The beginning of a new year always opens us up to reflect on what worked and what didn’t work for us in the previous one. But, this needn’t be the only time you decide to start changing the way you do life. Changes can happen at any time of the year and while setting goals for the future is good, you can do things differently as quickly as tomorrow.
Asking yourself at the end of each day, “What can I do differently tomorrow?” allows you to reflect on today and identify what can change tomorrow to make your life better. Taking small and sometimes big steps every day can bring about change in your life whether you’re working with a goal or not.
How to Decide What to Do Differently Tomorrow for a Better Life
Before heading over to my list of ideas for doing things differently, I suggest you ask yourself every night the following questions:
What character defects caused me problems today?
What character assets made me shine today?
What feelings did I experience today and what did I do with them?
Were my personal core values met today?
Were my basic needs met today?
Asking yourself these questions every day will highlight for you what worked and what caused chaos for you. Now, you ask yourself, “What can I do differently tomorrow?’ and make a list of activities or small action steps you can take the following day.
Capturing an inventory of your daily life can be done as a journaling exercise and it keeps you aware of your thoughts, emotions, and actions. It allows you to reflect on your day’s happenings, both positive and negative while letting you identify where you can improve your life as quickly as tomorrow!
The ideas I share with you aren’t complete but they’ll give you something to start with. Getting creative and courageous will open you up to a whole lot of ways you can do things differently tomorrow.
11 Things You Can Do Differently Tomorrow on Your Journey of Change
1. Install a Good Habit
If you’ve identified that a bad habit is causing you to feel awful at the end of each day, it’s time to break it and replace it with a healthier alternative. Installing good habits can start as early as today but tomorrow is perfect too!
According to research, it can take a person anything between 18 to 254 days to fully install a new habit. The general rule of thumb is that it takes 66 days for a new habit to become automatic. See why starting sooner than later is important?
But, don’t let these figures intimidate you. Agree that you need to replace a bad habit with a good one and start tomorrow. Weeding out your bad habits will gradually change your life for the better. I love this simple quote by Brain Tracy that says it all – “Successful people are simply those with successful habits.”
2. Response vs Reaction: Choose to Respond
Some days are more fraught than others and it’s normal to end up reacting when faced with uncomfortable situations. However, doing this too often isn’t healthy for your overall well-being. Reactions such as anger or shame can leave you feeling emotionally and mentally drained for days but self-awareness goes a long way to approaching life differently.
Whenever I’m aware that I’ve reacted badly to someone or something, I reflect on the triggers. This helps me to identify what was going on for me and how I can respond in the future which will give me a positive outcome.
Choosing to respond allows me to control the outcome rather than letting my reaction run away with me which more often than not ends up in a negative result.
3. Change Something in Your Daily Routine
I’m all for daily routines. The structure gives me the freedom to plan my day and includes both my work tasks and relaxation or self-care activities. However, it can get mundane if you’re not careful and before you know it, boredom creeps in and you find yourself living in a not-so-good comfort zone!
Stagnation is dangerous for personal growth and identifying that your daily routine has become dull will help you to change things up a bit. Identify one thing in your daily routine that you can do differently tomorrow and watch how your energy levels suddenly lift. It can be something as simple as taking a different route to work!
4. Have a Meaningful Conversation
Having a meaningful conversation with someone can bring a whole new perspective to your life. This could be with your child as you do the school run or with a co-worker during your coffee break. Not only will you discover something new about the person you’re talking with. But sharing what is meaningful for you with another person changes their perspective about you too.
Having a real conversation with someone does mean being an active listener. This way you get to really hear what the other person is sharing with you while making them feel heard at the same time. This is empowering and gives the conversation more meaning for all people involved.
5. Bring in Playfulness
Life is hard and too quickly you can get caught up on the hamster wheel simply trying to survive every day. The dangerous side-effect of this is not having fun. If your daily inventory shows that you haven’t had a good laugh in a while or that you’re being serious 24/7, you need to bring in some playfulness.
Choose to do something fun at least once a day. Making a list of 50 things that make you happy is a good way of identifying what brings you joy. Taking one thing off that list every day and doing it will ensure you have some fun in your life tomorrow and every other day. The importance of play in adults is something we all need to consider so make sure you do fun differently tomorrow!
6. Live in the Moment
Did you spend most of today future-tripping? If you did, no wonder you’re feeling anxious and depressed, and your controlling streak got the better of you! You can say goodbye to future tripping by choosing to live in the moment.
Living in the moment is empowering. It keeps you from dwelling in the past and creating mountains out of molehills in future scenarios! It stops you from worrying and overthinking. Living in the NOW keeps you grounded, present, and grateful.
Read Eckhart Tolle’s book, “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment” and discover how to bring yourself into the moment.
7. Focus on Self-Love
What is self-love? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “Regard for one’s own well-being and happiness.” It’s the act of taking mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual action that reflects an appreciation of who you are. Self-love is about taking care of your basic needs while aligning your life to your personal core values.
If you’re a people-pleaser or someone who’s constantly trying to fix others while sacrificing your own well-being and happiness, you need to stop right now. It’s time to do things differently tomorrow and start focusing on your SELF. And, no you’re not being selfish! Creating a DIY self-care kit is a good place to start.
8. Declutter – Physically and Mentally
Decluttering mentally and physically are things you can do differently as soon as tomorrow! If you’re a hoarder and can’t get rid of stuff maybe it’s time to slowly let go. Decluttering can be as simple as dealing with the bills tomorrow instead of procrastinating every day. Or, giving away old magazines that are cluttering your living room floor.
A mental declutter allows you to shift limiting beliefs, unhappy thoughts, and unhelpful perspectives so you can free up space for new, better things to come into your mind. Choosing to have an open mindset tomorrow is a good way to do something different that’ll create a massive transformation in your life.
9. Introduce a Healthy Lifestyle
Do you become a couch potato as soon as you get home from work or spend your weekends watching too much TV? At some point, you’re going to end up feeling uncomfortable within your own body! This isn’t a good place to be!
Choosing to bring in exercise, healthy food, and practices such as meditation go a long way to changing your life from tomorrow. Start small by signing up for some yoga classes or picking one healthy meal to cook tomorrow when you get back from work.
10. Be Kind
Everyone is struggling in their own way, including yourself. Understanding this and choosing to show kindness can make a huge difference in someone’s life. Decide that from tomorrow, you’re going to be kind either to yourself, to someone you love, or to a stranger you meet on the street.
Random acts of kindness go a long way to making the world a better place to live in.
Some ideas for showing kindness include the following:
Giving your time to someone who needs your company
Baking something for your neighbor
Thanking someone for a service they provided you
Acknowledging your co-worker’s hard work
Not beating yourself up when you make a mistake!
Paying it forward by being nice to someone not only makes you feel good but you’ve just made someone else’s day a whole lot better too.
11. Hire a Life Coach
One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself (or someone else) is hiring a life coach. Hiring a transformational life coach will help you define or refine your personal life goals while equipping yourself with empowering and practical tools and techniques.
Life coaching helps you to make the changes you want to see in your life with the support of a life coach trained to guide you on your journey called LIFE. It gives you the insight, clarity, and awareness you need so you can do life differently.
Final Thoughts
Knowing what you can do differently tomorrow gives you the hope and motivation you need to change your life when it’s not going according to plan! It can be a simple action such as deciding to walk for 30 minutes every day. Or, it can be something more drastic such as signing up for a six-months life coaching program that’ll transform your life on a bigger scale.
Asking yourself what can I do differently tomorrow opens up the way you view your life, giving you a starting point to changing your life to something more meaningful. What are you going to do differently tomorrow?