When a new year arrives, the majority of people think about how they can change their lives to the better. They make vision boards and come up with a very well-made plan of how they’re going to improve their lives. But let’s be honest, most of these resolutions crash into the reality and never come true.

That’s probably because we want too many things at once. We get caught in a hyped up mood and think that we can actually change for 180° and become a whole different person. But life doesn’t work that way. When making plans we need to be aware of our characters and habits and try not to avoid it but to use it to our favor.

So, for this post I decided to share some fun challenges that will actually help you gradually change your mindset and therefore life. These don’t work like magic, so don’t expect everything to become perfect in a day or two. Process takes time, and it’s always better to walk towards your goals in small but steady steps rather than jump ahead and fall right back. Consider this more as a fun game to play with your own self and see how it will work for you. These challenges or techniques won’t take much time or effort but I truly believe that they will do you good.

Break your habits and do something new.

Don’t panic, I’m not going to advise you to jump with a parachute or swim with sharks. I know that new things can be overwhelming and frightening, that’s why you need to get used to them little by little. Breaking your old habits and doing something slightly different instead will make you feel more flexible. Think about what small things you can change in your life. For example, you can change the side of the bed you sleep in, the type of coffee or chocolate you usually buy, the road you choose to go to the store or your office. Start waking up a little late or, on the contrary, a little early, buy a new type of shampoo or perfume, start watching films or reading books you don’t usually pick. This doesn’t sound scary, right?

If you give yourself a moment you’ll realize that you do the majority of your daily activities in an autopilot mode without even paying attention or savoring the moment. And when you start slowly breaking these habits, you’ll, let’s say, start living in a manual control mode. This will bring a feeling of something new, fresh and existing even if you’re pretty much doing the same things. You’ll go to your same office, but will feel that something is different just because you sat not on the right side of the taxi, but on the left.

Capture the surroundings

I have already talked about how photography can affect you in a good way. It makes you become more attentive to your surroundings, and you start noticing beautiful things even in the most mundane and random places. You’ll see that your city, neighborhood, even your house can also be picturesque. You just need to notice that. How? The first challenge I’m going to present is taking at least one pretty photo every single day. Try to find something worth capturing. It could be the sunrise you saw, a beautiful tree on your way to work, your lunch, a cute cat. Try different angles and scales and you’ll see how a new perspective may change the whole boring image.

The second challenge is to capture one color every week. For instance, you choose red for this week and start looking out for interesting things in that color, like a flower, someone holding a red umbrella, the traffic light etc. You can then make a collage of all the things you saw in red and move on to the next tone. After doing either of these challenges for a while you’ll see how your perception has changed, you’ll start noticing awesome things you’ve never seen before even if you’ve been walking through those same streets or living in the same apartment for years.

p.s. You don’t have to post these photos anywhere, though I think it may help you stick to these challenges, as every person is a little artist inside who wants their creation to be seen and appreciated by others. And posting can become a great motivation.

One-minute principle

This is a Japanese technique called Kaizen that really helps doing something beneficial every single day without much effort. The trick is that you pick an activity and do it only for one minute a day. I know, it doesn’t sound effective enough, as you won’t get too far with just a minute, but let me explain. Whenever you want to do sth new (like reading more books or start exercising), your brain starts building psychological obstacles for you not to do what you intended. The reason is very simple: our brain is lazy: it loves its comfort and hates coming out of it. So, it will always come up with various excuses for why you should postpone doing something until a better, more convenient time, which often never even arrives. But knowing, that you’ll need to exercise or read for only a minute will help you get over that barrier your own brain built. It doesn’t feel scary or too difficult, that’s why you’ll stick to your new habit much easier. Afterwards you’ll notice that you want to work out or read for a little longer, and one minute will turn into 5 or even 15. But it won’t feel obligatory cause subconsciously you’ll know that you’ve completed today’s challenge. But even if you stick to only one minute, it is still much better than not doing anything at all, right?

Saying “yes”.

If you have seen the movie “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey, you probably already know what I’m going to write here. As I mentioned before, our brains don’t really feel comfortable with doing sth new, that’s why whenever we receive an offer or a request, our first instinct is to say no, come up with a hundred of excuses and just hide. But things can actually change if you start saying “yes” more. So, the challenge here is to have one day of the week when you’ll say yes to pretty much everything. Of course, I don’t mean that if someone offers you drugs, you should take them. Everything has to be in healthy and logical limits. But on that one day, try being more open whenever someone asks you to do something. You can later make the “yes days” happen much more often, so the universe will know that you are ready for something new to come into your life.

Advice from your best self.

I’m sure you all have pictured how your best self would be like at least once in your life. It’s when you think about how you should have acted or answered in a certain situation or how you’d want to be like in general. How you want to dress, what kind of a life you want to live, how you want to be perceived etc. So, next time there’s a time to make a big or small decision and you don’t know what to do, or you just want to bail because you’re too scared, stop for a moment and try to imagine what your best self would do. Would they say yes or no? Would they apply for a better job? Would they go on that date? Would they change their hairstyle? I’m sure you’ll instantly know how you would have replied. And that’s your answer, that’s all you need. An advice from your better self, who’s fearless, courageous, cool and just great. Try to stick to it and one day you’ll notice that you have already become a lot like the person you were dreaming about being.