We all have been down a rabbit hole when we are trying to change how we live our lives. And there are thousands of ways we can find to “change my life,” for example: “play life like a game,” “act like you’re already living your dream life,” “step into your alter ego.” And we might try these, and some of them might work for two weeks until you forget to step into your alter ego one day and go back to looking for a way to change your life. But with the different ways to attempt to change our lives, what actually works?

Small changes. It’s human to look for a way to change your life in a day. And realistically, it’s impossible. It’s literally 37 times harder to make a change in one day compared to taking small steps. But we can make smaller, more manageable changes. Instead of, for example, waking up late, don’t say you’re going to wake up two hours earlier every day because you know you’re not going to actually do it. But to actually make the change, take small steps. Like in this example, wake up 20 or even 5 minutes earlier. Instead of making a drastic change in one day, start small and be consistent.

Mindset, mindset, mindset. You have heard it before, but instead of all of a sudden changing your mind to thinking like the CEO of Google, simply start to think more positively and/or reframe the situation. Thinking more positively about things can often be one of the hardest things for people to do, but it’s simple. Instead of, for example, thinking you are going to fail, think about how good you’re going to do. Or instead of thinking your whole life is terrible, look for the positive, which I know if you look, you will find something. But how do we also reframe the situation? We could do this by asking ourselves the why. Like going back to the test example, asking, “Why do I think I’m going to fail?” and answering that makes it more manageable. Or thinking genuinely, what’s the worst that can happen? By changing our mindset, we can change how we view our lives.

Writing things down. With all these habits and things we want to change, it will feel overwhelming. And what do you do when you’re overwhelmed? You end up not doing whatever you’re supposed to do. So by writing things down, it makes it way more manageable. Making a to-do list every day or night gives things order. A simple method of doing this is writing everything down on paper, a complete brain dump, then putting them into a bullet-point list. Another way writing things down can actually help us “change” our lives is journaling. Again, with things being overwhelming, writing down just your thoughts makes it way less overwhelming. Thinking back on our day, like the test you took, was it really as bad as you thought it was going to be? By seeing our thoughts and what happens throughout the day, you often realize that things aren’t as bad as they seem. This helps us grow and change. Writing things down is a powerful and simple way to help us.

I’m not here to tell you the recipe on how to change your life in a day. Everyone is different in how they think and how their lives are. But I hope that by applying these things into your daily life, it can help you, even a little bit, to actually make a change one step at a time instead of all at once. By understanding ourselves, making the small changes, and changing how we view things, we can actually grow and improve our lives.