Do you want to improve your life? The idea can overwhelm you, and you may not even know where to start. Rather than trying to make drastic changes, take baby steps.
When you take a gradual approach, it becomes easier to come up with a plan and act on it.
Figure out how to increase your income, improve your diet, and learn a new skill. Even if you’re already earning enough, eating well, and studying something interesting, you can always take it to the next level.
1. Increase Your Income
Working harder at your job is not necessarily the best way to increase your income. Instead, put your money to work for you. An excellent way to increase your passive income is to buy a rental property and then hire a property manager familiar with the neighborhood. For example, if you live in Memphis, find a company that handles property management in Memphis.
While you could run your property by yourself and keep more profit, you may not know much about property law. The law has a Latin phrase, “ignorantia legis neminem excusat,” which means “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” Do you know what to do if a tenant files a complaint against you with the Housing Authority for rent gouging or for failing to keep up with housing safety regulations? By hiring a property manager, you will avoid these situations because property managers are well-versed in local, state, and federal housing regulations.
2. Change Your Diet
While you may love the food you eat, does it love you back? If you have any health problems, these could be because of excessive salt, fat, and sugar, as well as artificial preservatives and food dyes in your food.
Even if you have a clean diet, you may not be getting enough micronutrients. A balanced diet should be rich in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants. You also need the right amount of proteins, carbohydrates, and essential fats.
When you change your diet, you will change your life.
Improving your diet, however, is difficult. Because of long-established food habits, it is challenging to eat unfamiliar types of foods.
Here are some suggestions on how to improve your diet:
- Educate yourself on healthy foods. Many myths and misconceptions exist about foods, and it’s important to make choices based on scientific evidence rather than opinions.
- Eat a variety of nutritious foods rather than sticking to just a few favorites.
- Reduce saturated fat, salt, and sugar while increasing greens, beans, mushrooms, nuts, seeds, berries, and onions.
- Drink plenty of clean water. If you drink from the tap, then use a water filter to remove the lead in your water.
3. Learn a New Skill
Learning a new skill can make an enormous difference in your life. If you learn more about business, it will improve your income, and if you learn more about nutrition and exercise, it can improve your well-being.
Select a subject that you find relevant and interesting. Then find a way to study it according to your personal learning style.
Study according to your preferred learning style:
- If you are a visual learner, then highlight in color, draw diagrams, or visualize.
- If you are an auditory learner, then read aloud dramatically, make an audio recording and play it back, or explain the concepts to someone else.
- If you are a kinesthetic learner, then write, underline, or circle key points, make notes on index cards, or create a learning map.
After you’ve just read or heard something, you will have the impression that you know it. While this may feel true, it may not be true. Learning psychologists call this sense of knowing “the illusion of fluency”. You must test yourself to make sure that you do know it.
Increasing your income, improving your diet, and learning a new skill will change and improve the quality of your life.
