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People shared the small changes they made that improved their lives in big ways

Real advice from real people.

By

Heather Wake

By

Upworthy Staff

daily habits, atomic habits, james clear, self improvement
Photo credit: Photo by Isabella and Zsa Fischer on Unsplash, Marcus Ng on Unsplash, Sarah Brown on Unsplash – <a href="https://unsplash.com/@twinsfisch?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Isabella and Zsa Fischer</a> , <a href="https://unsplash.com/@marcusxsnapz?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Marcus Ng</a>, <a href="https://unsplash.com/@sweetpagesco?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Sarah Brown</a>

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear notes that “your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits … you get what you repeat.” Basically, if you want to predict where your life is leading, take a look at your daily choices. And Clear is certainly not the first or last motivational speaker to promote this wisdom. Pick up any self-help book, and it will most likely tout the message of how small, incremental changes can have an enormous impact on our lives.

A recent thread on AskReddit posed the question: What improved your quality of life so much you wished you did it sooner? For those of us who still can’t seem to tick off things like “drink more water” from the to-do list (despite knowing full well all the benefits) it might help hearing success stories from real, everyday people.

Here are some of the highlights:

Swimming for back pain

back pain, back pain remedies

“Drugs, bed rest for weeks, chiro, deep massage, electroshock. Then I swam some laps and over a three day period months of decrepitude vanished. I couldn’t believe and am now obsessed with swimming.” – DontShootTheFood

“Most people who have back pain (especially lower back pain) have it as a result of sedentary lifestyle (exacerbated by sitting in office chairs for a long period of time). Swimming is a fantastic total body and core workout which just builds and balances strength to reduce back pain. If you have pain due to an injury, it may not be as effective.” – hanksredditname

Managing road rage

road rage, driving habits

“Someone wants to pass me when I’m in the left lane? Move over and let them pass. Someone wants in my lane? That’s ok, I don’t consider the gap ahead of me to be my real estate. Semi puts on their blinkers when I’m intending to pass? Let off the speed and flick my high beams to let them know there’s enough room to enter my lane. All of this helps traffic flow better, makes things safer, and actually feels good to do. And all it required was to stop feeling like all of those things were a personal attack on me and my desire to get to my destination.” – Buddahrific

Setting boundaries … even with family

setting boundaries, healthy lifestyle

“I used to feel like I had to hang out with people when they asked, and as an introvert would resent losing my ‘me’ time. Now I’m just honest with people and say I’m tired, or that I had a long weekend of Great British Bakeoff and dog snuggles that I was really looking forward to. Might sound lame but I’m 150% happier.” – Acceptable-Place0872“…I’m in my late twenties and talk to neither of my parents. I forgive them for what they did, but I don’t want a relationship of any kind with them and have made that very clear. I just stopped picking up the phone, texting back, messaging back at all. My brother still talks to one, but he suffers for it. I know I made the right decision.” – thekindwillinherit

Exercising for more than just your body

exercise, exercise and mental health, mental health

“I wish more people knew exactly how helpful exercise really is for both mental and physical health! Throughout high school I was seeing psychologists for anxiety and other issues and they repeatedly told me to eat healthy and exercise to improve my mental state. It’s pretty easy when you are in a bad place to dismiss that and say ‘a chemical imbalance in my brain isn’t going to fix itself if I go for a run’ so I never followed their advice. When I was around 20 I got a gym membership and actually started exercising for unrelated reasons and WOW does it help a lot! If you have mental health issues, a healthy lifestyle might not totally fix you but it will DEFINITELY help.” – vindaflyfox

Breaking free from phone addiction

social media, phone addiction

“Disable your push notifications in tandem with uninstalling all social media apps. It’s quite fascinating how much better you feel when social media isn’t installed. Bye bye FB/Meta, Insta, Twitter, all of it gone. Talk about liberating. Took me about a month of “training”, but now I hardly ever look at my phone, and I no longer feel phantom vibrations while it’s in my pocket. It’s disgusting how we’ve become slaves to our devices.” – dj92wa

Improving sleep

sleep, sleep and health, improving sleep

“I’ve been using my CPAP for a few weeks now and I actually know what it’s like to have energy and motivation and not be a zombie by 2 pm. If anyone else feels like that, I heavily recommend talking to your doctor about having a sleep study done.” – whomikehidden

“Sunrise Alarm Clock. I wake up so much better during the dark winter months.” – herbstavore

Decluttering

cleaning, cleaning tips, decluttering

“…A consistently clean home is amazing and doesn’t take a ton of time. 10-15 minutes a day I can keep things fairly tidy.” – unwinagainstable“Nothing feels so relaxing when everything is in its place, organized and uncluttered. This obviously goes for at home, but also a clean car, clean desk, clean and organized computer and filing. Taking notes and reminders and deleting them when the task is done really relieves the mind. You can relax and focus better when your brain isn’t cluttered and overwhelmed.” – KanataCitizen

Walking for an hour

walking, walking benefits

“This literally saved my life. A lot of people think just going out for a walk has minimal benefits, but it has both great physical and mental ones. Highly underrated (and free).” – grittypitty

