Being stuck in a rut can drag you down, make you feel depressed, or as if life is something you just go through but have long since stopped enjoying. You become this way slowly without even realizing it, until one day you wonder what happened and when.

For many of us our daily life is governed by some form of routine which we cannot avoid, for example going to work 8 hours a day, taking the kids to school each morning, this is daily life and routine which for the most part cannot be changed. Another reason behind routine is the safety barrier; we get comfortable with our lives and feel secure in them, so why change?

However, sometimes routine can start to get us down, leave us with a feeling of dissociation and start causing problems in relationships, work and daily life in general, we gradually become unhappy. This is when a change is needed; this is the time to dig yourself out of the hole you have put yourself in and start enjoying life again.

Here are some tips to help you begin to take back control over your life and get out of the rut.

• Do at least one thing everyday that is different to your normal routine, this could be something as simple as taking a short break and going for a walk, sitting down to read a chapter of a book or any other hobby or pastime you once enjoyed.
• Take up a new hobby, make sure that you give yourself some times throughout the day to just enjoy something you like doing.
• Shake up meal times by having something different, you can either try a different recipe or order different take out, try foods from different cultures.
• Get out and meet new people, there are many ways you can achieve this, join a gym, club or attend a self-improvement class or hobby class.
• Drive a different way to work or if possible walk or start bicycling, not only will this break the rut you are in but also get you fitter.
• Take up a new sport; there are many types of sport with something for the fitter to the more moderate forms of exercise.
• Do something each day that is totally out of character for you, start off with small changes and work your way up to bigger ones.
• If you are stuck at home with children then change your routine throughout the day, don’t always do the same chore at the same time, shake up the way you do your housework.
• Make small changes around the home or work area.
• De-clutter your home or work area; it is surprising how being surrounded by clutter can get you down.

If you have 5 minutes to spare you can:
• Take out your daily goal planner and write something down that you already completed today and cross it straight off the list
• Take the weight off your feet and eat one of your 5 daily portions of fruit or veg
• Look at yourself in the mirror and pull as many different funny faces as you can in 5 minutes
• Read the comics in the daily paper
• Take a quick shower or at least splash your face with water
• Use some of that expensive perfume or deodorant you had bought and enjoy the fragrance

If you have 15 minutes to spare you can:
• De-clutter your desk or an area of your home
• Treat yourself to a moisturizing mask
• Change into a favorite piece of clothing and admire yourself
• Do a few quick and easy exercises or stretches
• Read a few pages of a book or magazine you enjoy
• Make yourself a big fresh fruit smoothie, sit down and enjoy it
• Make a list of all the people you haven’t been in touch with in a while and schedule a time to call each of them
• Write down what you have enjoyed doing so far during the day in your journal
• Find a comfortable spot, close your eyes and enjoy the silence, sound of rain or chirping birds

If you have 30 minutes spare you can:
• Call someone you haven’t talked with in a while and catch up on all the gossip you missed
• Use your computer to look for ideas for your summer vacation
• Take a soak in a tub full of your favorite bubbles or skin softener
• Listen to your favorite CD
• Go to your local store and treat yourself
• Go for a walk and say hello to everyone you meet
• Turn off the TV, phone and anything else that could disturb you and sit down and enjoy peace and quiet for a half-hour
• Plan a quiet romantic meal
• Write a letter to someone special and mail it
• Discover a new recipe on the internet and plan to cook it for dinner
• Replace any old photographs you have in frames with more updated pictures

All people say that they want to succeed in life at whatever they do but very few are willing to actually push themselves them little bit further in order to achieve their goals, and this is why some of us succeed in life and others fail. How well you succeed is all about how bad you want the success, what it means to you, are you willing to succeed a little or are you willing to go the whole way and beyond to achieve a higher status and be outstanding?

We all start out with the best of intentions when racing towards the goals we have set, we shoot out of the starting gate and run down the straight but many of us fall back at the first hurdle, we don’t push, we run out of steam when the going gets tough and don’t pause to catch our second wind but come to a halt and give up, or stumble on half heartedly and cross the line in second or third place at best.

Those who do have the winning streak in them, who know that with a little extra push and a pause to catch their breath and then a final sprint down the home straight and past the winning post a head in front of their competitors are the ones that end up with the glory and true success in life.

