Improving your life does not have to require drastic and onerous changes. It is possible to completely turn your life around in just 60 days by taking simple steps to change how you view, and interact, with the world.
Here are 60 things you can do, one every single day, to achieve remarkable changes in your life. These are intended to take place over 60 days or a little over 2 months, with the idea being that 60 days from now — you could be an entirely different person.
Let’s get into it.
The First 20 Days…
Day 1: Believe In Your Own Value
“Strong people have a strong sense of self-worth and self-awareness; they don’t need the approval of others.”
― Roy T. Bennett
This is the way to start. You’ve got to recognise your value. Because you are a valuable part of the world. I had a call with a student the other day — one of the free calls I give away every week — and she asked me if I valued myself. I told her that I did because I believe everybody should recognise their own worth. Their worth as people who have the potential to do big and small things and inspire and help other folks.
Day 2: Study The Rise & Fall
“People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.”
– Edmund Burke
The greatest men and women in history have risen, fallen and risen again. Looking back and studying their lives, mistakes, virtues, and vices is the single greatest way to improve on your own. One of the most important books I ever read was The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volumes I-VI. Took me 6 months. Taught me everything I ever needed to know about arrogance and destruction in the face of glory. You don’t have to read the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but you should start reading at least one biography about a historical figure. And take notes.
Day 3: Face What Makes You Weak
What makes you fall down? What makes you disappoint yourself and others? I know my weaknesses. I’m a student of them. I’m prone to obsession and addiction, and that’s been okay when my focus has been work, but when it’s been sex, money, and drinking — it’s been disastrous. Discover your own weaknesses and write down a one paragraph plan to battle each one.
Day 4: Ask For Help
“Never let your ego get in the way of asking for help when in desperate need. We have all been helped at a point in our lives.”
― Edmond Mbiaka
Asking for help is something none of us do as much as we should. Sometimes, it’s a matter of just putting up our hands and saying hey — we’re struggling. If you’re looking to change yourself in 100 days, ask the people around you for assistance. Ask them to help you find your weaknesses and hone your strengths.
Day 5: Begin Learning Something New
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
— Dr. Seuss
It’s vitally important that you challenge yourself. Challenge yourself spiritually, mentally, physically. So take this opportunity to start something entirely new. It doesn’t even matter what it is. The other day, I started learning how to cook Profiterols. The pay off on this one is going to be delicious.
Day 6. Start A Side Hustle
A side hustle is a simple way to start generating more income. It doesn’t have to be a lot of income. It doesn’t have to be a huge amount, and it doesn’t have to buy you a Porsche. It can be coffee money. But once you start to experience bringing in additional income, making money outside of your day job, you’ll hook yourself on entrepreneurship and embrace your own freedom.
Day 7: Start To Eliminate Debt
Debt is what drags you down. It’s what weighs on you and makes you wake up sweating in the middle of the night. Debt is a huge negative, and having a plan to deal with it can be transformative.
Day 8: Accept Your Mistakes
Mistakes aren’t the end of the world. You’re probably still living with the guilt, shame, fear and ache of your past errors and that’s not okay. It’s not okay because you’re putting an immense amount of pressure on yourself and you’re going to buckle under that strain. Start to accept that those mistakes happened, and if they hadn’t — you might not be the person you are today.
Day 9: Embrace success
Are you scared of success?
You might think that’s a dumb question, but you’d be amazed how many people are subconsciously terrified of success. They self sabotage and try to avoid it because they haven’t built up their identity around reaching goals — just working on them.
If you want to be successful, you’ve got to embrace it. Be prepared to live it.
Day 10: Commit To Getting Up an Hour Earlier
This is important. Just one hour earlier could make a huge difference in your productivity and your happiness. When I was struggling with my worst period of depression, I was getting up at 10 or 11 AM.
Slowly, I dropped that down by just one hour every 2 or 3 months. When I emerged from that low period, I was getting up at 7 AM and feeling better about my life than ever before.
Day 11: Build A Fuck You Fund
What’s a Fuck You fund? It’s a savings account that will let you quit, walk away and tell the people who are making your life hell at your day job that you don’t need them around. My formula for calculating what that should look like is this:
Your monthly pay x 3 + enough money to party all night just once.
That’s based on what I wish I’d had back when I got fired from a startup job I used to work. I had almost zero money in my account, but I took every cent and partied it up. It was dumb, but that’s what I needed to do.
