How to level up and upgrade your life
Hey guys!
So happy you’re here.
I’m excited to share with you some of the knowledge I’ve accumulated with time about upgrading and leveling my life.
First of all, I want to say that whether you’re reading this from a place of agony or you’re just looking for extra ways to enhance your life, I hope you find value in reading this.
Sometimes life can send you into a spiral and you need to find tools to organize yourself or sometimes you just feel like being a badder bitch and gain some more knowledge. Whatever it is, I’m glad you’re here.
The truth is, anyone’s life can seem effortless and put together from the outside but the reality is that we’re all trying to keep it together. Some people just find tools along the way that help create their reality into the life they truly find purpose in.
So without further or do, let’s get to it.
1. Get your mindset right
Let’s get granular about what this means. If you truly believe you suck and your life is a mess and you can’t do the things you want because of x and y reason. That is EXACTLY what your life is going to look like in a year. It’s important to set your limiting beliefs and negative dialogue to the side and start to view your life as freaking awesome even if you don’t believe that is the case at the moment. The easiest way to do this is, is by practicing gratitude and looking at the positives in your life instead of the negatives. Slowly start shifting the narrative of thinking about everything that's wrong in your life and focus on what’s awesome about it. Do I have to go to this terrible job? Or do I get to go to this job that gives me money to buy whatever I want? Do I have to wake up early? Or isn't it awesome how I get to see the world wake up around me? The sooner you romanticize your life and practice mindfulness, the faster things will work exactly how you want them to work.
2. Establish Habits and Rituals
Where do I start with this one… Adopting habits and rituals literally changed my life. You can run with motivation all you want but eventually, that will fade and what will get you through a hard day is the habits that you already hard-wired in your brain. Our brains are machines that run on autopilot doing the same things over and over. It is up to you to reprogram it and dictate a new system to ultimately reach your goals and create your dream life. My best advice to go about this is always to start small. You don’t have to radically change your everyday life to see change, you change one small thing, master it, and then change another.
3. SPM (Spiritual, Physical, Mental) Health
Personal growth is a long and nonlinear journey but by following these three pillars you will see a crazy amount of change. If you don’t know where to start start by working on these: spiritual, physical, and mental health.
Meditation/ Praying: I put this on top because it’s the one that gets neglected the most. I never understood the importance of spirituality until this year. Growing up Christian, it was always normal to lean into it and although I prayed and learned, I did the bare minimum. It wasn’t until I hit a point where I was successful in every aspect but it still felt like something was missing or my happiness was very inconsistent. Regardless of what you believe in, leaning into some sort of meditative state or higher power will enhance your well-being by a lot. Personally, I do both meditate and pray and it has increased my awareness and my overall relationship with this body, mind, and, soul as well as discover what is my purpose here.
Move your body: I don’t know a single successful person who doesn't exercise, moving your body scientifically makes you feel good and when you feel good you execute better. It gives you the confidence to show up in places or situations you wouldn't have normally felt confident in. If you can push your body to the limits and work towards bettering your health, you will naturally gain other’s respect because they either understand the work it takes, or they admire you for getting there.
Practice mindfulness: This can look different for everyone but I’ve noticed that the way I stay mentally connected is by nourishing my relationships with friends and family, getting out of my comfort zone and challenging myself, practicing gratitude, and navigating life with a lot of self-awareness and empathy. Some of these of course took a long time to define but I find that they have been instrumental for my personal growth and mindset. It’s easy to let your ego or victim mindset get in between what needs to be done and maybe you come up with excuses like “Well my family sucks” or “I have bad knees so I can’t work out”. I can assure you there are a million excuses I could use too but I know that won’t get me absolutely anywhere. Do you know what will? The decisions I’ve made to get up and improve my life.
4. Set aside time to disconnect
I live by this motto of consume less, create more. Reevaluating my relationship with my devices is something that has helped me shift my reality so much. Like so many of us, we wake up and go to bed scrolling on TikTok, and IG and literally consuming our lives away. Find time to disconnect and listen to your own inner dialogue instead of the noise and chatter from the outside world. Boundaries around the content you’re consuming are essential for accomplishing all the other steps I mentioned before. Whether it’s sleeping in a separate room from your phone or deleting the apps after a certain time or only scrolling while you’re on a walk, find a way to successfully detach and reconnect with your body and mind every single day. Set some time for meditation or spiritual connection, this will allow you to observe your surroundings and take notes on improvements or awareness you may miss occasionally. Regaining control of your thoughts instead of being constantly harassed by thousands of opinions online.