Of course all those who are successful don’t just rely on pushing themselves, all winners have a strategy and are willing to be flexible on their way to success because life has a way of throwing many different spanners into the works along the way. We have to be able to adapt to these unexpected happenings when they occur and not get bogged down, we have to take them in our stride, skip around them and continue in the race.

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Develop your intuition
Your own intuition is your greatest asset and if more people developed an ear to listening to what we are actually saying inside then more of us would know the way to go and how to successfully achieve what it is we want out of life, simply by following our own inner guidance. Your own personal journal can be a great way of developing your intuition and listening to yourself and what lies within you, record all the little things that you might let pass you by, such as flashes of inspiration, premonitions or hunches about something, basically anything that your intuition is telling you.

Keeping a journal is essential because inspiration can strike at anytime, some of the greatest inventors and thinkers kept journals including one of the most prolific inventors in history, Thomas Edison. One of the most helpful things a journal does is give us the ability to look back on records and refer to them, for example if you encountered a problem and overcame it in the past and a similar problem crops up then you can reflect back and apply the same solution or adapt it for a more positive outcome. Your journal can remind you of past achievements and this goes a long way to building self-confidence and helping you succeed in life when things get tough and can help comfort you.

Learn from the past
A technique which is very popular and one which keeping a journal can help you accomplish is the “best-better” technique, this technique can be applied to any situation that crops up in life and simply relies on you looking back on the situation and finding what you liked about it or what you experienced from it and then deciding how you could do better next time or how you could have better experienced from it. The key to recovering from past mistakes and succeeding in the future is to learn from your mistakes but remember to focus on your strong points rather than your weak ones. If you concentrate more on your weak points rather than your strong ones then very often this leads to you unconsciously reinforcing them which then lead to low self-esteem and of course having a low self-esteem isn’t positive. It is only by building on your strengths can you increase your self-esteem and your self-esteem is the crucial factor to understanding your weaknesses and correcting them and therefore building a positive outlook on life which greatly increases your chances of success. So by noting down your experiences in your journal you are able to look back on them and gain a clearer understanding of yourself and how you feel which ultimately determines how you think and how you think determines how successful you are in life.

The first step you need to take is to determine what exactly it is you would like to be and what you are already good at or enjoy doing. You might say you are good at sports, poetry and spending time with friends. The one thing you don’t want to do is create a list of things that you don’t like about yourself. This would only make you feel inadequate and hinder your ability to change yourself and your self-image. By focusing on the good in yourself, you will be able to quickly change your self-image into something that you are proud of.

Visualization and affirmations can help you to realize just how great you already are. See yourself doing and becoming everything that you originally wrote down. Repeat positive affirmations throughout the day to help the new way of thinking sink in and develop your new positive outlook. By vividly imagining this new you, your mind will retrain until you understand that all the things you visualize are true.

Consider keeping a journal
During this process you will benefit from keeping a journal about your transformation, you will be able to look back on it and this will help to strengthen your self-image and reinforce the new you. It is important that you let your past go and think only about the future and the new you, you will develop your new self-image more rapidly by focusing on what you are achieving and have yet to achieve.

Goals will get you there
You can help yourself mold a positive self-image if you set attainable goals for yourself and then strive to reach them. Giving yourself something to work towards creates success in your life – a vital part of reshaping your self-image. Set goals for yourself in any area you wish, work, personal, health, fitness and then go for it. Set yourself a realistic time in which to accomplish each goal and give yourself praise when you get there.

How you choose to change your self-image is entirely up to you, there are no limitations to what you are able to achieve if you set your mind to it and are determined to work towards reaching the desired goal. If you stray from the path leading you there, then don’t be put off and discouraged, get back on track and carry on with determination.

You are committing yourself to working hard to achieve what you want. Plan on what you will do when you finally reach your ultimate goal, you should aim to give yourself a special treat, you deserve it. Make sure that it is something which you can set your mind on during the tough times, keeping it in mind will give you an incentive that it will completely worthwhile.

How you choose to change your self-image is entirely up to you, there are no limitations to what you are able to achieve if you set your mind to it and are determined to work towards reaching the desired goal. If you stray from the path leading you there, then don’t be put off and discouraged, get back on track and carry on with determination.

