Today’s post is all about how you can upgrade your life for the rest of the year. Think of this post as a little mid-year reset since we are officially halfway through 2021. Although I am a little late, that’s okay, haha! If you’re like me, you felt very inspired at the beginning of this year and set many goals for yourself and high expectations on how this year was going to go for you. Yet, you might find yourself, mid-2021, feeling you are not where you want to be or feeling discouraged that you haven’t accomplished things you said you were going to. Therefore, this might be causing you to have self-doubt, low self-esteem, and feeling so far away from your goals whether you have given up on them or are working incredibly hard towards them.
Where ever you are at I believe you have stumbled across this blog post for a reason! It is time to reflect! We can choose to look at the glass half empty or the glass half full. We can look at the year as halfway over or we can look at it like there is still half of the year left. And trust me, my friend, 6 months is a whole lot of time to change what you want to! To change your circumstances, to change yourself, and to still work towards your goals. Whatever position you are currently stuck in right now, A LOT can happen in 6 months!
For many of us, we know that the only person in our way is ourselves. Or at least that is the main person in our way, right? We tend to be the main obstacle holding us back from our goals. Consequently, we have to work hard at getting out of our own way! You may not be where you want to be right now, compared to your goals from the start of 2021, however, you can still learn so much from the past 6 months! Reflecting on our behaviors and actions, we have a lot to look at and learn from. So, think of this month or this time of year as a fresh start!
Personally, I get incredibly excited every time it’s a new month, new week, a new quarter of the year, etc. I simply love new beginnings because it reminds me that I can always start over! Heck, we can even start over tomorrow if we want!
Therefore, in today’s post, I thought it would be helpful and valuable to share some of the ways I believe you can change your life in the next 6 months. Of course, I do want to remind you to not focus on the fact that you haven’t accomplished your goals or your new year’s resolutions. Instead, put your focus on the progress that you have made! I guarantee you, my friend, even if you hate where you are at right now or you hate yourself right now I am sure there is something that you can be proud of! I know there is! You can be proud of reading this post and be proud of yourself for setting self-improvement goals in the first place.
With that, let’s dive into these tips!
1. Set your intentions
Know what you want and what you need! Have that vision that gets you very inspired and emotional in your head. Something that has helped me a lot is that at the beginning of this year, I wrote down a short version of the vision that I want for myself and my life. At times when I am feeling discouraged or unmotivated, I like to look back at the vision I wrote. It reminds me of the life that I want and the life I want to continue working hard for. In fact, I feel like it mentally transports me to my dream life for several minutes and allows me to really focus on those goals again.
Because I am so clear about this vision, I know what matters most to me in life. Therefore, I can try to live my life according to these principles.
2. Make your mental health a priority
I wholeheartedly believe that this is the foundation of your success in all areas of your life. For example, one person’s version of success might be to have a lot of money and to have their dream job. However, I don’t believe that we’re ever truly successful in life if we are not happy. I do feel that your best work will come from a place of inner peace! When you are feeling safe, loved, peaceful, and happy.
How many times have you had goals or intentions and you just can’t seem to reach them because you feel too stressed out, or anxious, or fatigued, or depressed? We live in this hustle and “go, go, go” culture that truly makes us feel like if we’re not being productive then what are we doing with our lives. But if you think about it, how productive can we actually be in our daily lives if we are struggling mentally? NEVER feel bad for putting your mental health and your healing first and making it your #1 priority!
If you need to get more sleep or make time to stretch or make time to catch up with people that make you feel good, whatever it is that allows you to heal your heart and feel your best, DO IT! Please, do not let anyone make you feel bad for doing those things instead of something “productive.” Because I honestly believe that healing your heart and becoming the happiest most peaceful version of yourself is probably one of the most productive things you can do!
At the end of the day, when you’re happy, everything else just comes together and begins to fall into place!
3. Focus on removing the bad habits first
In my own experience, and after learning this from many others as well, I have found that it’s not always incorporating new habits that are the hardest. The most difficult part is usually detoxing from those bad habits that have been subconsciously ingrained in us for so long and controlling ourselves and our lives. For example, a habit that I have been trying to incorporate for a very long time is to just be more present in my daily life. I want to work on truly living in each moment and not be stuck in my head all of the time or running on autopilot. However, a bad habit that always sabotages me from this goal is spending hours online watching mindless content that isn’t really serving me.
For example, I would spend one day completely in the moment, meditating, focusing on my current schoolwork, taking walks, and being in nature, feeling very peaceful and present. Then, the next day I would spend hours watching mindless Youtube videos on my phone and getting completely unfocused and unmotivated for the remainder of the day. I don’t know if technology makes you feel this way, but it definitely affects me very deeply. Now I’m not saying that practicing those good habits didn’t do anything for me, but they could’ve done so much more for me if I hadn’t still been practicing the bad habits.
That’s just one example of how those toxic habits can be holding us back from what is more important to us. After repeatedly making the same mistakes for so long, it was very clear to me what actually needed changing. It wasn’t necessarily developing a new habit but it was getting rid of the old habit that was getting in my way.
4. Live your life to the fullest
Lastly, if you want to transform yourself and your life in the next 6 months practice living your life to the fullest. Yes, I know it’s so simple and sounds cheesy, but, I genuinely believe that when we live present in this moment, so many positive changes happen within us and around us. As a society, we clearly have a major issue with mental health. Many people are suffering from depression, anxiety, stress, etc. and it’s so clear that the reason those issues are so common in people nowadays is that we are not authentically living our lives. We are not fully present in our own lives.
But think about how special the next 6 months of your life (and the rest of your life) could be if you truly found joy in every single detail. If you truly soaked in every sensation and connected to the infinite beauty in all of it. Think about how many actions you take daily that you’re not fully present for or that you’re on autopilot for. Even if it’s simply washing your hands or doing laundry. If you think about it if you’re 100% present for those activities they can actually be joyful. We can find joy in all of those simple things, which frankly is the key to life and the key to happiness!
In my opinion, that is the key to becoming your best self!
The overall goal of this post was to bring you some positivity and hope for the rest of this year! And I hope I succeeded in that! I pray that this post brings value to you in any little or big way and if it did please let me know in the comments!
Have a beautiful rest of your day, my friend!
xo, Cydney
Beautiful <3
Your website is so cute and beautiful and I’m sending loving, inspired, and significant respect energy your way! <3