They can turn your life around

Most of the things that can change your life are not easy to do. That probably explains why, even though everybody wants to upgrade their lives, only few people actually make the effort.

Here are 11 things that can make a lot of difference in people lives but are really uncomfortable and hard.

Being Faithful to Your Partner

In today’s relationships, infidelity is on the rise. People cheat on those they claim to love without hesitation. And being faithful has become more difficult for many.

An estimated 70% of married people say they’ve cheated at least once in their marriage. Another report shows that 20% and 13% of men and women cheat.

But infidelity comes at a huge cost. It hurts the person being cheated on and ruins your relationship. It’s the number one reason for breakups.

Nothing is satisfying about betraying your partner’s trust and cheating on them. Those moments of indiscretion eventually come back to haunt you.

Staying faithful may not be easy. But, whether it’s convenient or not, it’s about honoring your pledge to the one person you’ve chosen to spend the rest of your life with. That’s what discipline is about. That’s what it means to have respect for yourself and your partner.

Read also: How to create a life full of abundance

Maintaining a positive attitude

Life can be challenging and hard. We all go through devastating experiences at one time or the other. We go through a relationship break up to a loss of job, bankruptcy, health crisis, and even the death of a loved one.

At such times, it can be hard to keep a smiling face because everything seems to be going against you. You want to give in and end it all. But it will only make your situation worse.

Worry and bitterness create a negative force field that keeps good things away from coming to you. Pessimism triggers a cycle of unending misfortunes, including putting your health at risk.

But hope or optimism is what can make a real difference in your life. It helps you to keep moving forward because you know good things are on the way and your dreams can still come true. It improves your quality of life and ensures you live even much longer.

Making time for the people you care about

People generally only look after themselves and after their own interests. We’re all doing the best we can for ourselves. And if people find they gain nothing from you in any way, they’ll make time for what they want in other life areas.

Life is about trade-offs. The decision we all have to make is deciding how much of one thing we can give up to get other equally important things.

If you’re too busy with your career and making money, it’s because you’ve set those as your own priorities. If you value your relationships more, you’ll make the effort to spend time with the people who matter to you.

In the end, your priorities always reveal themselves in where you invest your time. Spend time with your spouse and kids. Drive down to see your aging parents. Hang out with your friends. If you care about people, make the effort to check them up. It’ll make a great difference in your life and theirs.

Keeping track of what you eat

What you eat plays an important role in your body. It can affect your mood, health, and wellbeing.

Your body digests the food you eat and absorbs its essential nutrients and minerals. It then converts the food into energy.

Most people hardly take seriously what food they put into their mouths. They consume unhealthy processed foods with excess fats and sugar. This puts them at risk of chronic health problems.

You can cut out unnecessary consumption by paying more attention to what you eat. This helps you protect your body from falling victim to disease attacks.

You want to make sure you’re putting only foods with the right nutrients into your body. Focus on lean meats and veggies, avoid grains. That’s what changes your life forever.

Continually Improving Yourself

Most people would love to be better and become the best version of themselves. They will spend huge sums of money on designer clothes. They will undergo a series of cosmetic surgery to fix parts of their body to look like supermodels.

The money on your look is great. But the best investment and one that’s guaranteed to yield high returns is the one you make to upgrade your mind.

Reading is hard. It takes effort and discipline. Taking a course to equip yourself with an important skill is hard. Signing up for a workshop isn’t what most people want to do.

But if you want to take yourself to a new life, investing in yourself has to become one of your non-negotiables.

Invest in yourself. It’s like being a boxer, you’ve got to be in training so that when the bell rings, you get your direction,you come out of the corner, and you’re ready. Do not let the audition be the first thing you’ve done in six months. — Karl Urban

Volunteering

In a culture of busyness where everyone is working so hard to achieve so much, people forget to look out for others.

Over 50 percent of people don’t volunteer because of work commitments. And 37 percent say they have “other things” to do with their spare time.

Volunteering is when you give out your time and resources in a selfless service to others. It’s empowering people to have a better life.

This is not so easy to do because it might seem like a waste of time when you have a lot on your to-do. And especially because you usually don’t get anything in return.

But it’s how you prove what you believe in and value. It’s how you express gratitude for your own good fortune. It’s how you help bridge the gap and give the old, sick, and physically-challenged a sense of belonging.

That’s what makes volunteering an overwhelming experience; the feeling that you’re part of something — a community. It changes your life.

Do something that scares you

Setting a goal that’s bigger than anything you’ve done in the past is the most uncomfortable thing you can do.

Most people get too accustomed to their routines. They stick with what their most comfortable with. But the danger is it keeps them at the same level where they’re not growing.

If you want to reach your full potential, you need to do more than the bare minimum. It requires pushing yourself beyond your limits and doing what makes you uncomfortable.

The good news is it doesn’t have to be something grand. It could be as simple as striking up a conversation with a stranger at a bar. It could be taking a trip to a different continent. It could be mountain-climbing. It could be getting up at 5 a.m. every day.

The hardest part is going out there and taking the action steps. When you do, something happens in your mind. Your confidence in yourself and your capacity to do anything grows. You begin to see yourself as capable of accomplishing any goal you set.

Asking for help

One of the most uncomfortable yet healthy things you can do is to ask for help. The reason is that we’re hardwired to want to do things on our own and be independent-minded.

Without a doubt, we’ve all had moments in our lives when we needed some help from others.

It’s unlikely you’ll ever know all there is to know or have the skills to do everything well. You shouldn’t expect the same from other people either. So it makes sense you’d have occasion to ask someone for help at some point.

It makes you feel uneasy because it requires surrendering control to someone else. You don’t want to be ashamed of your situation or come across as incompetent. Or you’re afraid you’ll be shunned or rejected if you asked.

But at the end of the day, you’re better off asking for help. Trying to figure things out all by yourself might be too costly.

Practicing calmness and meditation

Slowing down and finding inner calm can be especially difficult for people who’re always on the go.

These days, many people barely have time to take care of themselves because they’re always thinking of the next things they need to do.

The point of meditation is to train your attention and use introspection guide you to deeper states of consciousness.

You get to master your ability to direct your attention the way you want, and eliminate the stream of jumbled thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress.

This process helps you gain clarity about your reality and goals as well as enhance your cognitive capacity, emotional intelligence, and self-discipline.

Read also: Read this book to transform your life ( very powerful)

Be 100% honest

Being honest with people is uncomfortable but it’s an important trait to cultivate.

Honesty means saying what is true no matter how it makes others feel. It means telling yourself and others the hard but uncomfortable truth.

Going against the crowd

Going against the views of others to stand with the conviction of your own beliefs is an act of bravery. It isn’t what most dare to do.

Many times, we see people align with those they share a common interest with. It’s not necessarily because they believe their action is right. Instead, they don’t want to be treated as outcasts.

But choosing to stand for what you believe in, even if no one stands behind you — that’s when you set yourself apart. This becomes even more challenging when you’re up against people who are of the same interests as you.

CONTRIBUTED BY Victor Mong

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