During this process you will benefit from keeping a journal about your transformation, you will be able to look back on it and this will help to strengthen your self-image and reinforce the new you. It is important that you let your past go and think only about the future and the new you, you will develop your new self-image more rapidly by focusing on what you are achieving and have yet to achieve.

You are committing yourself to working hard to achieve what you want. Plan on what you will do when you finally reach your ultimate goal, you should aim to give yourself a special treat, you deserve it. Make sure that it is something which you can set your mind on during the tough times, keeping it in mind will give you an incentive that it will completely worthwhile.

1. Stay Healthy
Find an exercise routine that you enjoy and stick to it. Change it when you want to, but keep doing some sort of exercise. Sleep well. Eat a variety of healthy foods. Meditation or something you like to do to relax can help you keep your mind focused.

2. Explore New Things
We do so many things without thinking about them. These things become our daily routines – the mundane and boring. Try something new. It can be something as little as taking a different route to work or something like taking up a new class in something you have always wanted to learn.

3. Start Thinking Like Curious George
Ask yourself questions about everything you see, hear and read. Why? How? What if? Find out the answers to your questions. You can also keep a curious journal and track all of your findings.

4. Read a New Book
Choose one that you wouldn’t normally choose. Pick one up at the library. If you have always preferred reading nonfiction, pick up a fiction book. There are so many interesting books to read and so many different genres to choose from. Your librarian will be happy to help you explore new books.

5. Act Like a Kid
Children are so carefree, honest and fun. Think about what you used to do for fun as a child. Paint a picture, take out those charcoals, get some fingerpaints, go to your local amusement park…anything that a kid would do! And have fun!

6. Everyone Needs a Little “me” Time
Take some time everyday to just relax. You can use meditation if you like to meditate. Don’t make any plans, pay any bills…nothing. Just do nothing for a little while.

7. What If?
What is the end of the world was tomorrow? What if you did go to college for business? What if aliens were real? What if there is an afterlife? Make up your own what if questions and just see where your brain takes you.

8. Never Assume Anything
Assuming anything always gets someone in trouble. You might assume that your boss is a jerk. What if he just doesn’t like his life and takes it out on his employees? You might assume that the person who cut you off this morning was inconsiderate. What if they were rushing their child to the hospital?

9. Write About You
Who are you? What kind of person are you? Where have you been in your life? When are the most important things in your life? Why do you do things the way you do? How do you live your life each day?

10. Have Conversations with People
Listen closely to what they have to say instead of waiting for your turn to speak. What must it be like to be this person? Imagine how they live and think.

Commitment
You should take positive action and decide exactly what it is you wish to achieve in life and set your goal, once you have set your mind on what you want you should go into it with utter conviction and commitment. When you are planning and setting out your goal you have to have firm conviction that you will achieve your goal whatever it takes, you should visualize your goal from beginning to end and see yourself achieving whatever it is you set out do.

Take whatever steps are needed
Once you have decided to go for it and have made the commitment then the next step is to start taking action towards reaching your goal, taking the first step is actually the hardest part because it means going out there and actually doing something. Thinking about what it is you have to do is the easy part as is saying you are committed to doing, but doing means facing the unknown and putting your plan into action and this stage is very often where most people fail, because fear stops us from moving forward.

Sticking with it
When you have made the commitment and taken the plunge into making your dream or goal a reality you have to have perseverance and be willing to change your approach until you finally reach your desired goal. Depending on what it is that you set out to do this could take some time but it essential that you stay as committed to seeing the project through as when you first started out, it can help to keep a journal of your project from start to finish, this way you are able to see how far you have come and keep your mind focused on the outcome you wish to achieve. Life has many unexpected quirks and can throw anything at us so it is important that you continue pushing yourself through any unexpected hard times continually onwards towards your goal. Once again fear is the main problem and the biggest reason why most people fail to achieve and give up what they set out to do, if you give in to fear it will only continue to put bigger blocks in your way until eventually it overcomes you and you give in. The sky really is your limit if you attempt set out to accomplish with perseverance and determination to overcome anything that is thrown into your path.