishness and make a person undesirable. But, done in the right amount it makes us independent and strong. We are the captain of our own ship then.
● A person's selfishness always has negative consequences irrespective of how selfish they are. As there is no concern at all for others, it may also end up harming people in the long run.
Selfish people are only takers and not concerned about others. E.g. Imagine you have to go to a restaurant and have a 9 p.m. reservation.
● A selfish person will complete their show and only then leave the house. It doesn't matter if you miss the reservation.
● They always put their needs above others.
A selfish person will keep you waiting at the airport in spite of promising to pick you up while they spend extra time at the hairdressers. Even though they do not respect your time always, a self-centered person would not go to that extent and pick you up on time.
Example of a self-centered person:
If you tell a self-absorbed person your cousin or someone close to you passed away, they would not immediately sympathize with you.
● First, they would tell you about the time they lost a loved one. How bad they felt about it or how their world crashed.
● They might even tell how sad they are that you would have to cancel your vacation plans to attend the funeral.
● They would basically focus on how bad it was for them in the same situation as opposed to you.
Suppose you have a major exam tomorrow and have to study for it. A self-absorbed person has no respect for your time and ambitions.
● They will call you to hang out with them or go to events.
● If you refuse, they will throw tantrums and use emotional blackmail till you agree.
● It does not matter if you pass or fail the exam, as long as you do their bidding.
However, once you attend the event or go to them, they might help you study for the exam for some time. They agree to help you only because to listen to them and they can control you. But they do think about you too.
1. Preoccupation with self/others:
Selfish people are always out to look for ways to succeed, at times at the cost of others. So they also observe what others do.
● If selfish people see someone succeeding they might bring them down so they can go ahead of others.
● Self-centered people are rarely concerned about others. They are too busy obsessing about themselves.
2. Helping others:
Both self-absorbed and selfish people think of themselves before others. However, there is a major difference in attitude here:
● Selfish people do not think of helping others once their work is done. They move on or may even hamper others' progress so that they are the only people who succeed.
● Self-centered people start helping others once they take care of themselves. Once they are satisfied and happy they look to do the same for others.
A person is made up of many traits which are like double-edged swords. You do too much of something and you may falter. But you do too little of something considered to be bad you may lose out too. Self-centeredness is one such quality. Too much or it borders on utter selfishness which is nasty. But, too little of it and you may become a pawn in the hand of others.
So, how can we know when we overdo it? How much is too much? Are there signs that we can look out for the difference between being selfish and being self-centered? Self-centeredness is concerned with looking out for oneself first. A self-centered person has a good amount of self-worth. Selfishness is only to think of oneself, sometimes at the cost of others.
Difference between self-centered and selfish people:
1. Sense of self:
A self-absorbed person has a very strong core. They can identify with a very deep sense of self. This has been built over years of taking care of one's needs regularly. Selfish people are shallow and only have self-interests which they fulfill at the cost of others. They do not have a secure sense of self.
2. Attitude to sharing:
Selfish people very often do not share much about themselves. Their future plans, ambitions, etc are all hidden for fear of others succeeding before them. Self-obsessed people share every detail about themselves for praise from others. They want to be appreciated for the littlest of things.
Life is generally full of struggles, but it has its fair share of happy days too. But with a few good habits like meditation, being in the present, and managing our time efficiently, we can strive to make life a bit easier.
The key is not to take ourselves and life too seriously all the time. Life is not a destination or a goal to be met. It is a journey that has to be taken a single day at a time while savoring every moment.
When we are in the present pursuing our hobbies and goals with full focus, the peace we feel is often unmatched keeps us distracted from constantly thinking about the hardships of life.
Getting lost in this endless existential crisis cycle gets a person lost and depressed eventually, and life is hard for such people. Instead, we must just choose a path and not dwell too much on the purpose of life and just enjoy the journey at the dawn of each day.
Most of us become involved in making other people happy, be it our friends or loved ones. When we see them happy our heart smiles. This may work for a while, but in the long term, it may become tiresome when we don't see our actions reciprocated.
The truth is everyone is busy with their own lives, and so we feel left out. This unhappiness translates to us thinking, why is life hard? Instead, do things and explore hobbies that make you happy, and gradually you will be able to enjoy your own company and find smooth life sailing.
When any activity is done at an extreme, it slowly burns us out, and we may lose interest in it completely. So, it's important to have balance in life.
When we only do activities we like, such as binging on Netflix, playing video games 24x7, etc., instead of everyday boring tasks like cleaning and other household chores, our house may end up messy, and we end up ordering and eating outside food.