Imagine if you had enough cash to survive for 3 months plus a bit to splash out with your best friends…just once…
Day 12: Start Meeting People
I know, we all hate networking. I’ve written entire blog posts about that in the past. But there’s a difference between networking and just getting out there to meet like-minded folks, even if it’s over a beer at a crummy event or over a coffee via Skype. Doesn’t matter. The more people you meet, the wider your experience of humans becomes, the better you’ll be as a person.
Day 13: Listen To What Your Heart Is Trying To Say
Our hearts tell us things all the time. They do. They tell us whether we’re happy or not, and we don’t listen to ’em because we’d rather just say we can’t understand their language so that we don’t have to face the hard truths. Stop doing that. Start listening. Start paying attention. Understand what your heart wants.
Day 14: Ask For More Opportunities
Seriously, just ask.
Ask your boss. Ask your colleagues. Ask your college roommate.
Ask your peers, your superiors, your accountant. Ask if they know of any opportunities for you to add value, based on the skills that you have.
Ask and you shall recieve.
Day 15: Spend Your Money On Your Mind
Just $20.
For $20, you can buy some pretty damned incredible courses on Udemy. Here’s some examples:
Spending money on improving your mind and your knowledge will never be a waste. Not ever.
Day 16: Take The Day Off
Sit on the couch. Play Xbox.
Eat junk food if you want to. Let your mind switch off. Do the lazy stuff that you want to do every other day. Let it all out. Why? Because you have to give yourself room to be imperfect. You have to give yourself room to be a mess. It’s natural.
Day 17: Write An Emergency Plan
What’s your biggest fear? For me, it’s suffering a permanent injury that would stop me from working. In order to counteract that fear, I’ve spent time developing checklists and processes for what would happen in an emergency like that. What would happen if I had to go to Hospital.
I keep these checklists on my laptop, and I’ve given instructions to the people who know me best about how to access those lists.
Sounds over the top, right?
It gives me a sense of security and preparedness that makes me feel ready to take on risks. Any risks at all.
Day 18: Face The Facts…The People Who Hate You Aren’t Worth Your Time.
Guess what. Some people are always going to think you’re an asshole.
That’s just the way it goes.
– Doesn’t matter what you do.
– Doesn’t matter how you do it.
– Someone will always hate you.
People find reasons and ways (and somehow time) to hate Mother Teresa.
People will find the energy to hate you too.
So you have to accept that those people are not fucking worth your time.
Who cares about them. You shouldn’t, for starters.
Day 19: Cut Out The Junk Food (but not completely)
One of the best decisions I ever made was to start reducing the amount of junk food I consumed on a daily basis. Way back when I used to live next door to a McDonalds’ I’d eat there every day. I’d eat there every chance I got. I’d eat there like I was a damn shareholder.
And it got to me. It affected my moods. It affected everything about me. It affected my weight (of course) but it also stopped me sleeping. It drove my depression right up. It stopped me from being productive.
NOTE…one of the worst things I ever did was quit eating junk food completely. Because my body craved it. And I was always, always denying it, and that craving didn’t go away and eventually I snapped and swung too far back the other way and ate so much crap I felt terrible for days. Don’t get extreme. Give yourself room to be imperfect. That should be my motto, I say it enough times.
Day 20: Change Your Surroundings
I think it’s always important to be vigilant of what you’re doing and aware of your surroundings.
— Leona Lewis
The rooms you live and work in have a massive impact on your moods, your health and your productivity. A massive impact. My business almost failed when I had a messy office with trash everywhere and an old milk crate stool. My business picked up when I splashed out on a proper desk, a proper chair and a Batman print for my damn wall.
Start thinking about the way your surroundings are impacting your life and who you are as a person, and if there are negatives — look at making small changes. Adding a picture to your desk. Lighting a candle. Doesn’t matter, as long as it shakes it all up.
…The Next 40 Days
Day 21: Start Doing Volunteer Work
Day 22. Examine Your Support Network
Day 23. Build A Brain Trust (Start Gathering Like Minded Folks For Dinner & Brainstorming)
Day 24. Fix The Broken. Find What’s Broken In Your Home And Repair It. If You Don’t Know How…Learn How.
Day 25. Start Looking For Jobs In Your Sector. Not To Apply. Just To Work Out What Skills You’re Missing. Work On Those Skills.
Day 26. Start Walking. Every Day. 5 Minutes First. Then 10 Minutes. Then 20 Minutes. Gradully, Walk Your Way To A Better Level Of Fitness.
Day 27. Get Back To Your Caveman Roots. No, I Don’t Mean Go Paleo. I Mean Spend Some Time In Nature. Hike. Camp. Picnic.
