How to Upgrade your Life in the Next Six Months

How to Upgrade your Life in the Next Six Months

In this article, I am going to write about how to upgrade your life for mid-year. This is a time to start new things, make changes in your life, become the person that you've always wanted to become, or at least take steps towards that person.

And in this article, I want to talk about how to do all of that in the form of mindset shifts to make rituals to embrace changes to make in your life.

Mindset Shift 

The first way to upgrade your life mid-year is through a mindset shift that is become the person that you want to be friends with. For example, the kind of person that I would want to be friends with who takes himself to the beach. He goes on cue coffee dates. He is reading, he is meditating, he is journaling. And so that is who I try to be. And you can also use the mindset to become the person that you would want to date, because how can you attract those kinds of people in your life if you're not embracing the qualities that you want to see in other people?

Embracing this mindset does two things for you. Firstly, your life is going to be more enjoyable because you'll approach your weekend. What would the person that I'd want to be friends with? Do with their weekend. And also, you'll find that you'll attract those people, which I would argue is one of the biggest upgrades in life that you can make. Just one new friend, huge life upgrade.

To do this decide what the kind of person that you would want to be friends with does with their days. How do they spend their free time? What is the kind of places that they are going to in your local area? What mindsets are they embracing? what kind of things are they watching? Then start putting yourself in an environment where those people would be. So take yourself to the local coffee shop that you think that that boy would hang out at.

Ascot yourself to the park. Read a book under the Shady Tree. You don't need to go to these places with other people. If other people in your life don't want to attend your cue coffee shop, go on your own. Drop the attitude of if I had plans they have to be with someone else. We are getting comfortable with being on our own in this mindset shift. Start with small changes, one little trip to that coffee shop, chuck in a workout session here and there, and slowly up the energy over time.

Make the Unenjoyable Enjoyable

The next way to upgrade your life for mid-year is to decide to make the unenjoyable enjoyable for the next six months. Think through the most mundane parts of your life so your commute, your cleaning routine, waiting in line for lunch. Write a list of all of those mundane things that you do that you don't particularly enjoy. Then ask, how can I make these mundane moments more magical?

If you mix doing laundry with playing all of the new episodes from your favorite podcast, laundry suddenly becomes an enjoyable task. If, when you wait in line for lunch, you choose to intentionally message appreciation messages to all the people that you love. It becomes something that you look forward to.

Another way to make mundane tasks more interesting is to simply decide to give them your all. Instead of just tidying the house decide to make it a project. What is the best route to tidy your house? What can you do to make your tidying routine 10 minutes instead of 15 minutes? Become kind of fascinated by these tasks that you consider mundane to make them more interesting tasks.
 
Ian Bogost is a game designer who talks a lot about making mundane things fun. He talks a lot about how he really didn't enjoy mowing the lawn until he started asking himself what is the best time of day to mow a lawn? How can I make my grass grow incredibly well? And then he just got really into the mundane task of mowing his lawn. Being ultra curious made for a far more interesting task.

Create a Weekly Planning Ritual

The next way to upgrade your life is to create a weekly planning ritual that supports you in becoming the person that you want to be. Weekly planning is not just for productivity. I see it as a time to also plan the enjoyable things in your week. Plan when you're going to get in nature, when you're going to be in the sunshine, plan in dates with yourself.

The most magical of times often come from just a little bit of pre-planning. You've really gone to a magical party that has an involved, a bunch of pre-planning. You probably haven't been to a good presentation that has not involved a good amount of pre-planning. It's very unlikely that you have done a really good job at an interview without some pre-planning.

Actively Working On Your Negative Beliefs

The next way to upgrade your life for the next six months is to start actively working on your negative beliefs. So beliefs like I'm a procrastinator, I am not competent, I'm not interesting. To uncover your negative beliefs that you really need to start working on, ask yourself the question, what am I struggling with right now? And what beliefs are supporting that struggle?

For example, if you're struggling with finding a good relationship, do you hold the belief that you're not worthy of someone amazing, that you're not worthy of a ton of love? If you are struggling with money, do you hold the belief that money is a really limited resource, and it's really hard to make?

Negative beliefs usually start with I am, I can't, the weld is, people are, and those beliefs drive your life. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right applies always.

Get intentional about firstly uncovering your negative beliefs. You need to be aware of your negative beliefs before you can start working on them. Secondly, decide which ones that you want to work on first. Pick the ones that are having the biggest impact on your day-to-day life. Thirdly do work around those beliefs. There are a ton of resources online to help you with this.

If you truly make it a priority to start working on your negative beliefs in the next 6 months, your life will look very different by the end of the year.

Decide How To Manage Your Mind

The next way to level up your life for mid-year is to decide exactly how you are going to manage your mind when negative feelings or thoughts arise. Our society tells us that negative feelings are really bad to have, and our friends and our family as much as they adore us. When we get negative feelings, they just try to squash them. They don't want to see them.

Most of us are never really taught how to handle our negative emotions at least in a healthy way. Something that can be really helpful for this is creating almost a manual for your feelings. So Amber Rae released a product called The Wonder Journal and it is essentially a guide to managing your emotions. If you're feeling angry, you flip to that page, you follow the prompts.

This is not me telling you that you absolutely need to buy that journal. I am saying that you can create something of a similar nature for yourself that helps you to handle those emotions when they arise. It can be a quick list that says, when I am mad, I label five things in my environment. I do a breath, exercise, etc.

If for the next six months, every time a negative feeling arises, you react to it by taking five deep breaths, really sitting back and feeling your feelings, feeling those physical triggers that come up behavioral warnings that come up emotional warnings that come up and then doing a bit of journaling. You are going to develop a really healthy reflex when you feel those negative emotions in the future.

I appreciate you so very much, and I will see you soon.