What is a Life Refresh?
Do you ever wish that you could hit the reset button and start over? If your hand is not up, we’ve all lied about other things before too. My hand is up because it’s just true. There are times in life when we need to do a life refresh. For me, a life refresh is about addressing some of the main areas of my life and exploring how well (or not) they’re working for me, which direction I’m going in, and anything I’d like to change so that I can live intentionally and enjoy my home. If you are feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, or tired, or perhaps are in need of a fresh start, then this article is for you! I’m sharing 11 tips on how to do a life refresh and make the most of it!
Ideas On How To Do A Life Refresh
I just went through Tony Robbins’ “Unleash The Power Within” event. If you’ve never done it, I highly recommend it. The event was four days of hitting the big RED reset button for me. You don’t always have to attend an event like this to be able to do that. Sometimes, all it takes is a look at these 11 tips below to get started today! You might like to grab a pen and notebook so you can jot down your thoughts as you read.
1. Assess your current situation
In order to know where you are going, you have to know where you currently are and assess your current situation. There are plenty of questions that you could ask yourself like about how you feel about your life right now. I always recommend taking a look at a wheel of life. What do I mean by that? I recommend this one in particular. I did not create it. It was created by the School of Holistic Design. I personally love it because it is so in-depth. Once you’ve assessed where you currently are, you now have a clearer vision of where you are headed!
2. Define your priorities
This is where having a physical representation of where you are currently is going to be very helpful. Now that you know where you are currently spending energy, time, and resources on things that may or may not matter to you. You can then reflect on whether you want to continue or re-prioritize and really define your priorities. If we are struggling to really take 15 minutes out of our days to really define how we live our day-to-day which is our life then we get pushed and pulled in all of the directions. Our priorities get misplaced as the priorities for just getting through the day take precedence.
Knowing how to refresh your life is having the opportunity to revisit your priorities. You can then take aligned action and make these steps a priority. Not just another to-do on your list that you’d like to make time, space, and energy for “one day”.
3. Reflect on what you’d like to change
Now that you’ve done steps #1 & 2, what are some current habits, boundaries, or even elements within your environment that you would to change? Be specific about the changes you’d like to make, in other words, write it down in a clear, concise way. Try to nail it down to a few, say up to 5 bullet points, a sentence or two long. If you find that you can’t define it clearly, you haven’t gotten to the root of what you’d like to change. Keep thinking about what you’d like to change if anything, so you can pinpoint it exactly.
4. Set Intentions
I bet you thought I was going to say set goals for yourself. I talk about why I don’t do goal-setting in this blog post here. Also, I love to do a monthly intention-setting exercise that you can grab here! You can set intentions at any time of the year, month, week, or day. A life refresh is a perfect time! Just make sure that your intentions align with your values and your desires otherwise, you’ll have very little motivation and incentive to work toward them.
5. Create an action plan for your life reset
Now you’ve done steps 1-4, this is where the fun starts to unfold! Your next step is to start to take aligned actions toward your intentions and the changes you’d like to make in your life. Now, I use the term “life refresh”, you may focus on one main area within the wheel of life. But as you start taking aligned action toward that one area, you may start to notice that the changes and actions spill into other areas of your life as well.
For the list of things you’d like to change and the intentions you’ve set, your next step is to figure out HOW you’re going to take action. Change doesn’t happen by itself, so apart from identifying your end vision once you’ve reached your intention or objective, you’re going to need to take action.
I recommend that you make a brain dump of all the actions you can think of for each change and intention you’d like to manifest in your life. However, don’t forget that these changes need to be things that you have control over. You can’t change other people or expect them to have the same priorities as you. Your action plan might be purchasing that online course and committing to it one evening per week. It might be getting rid of the sugary snacks in your home so you’re not tempted to break a diet. You might schedule your workouts in your calendar. It’s all about planning out the logistics.
6. Declutter your home
For many of us, our homes are a big part of our life, either as a sanctuary to retreat to and leave from or as an energy leak that sucks on our energy and time. The next obvious step that you should take toward your life refresh is to declutter your home! This step alone will change your life and be a great jumping-off point for your life refresh.
There are different types of clutter and recognizing the different types and how to handle each one will change your life. But we have to handle it once and for all – not get stuck in a cycle of clutter. Without habits and systems in place within our home to stay clutter-free, it will continue to become cluttered. If you are ready to take the leap into handling your clutter and transforming your home, save your spot in the “Holistic Home Refresh“!
7. Review your habits
This is the work in 2023! Who here has read Atomic Habits by James Clear? I will link it here but I think that in order to reach any intention that you’ve set for yourself, you have to review your habits as part of your life refresh. Have you slipped into some bad habits? Did you begin any new and healthy habits recently but didn’t or couldn’t keep them up?
Habits don’t need to be big to be effective and life-changing. In fact, smaller habits done repeatedly over time can be just as effective. Once you’ve identified which good habits you’d like to cultivate, grab a habit tracker like this one and tell me in the comments which habits you’re working on!
8. Assess your schedule
As part of my own life refresh, I like to assess my schedule. This is a great idea to find out where your time (your most valuable resource) is being spent. I like to review my day at the end of each day which then leads to a weekly review and then a monthly review. This will look different in each season of life. The key is asking yourself, are you happy with how you’re spending your time? If not, you may need more free time. You may need to start saying no and creating white space in your calendar for the things that you value and desire in your life.
Look at your calendar, postpone or say no to things that you don’t have time or energy for at the moment, and find ways to slow down if you need it. Also, I give you full permission to slow down. Now you need to give it to yourself! And if you don’t know whether you’re too busy or not, I always try to listen to my body to help me decide by dropping in for a little mindfulness or meditation time.
9. Implement Home Organization
After doing a full decluttering of your home, you may notice that your home organization is out of date. Everything in your home sends out messages to you in terms of what it requires or reminds you of. Does your home function and serve you well right now?
If not, it is time to start taking a look at the individual spaces within your home and see how they can best serve you moving forward with a little home organization. I’m personally a huge fan of Marie Kondo’s containers and storage tips as well as they are beautiful in neutral colors!
10. Cultivate a positive, healthy mindset
Your mindset shapes your actions and decisions in life so it’s important your mindset is supporting you, not hindering you. Remember, everything is energy! Our thoughts control our attitude about our life. Our subconscious is affected by everything in our environment, home, and workplace. Focus on building a positive and healthy mindset. Journaling, brain dumping, meditation, mindfulness, and practicing gratitude are all helpful ways to ground yourself and stay in tune with yourself.
11. Make time for self-care
Self-care is so important! Take a moment to reflect on your self-care practices. To help make self-care a consistent part of your everyday life, check out this blog post here for more ideas on self-care activities that you can add to your routine today!
In conclusion,
I hope you enjoyed these ideas on how to refresh your life. Every now and then, particularly with the changing season, I like to take an aerial view of my life and look at how it’s going. This isn’t always as easy as it sounds because often I’m just going day to day and week to week. But, sometimes I feel like moving out of the funk and switching gears.
I’d love to hear from you if you have any thoughts or suggestions to add. Leave a comment below! As a suggested next step on how to reset your life, now might be a good time to declutter your home and create space, time, and freedom for you and your life. “Holistic Home Refresh” is my 5-day e-mail challenge to create your holistic space and introduce you to my holistic interior design approach toward creating your own holistic home. Let’s hit the reset button and refresh your home like we’ve been resetting your life!
Love,
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