You’re running late to school and you haven’t studied a lick for your math test. You didn’t do any of your homework from the night before because you were watching Tik-Tok, and all of a sudden your friends are texting you wondering where in the world you are. You are currently stressed, a mess, and having lots of regrets about how you spent your time the night before. In this current atmosphere, you have set yourself up for failure. Sure, school is hard sometimes and we don’t always have enough time to do all of the things that we need to, but it doesn’t have to always be that way. 

In that scenario, one bad decision, staying up all night, led to other problems and your day slowly went downhill from there. Now rewind for a second. In this scenario you knew that you had a math test and homework, yet you chose to procrastinate as long as you could. However, if you had just done it and gotten it out of the way, your day would have been totally different. It is these little small details that make our lives what they are. “Just one more second”, “I’ll do it tomorrow”, “Leave the big things up to future me.” All of these phrases set ourselves up for failure. Your life is what you make it. I know that it sounds a bit cheesy, but it’s true. The steps we take every day impact our lives. Sometimes we just claim that the things going wrong in our lives are due to someone else’s mistakes, they are someone else’s fault. But deep down, we know that isn’t true; it is just easier to blame others for our own wrong doings. 

Soundtracks by Jon Acuff and Atomic Habits by James Clear are both great examples of working on the small things to create a better overall life for yourself. However they differ a bit in how to get there. Soundtracks encourages changing your mindset in order to put a positive spin on things. For example, sure you are running late and you have a harsh day ahead of you, but what are some of the good things that can happen from today? Well first off, it sounds like you have some friends that care about you. And if for some reason you can’t think of anything good about your day, then go create something good about it. Do the things that you know make you happy like getting coffee, hanging with friends, eating food, taking a walk, listening to music, or whatever else makes you happy. Atomic Habits teaches you to work on the small things to have a better life. You can try something called “habit stacking.” That is where you take something that you like doing and pair it with something you don’t. For example, for me this would be reading and exercising. Every time I want to read, my something fun, I will hop on the treadmill and exercise, my something bad. This leads to the bad thing not seeming so bad. 

In all, take action for your life. You only get one, and I highly doubt that you want to spend it pushing things back and then living life stressed. When you are feeling sad or down, recognize it and then try to take the action steps that you know will make you feel a bit better. Instead of watching Tik-Tok all night long, try to rotate between things you need to do and then reward yourself with a little brain break. Also try to do the hard things first, because at the end of the day, your life is what you make it.