5. Be strategic with your time
This also circles back to establishing those habits and routines but let’s go through all the things I do to strategize how I spend my time. This works specifically for me and it’s taken me several tries and tweaking to find something that works and I am sure it will for you too.
Morning routine: The point of a morning routine is to wake up on a good note and gain momentum for the rest of the day. What you do in the first hour of your day will greatly impact your productivity and state of mind. The pillars of my morning routine are to wake up with no technology, get some sunlight, do some sort of gratitude practice, and eat a balanced breakfast. I try to be intentional about my morning routine because I find that if I wake up and lay in bed looking at my phone, the rest of the day I feel sluggish and unproductive. Having several tasks as soon as you wake up will create the momentum you need to be productive for the rest of your day.
Deep work session: I try to set aside around 90 minutes to focus on the things I NEED to get done. I have terrible adhd so what works best is to eliminate all distractions, turn off my phone, and work on one task at a time.
To-do list: The way I learned to trick my mind is to mix my personal to-dos with my work to-dos. Example: 1. Reply to emails, 2. Go on a walk. I love going on walks so I do the first task so I can look forward to doing the second. And that is how I structure my to-dos.
Have some sort of reward: My reward each night is to get in bed and either read or rot watching reality TV. Either way, I don’t allow myself to do this until I am at least 80% done with all the things I had to do that day.
6. Execute your ideas instead of waiting for the “right time”
I know at least for me, I tend to get caught up in finding “the right time” or “the right circumstance”. Thoughts like “I don’t want to take the next step in my career because I don’t feel qualified or prepared yet” or “I don’t want to up my weight at the gym because I don’t think I’m strong enough”. Stop being a forever student, it is more effective to put yourself out there and adjust while you are learning instead of “waiting for the right moment”. We are always filled with so much self-doubt dialogue and the truth is, you will never feel prepared to start and you don’t have to be. Part of learning and reaching for the next step is to just throw yourself out there regardless of your circumstances. I can’t tell you everything will go fine because chances are, that it won’t. You will feel uncomfortable and have a couple of fails but it is part of trying.
7. Prioritize self-care
Be mindful of your appearance. If you look good and you feel good, you produce good. How you present yourself will speak volumes about who you are.
Make a checklist of things you need to do a year to be the best version of yourself. (Doctor checkups, facials, hair, dentist, massage, trips, etc.)
Be mindful of the negative or toxic influences in your life. Put boundaries or get rid of toxic people. Period
Work hard, play hard. I don’t know about you but when it comes to a trip, ima take it.
8. Try new things and put yourself in uncomfortable situations
The way to learn and grow is to go through discomfort. Getting out of your comfort zone is probably the most uncomfortable thing but also the fastest way to grow. I remember my absolute fear of public speaking and social interaction. I sucked so much, I would stutter and turn red when I was in a room full of people. I also knew I wanted to be the main character in everything I did, I had this inner need to thrive. I wanted people to find me funny and smart and I had the need to radiate joy to others so being awkward and shy was probably not going to get me there. So I did what any crazy person with social anxiety would do, I signed up for a beauty pageant. I was much more radical back then but I literally placed myself in a position where thousands of people were going to see me perform because I knew I needed to beat this fear. I also dated a lot of extroverted Geminis but that’s another topic. Another example was in college, I was in my third year of business school and I felt like I wasn't comfortable having professional conversations with adults and it felt intimidating to be in rooms full of people with suits and ties. This time, I ended up signing up for this school club with a lot of prestige. Essentially they would constantly have a panel of questions and put you on the spot. I remember my anxiety entering the room but it was worth it because eventually I became comfortable in that environment and it ended up landing me a job, which was my objective at the time. The bottom line is, it helped me a ton in overcoming a fear while also learning along the way things I liked and disliked. That is the approach I always take in my life, if I don’t know what I’m doing, I try a bunch of different things and if something makes me uncomfortable, I dive in head first.