How To Change Your Life in 6 Months (or Less)

No magic, just a simple framework.

Most people never aim to make big changes in their lives. No matter how stuck they feel, they always
think, “That’s who I am,” “I was born this way,” or worse: “It’s just the way it is.”
Yet, the truth is, your personality and life are fluid. Things can change. You can change. But it won’t
happen on its own.
You need to let go of who you are so you can become who you might be. As Steven Pressfield once
said:
“Most people have two lives: the lives we live and the lives we are capable of living.”
And even though change always takes time, a few months of dedication and focus can help us
fundamentally change who we are and how we live.
Start with a *Life Audit*
If you want to change your life, you first need to get clear on what your life looks like right now.
This will help you find out what exactly you want to change.
Ideally, you’ll take a close look at the different areas of your life and determine which of those you’re
(un)satisfied with:
Health (mental & physical)
Finances & Wealth
Career
Relationships (friends, family & romantic)
Personal Fulfillment/Growth/Creativity/Spirituality
You can expand these areas depending on what feels important to you, but usually, this distinction is a
great place to start.
Now, rate each of these areas on a scale of 1–5.
1=I’m unsatisfied. This area needs change.
5=I’m completely satisfied. There’s nothing I want to change about this area of my life.
Based on this rating, you’ll create a plan on how to move forward with potential solutions by asking
yourself questions like:
Do I need new skills to improve the poorly rated areas of my life?
Which resources/support do I need to make those improvements?
How can I get started? What’s one tiny change I can make immediately?
Which daily shifts do I need to make in order to create lasting change?
…move on to creating a big-picture vision of your life
Once you’ve honestly rated the areas of your life, the next step is creating a big-picture vision of your
future.
This is crucial because it’ll hold you accountable by reminding you of the life you want to create for
yourself.
The good news is, you don’t need to get hyper-specific. This is all about pictures and emotions.
Instead of setting specific goals, we now ask ourselves how we want to feel:
What kind of person do I want to be?
How do I want to feel (emotionally and physically) when I get up each morning?
How do I want to feel shortly before falling asleep?
How do I want to spend the majority of my time?
How do I want to make big decisions in my life? Based on fear and scarcity or based on abundance and
joy?
What are some experiences I want to make in the next 3, 5, or 10 years?
No matter what exactly we want to achieve, the starting point is always a picture in our minds.
Ideally, you won’t only answer these questions in your mind but instead create a vision board full of
images that represent your ideal life.
My favorite tools for creating vision boards are Pinterest and Canva.
Your vision board isn’t driven by numbers or vanity metrics. Instead, it’s about your long-term dreams
and the broad overview of the life you want to create for yourself and your loved ones.
You could even throw a little “vision board party” with your partner, kids, or friends.
Now, bring it together.
Next, you want to combine your life audit and your vision to develop a maximum of 3–5 goals you
want to work on for the next 6 months. Ideally, these goals will help you improve the areas of your life
you’ve determined as most unsatisfying in the first step of the process.
Those goals should be:
specific
achievable
and a little challenging so you really need to stay focused
Instead of overwhelming yourself with huge goals, focus on starting small and staying consistent. As
James Clear writes in Atomic Habits:
“Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re
willing to stick with them for years.”
You can set two different types of goals:
Habit goals are about building habits that’ll ultimately help you feel a certain way or implement
specific changes in your life. E.g., by working out daily, you might feel stronger and more confident.
Result goals, however, are less about sticking to a daily routine and more about a final result you want
to create. E.g., losing 10 pounds.
In the end, most result goals can be achieved through habit goals anyway.
E.g. to lose 10 pounds, you might want to stick to a healthy diet, work out regularly, etc.
Make sure you actually *do* what you said you’ll do
Now that you’ve got the roadmap, the question is: How can you ensure to make time for your
habits/goals?
Ideally, you’ll have a specific answer to that question and define exactly how you’ll stick to your good
intentions.
Will you do it first thing in the morning?
How will you prepare and stay consistent?
Do you want to work with an accountability buddy? Do you need a coach or trainer to support you?
Do you need any other external resources like courses, books, etc.?
Keep in mind that you are in the driver’s seat of your life. It’s your responsibility to make sure you
actually show up for yourself and do what you said you’ll do.
