To bid farewell to the year, we learn about how to induce a sea change. 

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Where Should You Begin?

How do you even begin to make changes in your life if you feel completely overwhelmed by the number of things that you want to change?

This question is difficult for a few reasons; the main reason would be: “Where do you start?”, do you start by organizing your debts? Do you start by fixing your car? Do you start by renovating your room?

Another reason why this question is problematic is that how do you know which task is the most important task to tackle? Allow me to simplify this for you:

Start with the easiest and most straightforward thing you can do. Clean your room. If your room is clean already, then spend 30 minutes organizing to simplify your life. For example, have your T-shirts/Blouses held in such a way that you do not need to look through your closet for 15 minutes to find one. Have them all in one neat and orderly folded pile.

So, you have cleaned or organized your room, what now? Do you make your bed every morning? If you do, then well done. If you do not, then making your bed is the perfect example of a micro-habit that has an immense impact on the quality of your life. Making your bed consistently every morning puts you in the mindset of success. Why? Well, when you are making your bed you are not merely draping your blanket over the top of the mattress and walking away (although that is better than nothing), instead, you are expending effort trying to perfect the bed. You are paying attention to the corners and the ripples in the top cover and smoothing out the crinkles so that you are looking at a smooth and orderly surface. Then you place your pillows in a tidy and organized manner—perfection (your version of it). When you return to your bed that night, two things will greet you: your oriented and handsome bed and your sense of accomplishment and pride with yourself. This sense will drive you to perform the same actions the following morning.

Making your bed every morning and maintaining a clean-living space will cause other things in your life to change.

The orderliness of your room juxtaposed against the chaos of your life will allow you to know precisely what and how to tackle any given task. In other words, because you spent your time doing something productive instead of lounging about you are 2% better for it, this 2% improvement will translate to a significant improvement the longer you maintain a habit, and the more beneficial practices you chain together, the better you become. Therefore, I say: start by starting; however, I would amend my original statement to the following:

“Start by starting small”.