Day 28. Start Planning Your Day The Night Before. Do It In Your Calendar App. Block Out Your Time Periods.
Day 29. Get Your House In Order. Get Your Will Together. Get Your Accounting Together. Put Your Receipts In One Place.
Day 30. Re-learn How To Be Alone.
Day 31. Start A Journal. Even If You Don’t Write In It Every Day. Just Do It When You Can.
Day 32. Accept That You Do And Can Have Control Over Your Feelings, Destiny, And Reactions.
Day 33. Accept That Your Body Doesn’t Rule You. Neither Does Your Mind. They Must Work Together.
Day 34. Eat The Opposite Of Your Normal Diet. Break Your Eating Pattern.
Day 35. Stop Being Frightened Of The Future. Those Who Remain Scared About What Could Happen Don’t Stop The Bad From Happening.
Day 36. Remember That An Ego Is Not The Worst Thing In The World. It Can Be Vital For Success.
Day 37. Learn How To Say Fuck In Another Language. (It’ll Make You Want To Learn More Of That Language)
Day 38. Raise Your Standards. By Just 10 %. Your Standards For Your Work, Your Eating, Your Morning Walk.
Day 39. Examine Your Sugar Intake. If You Need To Make A Change, Make A Change. Sugar Isn’t The Enemy. Excess Is.
Day 40. Stop Just One Weekly Expense. You Always Buy A Coffee On Thursdays? Try Living Without That One Thursday Coffee For One Week.
Day 41. Ask Yourself What You Can Automate In Your Job And Home Life. Use IFTTT To Do It. Try And Automate Your Way To Saving 10 Minutes Each Day. Then Increase It By 10 %.
Day 42. Schedule More Sleep Into Your Nights. 8 Hours Is The Goal. I’m At 5. I’m Working On It. #Imnotperfect
Day 43. Increase Your Fruit & Vegetables. Just By One Item. Just A Damn Carrot.
Day 44. Explore Your Partner Or Best Friends’ Hobby. Try And Expose Yourself To A Different Activity.
Day 45. Learn Your Own Past. Learn How Your Parents Met. Learn Why They Live Where They Live. Learn The Name Of Your First Teacher If You’ve Forgotten It.
Day 46. Round Up Your Transactions and Round Down Your Deposits to Grow Your Savings
Day 47. Always Help Others to Earn Favours. But Never Expect Those Favours back.
Day 48. Keep Track of Every Penny to Avoid Stress.
Day 49. Always Give Credit Where it is Due.
Day 50. Spend More Time Together as a Family. If You Don’t Have A Blood Family, Look To The Family You’ve Made Through Your Friendships.
Day 51. Develop A Back Up Plan For Your Career.
Day 52. Clean Up Your Street. It’ll Change Your Surroundings, Introduce You To Your Neighbours, And Make You Feel Damn Good.
Day 53. Try Something You Thought You Hated.
Day 54. Pick One Place To Keep Your Keys, Wallet, Glasses Etc.
Day 55. Learn When to Replace Items and Budget Accordingly
Day 56. Buy A Game. Any Game. Play It. Even If You Suck.
Day 57. Try Any Sport. Any Sport At All. Surfing, Running, Whatever. Just Give It One Shot.
Day 58. Find A Book Club. Online, Offline, Wherever. Start Reading More And Discussing What You’ve Read.
Day 59. Be the Most Confident Person In A Room.
Day 60. Find Ways to Make Your Morning More Efficient.
What’s The Guarantee Here?
It would be impossible for you to reach the end of these 60 days and not have improved your life and your health as a person. Impossible. So my guarantee is that if you follow this — even if you don’t manage every day — you’re going to be happier and more successful.
Here’s the best part. Even just trying to follow it will have made a difference, because you’ll be proving to yourself that you have an innate desire to improve your situation. That’s a massive win in and of itself.
Wait, Though. I’ve Read This Post, Why Should I Listen To Any of It?
Because I’ve followed this 60 day checklist myself.
I created it — day by day — during the worst periods of my diagnosed depression when I was swinging between taking medication and just not even getting out of bed. When I was drinking. A lot. When I was broke. When I had nothing. When I hated myself.
I’m a different person now, and I’ve worked hard to become that. Honestly, this process has made an incredible difference. And if you follow it, what have you got to lose? I’m not charging you for it. It’s just my idea of how you can improve yourself.
[This post by Jon Westenberg first appeared on Medium and has been reproduced with permission.]