Consistency is the unsexiest yet surest way to move forward with anything in life.
And as Henry Ford once said:
“You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.”
So many people have ideas and goals but lack actionable plans and discipline.
The problem is, ideas and goals won’t lead you anywhere. They might motivate you for a few days, but
that’s it. After a while, motivation will fade away, and you’ll face the same old problems.
You need to fix your mind before you can fix your life
I know, I know: You’ve heard it a dozen times, and you’re sick of the usual “Your mindset matters”
talks.
The problem is, it really does. And as Zig Ziglar famously preached:
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend
it daily.”
You don’t need to be uber-motivated to change your life, but you must be calm, mindful, focused, and
inspired.
If you lack the inspiration to get started, you’ll likely give up before you can see your desired results.
So the question is: How will you ensure you stay inspired to actually make a change?
What will you do if you don’t feel inspired? How will you ensure you *still* keep going?
Whenever you “don’t feel like doing the work,” remind yourself that everything in life is a trade-off.
Your daily choices ultimately dictate the life you lead.
Every single day, we decide whether we stick to our good intentions or not. If we do, we move a step
forward. If not, we stay stuck, or worse: we move backward.
Every day, we choose whether we show up with integrity, courage, and mindfulness or if we let the
outside world dictate how we feel.
Once you’re aware of this basic principle, sacrificing your goals might suddenly feel much more
painful.
The truth is, building strong habits (and ultimately, changing your life) is about consistency but not
about perfection.
As humans, we’ll always make mistakes and slip off our routines.
And the good news is, that’s fine as long as you stick to a simple rule: Never miss twice.
Skipping your habits once is a mistake that can happen to anyone. Skipping it twice in a row, however,
can quickly become a pattern.
Making mistakes is okay. It happens to all of us. But skipping our intentions more than once is usually
based on laziness and a lack of commitment.
…but you also need to fix the details
Now you might ask yourself… “Well, how can I make sure I actually stick to my good intentions?!”
The answer is, by designing your environment for success. This has two fundamental goals:
Discouraging bad behavior by getting rid of negative influences.
Encouraging positive behavior by making it as convenient as possible to *do* what you said you’d do.
So the next questions are:
How can you design your home (and/or office) to help you do the things you said you’ll do? (E.g.,
prepare your workout clothes in the evening, so it’s the first thing you see in the morning.)
Do you need to make any purchases? Do you need to get rid of anything?
What kind of external support do you need? How can you get it?
What about the people you’re surrounded by? Will they help you on your journey to change, or will
they stand in your way? How can you ensure your relationships won’t hurt you in the long run?
The truth is, you are the center of your process, but your environment and the people you’re surrounded
by matter too.
So it’s your responsibility to ensure the things and people you’re surrounded by actually help you
design the life you desire.
Turn this into your cornerstone habit
Eventually, changing your life (or at least certain parts of it) is based on a relatively simple framework:
You evaluate the status quo to find out what exactly you want to change.
You gain clarity about the future.
You come up with small daily action steps that’ll help you move towards your bigger picture vision.
And you follow your plan day after day.
To make the process more tangible (and fun), I recommend that you document your progress and
journey by journaling.
Writing helps you articulate your thoughts, learn more about yourself, let go of failure, and stick to
your vision. And most importantly, it leads to clarity and focus.
Or, as bestselling author Stephen Covey wrote:
“Keeping a personal journal a daily in-depth analysis and evaluation of your experiences is a high-
leverage activity that increases self-awareness and enhances all the endowments and the synergy
among them.”
I’ve created a 91-Day Personal Growth Journal to help you stick to your intentions with ease, but you
can also just grab an empty notebook and jot down your thoughts, progress, and obstacles.
Last but not least, don’t forget this
The harsh truth about changing your life is that you’ll never be “done.”
Every time you achieve a goal, you can start working on the next one because, luckily, life allows us to
constantly reinvent ourselves and our dreams.
Whenever we feel stuck, we can choose to change.
But while doing so, we must also remind ourselves to enjoy the process.
Reward yourself for your wins and celebrate your milestones.
In the end, life isn’t about the final destination but about how we experience each day while working
on something even better. Or, as Mandy Hale writes:
“Happiness is letting go of what you think your life is supposed to look like and celebrating it for
everything that it is.”