How to Fix Your Life

Most of us get derailed from time to time ... or we never even find the train station. If you are tired of always feeling like life is an unpleasant challenge, here are 12 simple steps (and no, this is not a 12-step program) you can do. Apply them. Keep trying. You will fail sometimes or often, but do not give up. Imagine if you succeed at some of them to some degree. Imagine if you are able to improve your life by just 1 percent each week. Imagine where you will be in a month and then a year!

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

1. Exercise. Your life will feel better almost immediately.
2. Eat healthy. Live on garbage like processed meals and junk food, and you'll feel like garbage.
3. Get counseling. Life is hard, but it need not be depressing. If you are struggling with your attitude or self-destructive habits such as alcohol or drug abuse, you don't have to go it alone. Talk to the professionals. A good counselor can help you understand negative patterns and behaviors ... and help you change them into self-constructive patterns.
4. Cultivate positive relationships. We all need people. Relationships are key to personal satisfaction and flat-out happiness. However, if you sleep with dogs, you will get fleas. If you hang around with self-destructive, negative people, or with enablers who love to see you suffering because it makes them feel good about themselves (trust me, there are a lot of them out there), you will pick up their negative attitudes. Instead, seek positive relationships with positive people. Join a service group like the Lions or Optimists, or find a house of worship and get involved in study and prayer groups. Most of all, reach out and connect with people, and your life will improve within weeks.
5. Get enough sleep. Sounds simple, but sleep deprivation can cloud your entire outlook on life. If you get 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night, you will be better equipped to manage the challenges in your life.
6. Cut down on video and computer games. Ten minutes of gaming a day can be a great relaxer. However, if you spend an hour or more doing this stuff, you are wasting your time and your life.
7. Plan social events. Give yourself something to look forward to. It may be something as insignificant as getting your friends to a fish fry dinner on Friday night, or maybe it's a vacation on St. Maarten next winter with your spouse, significant other or best friend.
8. Volunteer. If you believe your life sucks, chances are that you are focusing way too much time on yourself. Happy people think about others. Get out and help other people.
9. Wean yourself off non-vital prescription drugs. This may sound controversial, but I'm a bit old school. If you are depressed, yes, get medication, but DO NOT LIVE ON MEDS for years. The same goes for sleeping pills. Go ahead and suffer through a few sleepless nights. It won't kill you. As for anti-depressants, talk to your doctor about an end date for no longer taking the meds.
10. Stop self-medicating with alcohol and illegal drugs. Alcohol is a depressant. Other drugs are self-destructive and stupid ...and will make you the same. If you want to fix your life, you need to take charge of it. That means take charge of your body and what you put into it.
11. Invest 30 minutes a day on self-improvement. Read or listen to inspirational CDs. Visit the bookstore or library. Most of all, block out 30 minutes for this reading every day.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't be discouraged if you have a hard time getting started or staying on track. These are life-changing habits. No one said it would be easy. But the results can be well worth the effort. In fact, they can be fantastic and life-changing.
• Training your body and mind to get enough sleep is a habit that can take time. Be patient. You may find that you get a good, long night's sleep only one or two nights a week at first. Eventually, however, it will increase to three and then four. (Nobody that I know of gets seven good nights sleep each week.)
• Looking for ideas on volunteering? Get involved in Meals on Wheels, a local civic or service group, reading to shut-ins, visiting a nursing home, volunteering at school, shoveling the snow on a neighbor's sidewalk. Ideas are everywhere.
• Many processed foods are loaded with weird chemicals. Personally, I am allergic to MSG; it creates something akin to restless leg syndrome in me. A friend pointed out how many processed foods contained MSG (some taco chips, even some broths) and it make a big impact on my life. Read labels.