This not only affects our health but also our moods and everyday life. We may eventually feel life is hard and get stuck in an endless loop of binging and playing. It's important to manage our time well and perform both our chores and hobbies in a balanced way.
Everyone is expected to have a particular lifestyle in society. A decent job, cozy two-storied home or two-bedroom apartment, a good-looking partner, and two sweet children. Anybody who strays from this path is shunned and ignored. This fear of being an outcast is what makes most people give up on their dreams and conform. Over time this becomes suffocating and makes life tough for a lot of people.
We live in a society wherein the rich are getting richer in today's world, and the poor are getting poorer. There are welfare schemes for the poor and tax rebates for the rich. But what about the majority of middle-class people?
Ever since we are born, we have to painfully struggle to get into good schools, good colleges, and even get good jobs. Due to overpopulation, even that is hard. The rich can pay their way through everything, whereas the poor and middle-class are left helpless. This unfairness in society is a cause of many hardships in life.
Man is a social, emotional animal. When we have no control over our emotions, we may end up making impulsive and rash decisions that may make life harder. It is important to learn and practice a certain degree of emotional intelligence to make sound decisions in life that might save us a lot of pain in the future. Sometimes, such bad decisions may also cost us monetarily.
Our jobs and relationships become more meaningful when we have a purpose attached to them. Without an end goal in life, our actions start becoming empty, and we keep questioning the reason for doing things and being with people.
When we are unaware of who we are and what we want in life, we endlessly chase jobs and people and are dissatisfied most of the time. This is why life is tough. The more we explore our inner selves and know who we are, the more we choose jobs that suit us or date people we like. This brings a tremendous amount of happiness in the long run and makes life easy. Self-love is the key to contentment in life.
Caring about the opinions of others since a young age and has been a major cause of unhappiness. Life is not easy when we are constantly living in fear of what others think of us.
Sometimes even when we make crucial decisions or plan to follow our dreams, this question always pops up - What will he/she think? We then get discouraged from living life the way we please and give in to social pressure.
Life is full of painful struggles, and bad things happen to good people. When we constantly see only the bad instances in our life, we become discouraged and feel as if success will never be ours.
In these times, life seems pretty hard. But such times do not last. When we learn to look at bad situations as learning experiences, even the negative becomes positive.
All of us have had dreams of working in a high-paying job, owning a big house with a family, and setting off on annual vacations. But what we don't realize is the sheer amount of hard work and discipline it takes to achieve these. What we see in our dreams is the end-product.
Many people make the mistake of planning to achieve these goals in an unrealistic frame of time. E.g., trying to drop 100 pounds in a month. Without knowing about diet, exercise, fat burning patterns, etc., we get disappointed when we can only lose 20 pounds in a week. Had we analyzed weight loss regimes and dietary plans to set an achievable target, we would be happy with even a 20-pound loss. This would have also given us a sense of achievement.
Many times we look at others and think that the grass is greener on the other end. We look at our friend's expensive car or huge house and wish we were in their place. However, not everyone reveals their difficulties to others. Especially in social media, all these Instagram models or families that show their perfect life make us wish for the same.
But we don't know of the amount of maintenance needed for such a life or the social pressures that come with it. Most models use filters to get the perfect look on camera. It is difficult being in the limelight constantly. Instead, we must focus our energies on improving our own life and achieving our dreams. We must be proud of our accomplishments without comparing them with others.
Growing up, most of us have had wonderful moments and memories as children! Endless games in the park during summer vacations, funny days playing pranks in school, sleeping peacefully in the arms of our parents are some nostalgic times to visit back.
Life was easy, and laughter was aplenty. However, as we grew into adults going through various phases of college, graduation, and finally, job, marriage, and having kids of our own, life became harder. So what shifted? Did the times change, or did we? Or was it a bit of both?
As responsibilities grew with each stage, so did our worries. Even though we each have our apprehensions in life depending on our circumstances, some common reasons plague us all, making life harder than we pictured growing up. Here are some of them :
Being tethered to the past:
Nowadays, it is hard enough to be completely present mentally, what with various distractions such as social media on our phones. However, life is tough when we are still busy reliving the moments in our past.
Particularly if they are unpleasant memories. Ranging from heartbreaks to failures or even grave memories lie losses of loved ones, these cause us nothing but sadness and pain if we still cling to them in the present.
Some of us even have happy memories we reminisce about, sometimes quite often. We must remember that past glories and achievements are done and dusted. There is no point wasting our time over them. The present is the time to set more goals and work towards greater wins.