If you want to change your life, you have to make different choices every single day. It isn’t something you can be successful at only focusing on it here and there. Here are four steps you need to take to change your life.

  1. Change your thoughts

If your thoughts tend to be on the negative, pessimistic side, it’s time to start focusing on the positive. If you constantly feel that your life isn’t good, you don’t have the job you want, or you have nothing to be grateful for, you need to change your way of thinking. You can adopt a positive outlook for the future. Instead of thinking about the things you don’t have, spend time each day being grateful for what you do have. You can be grateful you have the job you don’t particularly like while you look for a job that’s better suited to you. Changing your thoughts can impact the way your life changes. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to create a better life if you hold on to negative thoughts. Start looking for the positive in your life and situations you encounter. This will make you a happier, more optimistic person.

  1. Stop planning, start acting

When you want to change your life, you might spend weeks or months planning exactly how to proceed. You may set goals and lay out a detailed plan. If you don’t actually being taking action though, you won’t achieve those goals or change your life. Instead of sitting on the couch for the third night in a row making a list of how you can start making changes, get up and act on something on your list. You can’t change your life by making a plan alone. Planning can be a form of procrastination.

  1. Stop living on auto-pilot

If you do the same things day after day, week after week, at the same time, in the same place, your life will remain exactly the same. Stop living on auto-pilot and take yourself out of your comfort zone in order to make change in your life. When you stop living your life on auto-pilot, you can start making better choices for your life. If you’ve eaten the same lunch for the last year, you’re living on auto-pilot. You might not even think about whether you actually enjoy it anymore or if it’s healthy. It’s easy and that’s probably why you continue to have it. Stop taking the easy way out and you will change your life. When you live on auto-pilot, you’re not really living, but existing. Spend less time on social media, texting your friend about the weather, watching tv, and taking selfies, and more time chasing your dreams.

  1. Be a little selfish

If you’re the type of person who puts others first and yourself last, it’s time to start being a little selfish. You can’t change your life if you’re unwilling to focus on yourself. You might want to take an hour every day to exercise and finally lose the weight you’ve wanted to lose for years. You might want to write romance novels. In order to do this, you will need to devote time to writing them. It can’t be something you do once a week or once a month or on the rare occasion you have the house to yourself. When you have a yearning or a goal in your life, you need to dedicate time to getting it.

Changing your life requires desire and action. You have to be willing to step outside of your comfort zone and be uncomfortable sometimes to get the life you really want.