Journaling affirmations

journaling, affirmations, affirmation journal

“…it helps remind me of my values, which helps me make better decisions each day, and having done it for three years now, I can see the progress I’ve made in learning not to sweat the small stuff. It’s encouraging. I’m figuring myself out.” – babblewocky

Dropping sarcasm

better attitudes, self improvement, mindset

“I thought this gave me sharp, dry wit but really it was one step up from a teenager’s whiney voice making fun of people. It really was a low form of humor and, indeed, the perfect analog to the pseudo-intellectualism of the cynical act. It’s so easy to be sarcastic and nasty and it gets old REALLY fast.” – zazzlekdazzle

Opting for positive content

positivity, postive content

“I stopped consuming true crime content this past summer. It overall made me a more fearful, less empathetic, and more judgemental person by nature. The content encouraged my negative thought spirals and called it awareness. Never going back.” – notwest94

Practicing gratitude

gratitude

“It is small but it genuinely makes a big impact. I had an assignment for a university course last year where we had to spend one week noting down something positive/good each day and then the next week negative things and I hadn’t realized just how much my life has improved until the week where I focused on negative things, it really solidified how much of a difference it made on my mood, how I felt about myself, and even how much I accomplished.” – supersaurus65

There were some other great contenders: daily dancing, seeing a therapist, stretching before bed and at waking … just to name a few. But no matter the habit, they planted seeds for not only a new life, but for a new identity. As Clear would put it, “every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”

Let authors like Clear help guide you—and stories like the ones above help inspire you—as you forge a better path for yourself, one small step at a time.


This article originally appeared on 12.8.21

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    @samxenos

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    ♬ original sound – samxenos

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    After his father rejected a circus’ offer to buy him for $5,000, 3-foot-tall man becomes a doctor

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    The obstacles of stroke recovery

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    @notjustabartender

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    “From the moment we walked in, the manager Chris showed us incredible grace and patience,” Leavitt wrote later on GoFundMe. “In truth, I’m not sure I would have figured out what she wanted on my own.”

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    The power of a random act of kindness

    Leavitt said his mother didn’t fully register what had just happened. But he did. “It took everything in me not to sob inside the deli,” he wrote.

    As they were leaving, Hansen said one thing that stayed with Leavitt long after they drove away: “What’s the point of life if you can’t be nice every once in a while?”

    Responding in kind

    Leavitt, who has worked in hospitality for 15 years, posted about the experience to his Instagram following of over 400,000 people. The response was immediate. Within a day, he’d received more than a thousand comments and messages. He also quietly launched a GoFundMe to benefit Hansen directly, as a thank you. As of late December, it had raised more than $16,500.

    He also brought his mother back to the deli to see Hansen in person, as News12 New Jersey reported.

    The comment that seemed to resonate most with viewers came from someone who put it simply: “A man crying because his mom was treated with respect and dignity is pure gold.”

    Keep Reading →
  • A little girl’s classmate asked who the man picking her up was. Her two-word answer made him emotional for the rest of the day.
    Photo credit: Canva – Step-dad picking up girl from school
    ,

    A little girl’s classmate asked who the man picking her up was. Her two-word answer made him emotional for the rest of the day.

    It’d be nice if there were a simple rulebook for step-relationships.

    Tim Mercer

    Upworthy Staff

    Julian wasn’t expecting anything unusual when he pulled up to pick up his stepdaughter from school. Just another ordinary afternoon errand. But when one of her classmates pointed at him and asked who he was, his stepdaughter answered without hesitating for even a second.

    “That’s my dad.”

    Stepping up to just ‘dad’

    Julian shared the moment in a TikTok video that quickly resonated with thousands of viewers, many of whom have lived some version of this story themselves. He said he wasn’t sure she’d ever give him that title — not because things were bad between them, but because he’d never pushed for it. He’d just tried to show up, consistently, and let her lead.

    @jayvalenz_20

    she loves me yall lol #girldad #stepdad #chicago #school #daughter

    ♬ death bed (coffee for your head) – Powfu & beabadoobee

    That’s what made the moment so meaningful. She didn’t say it for him. She said it because it was simply true to her.

    People knew how it made him feel

    The comments filled up almost immediately with people who understood exactly what that kind of moment feels like. One commenter wrote that her husband cried the first time one of his stepsons said the same thing. Another, who grew up with a stepfather herself, offered a perspective worth sitting with: “She will see you differently the moment you just call her your daughter, not a stepdaughter. Just like how you felt — that feeling is the same both ways.”

    Kids are figuring things out, too

    That symmetry is easy to miss in blended families, where so much of the emotional weight tends to fall on the adults trying to figure out their role. Kids are often doing the same calculus quietly on their end, watching to see if this person is going to stick around, wondering what to call them, not wanting to get it wrong either.

    Julian ended his video saying he was going to take her out for food — which, as many commenters pointed out, is about the most dad response imaginable.

    The title of “dad” isn’t something you can ask for or negotiate. It’s conferred. And apparently, a school pickup on an ordinary afternoon is exactly the kind of place where it happens.

    You can follow Julian (@jayvalenz_20) on TikTok for more content on parenting and family. 

    Keep Reading →
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