If you’ve ever wondered how to change yourself when life feels stuck, maybe my journey will resonate with you.
I want to share something deeply personal—the story of how I completely transformed myself in just 88 days. Not through magic, not by following a guru, but by painfully facing the truth, making small changes, and sticking to them until they changed me.
“Small daily improvements over time lead to stunning results.” — Robin Sharma
This isn’t a perfect story. It’s messy, full of doubt, struggle, and false starts. But it’s real. And if I could turn things around when I felt buried, I believe anyone can.
Here’s my story of how to change yourself, step by step, in a way that’s relatable, actionable, and doable. Changing from lethargic, stuck, and frustrated to energetic, disciplined, and confident in 88 days.
The Breakdown Before the Breakthrough
✅Before I could even begin to learn how to change yourself, I had to hit my lowest point.
✅Life rests on four pillars: health and wellness, finances and career, relationships, and happiness. Happiness is fragile—it leans on the other three. When one collapses, the others wobble too.
In my case, relationships broke down first. My energy collapsed. Motivation vanished. I escaped into endless reels and Netflix series, convincing myself it was just a phase.
But it wasn’t harmless. Very quickly, the cracks spread. My income dropped. My business—already threatened by AI and fast-changing trends—started crumbling like a house of cards. And I just watched it happen.
✅My routine became a cage. Half-lying in bed with my laptop, I browsed endlessly, pretending it was work. Whole days slipped by while I convinced myself I was ‘busy. In reality, I was plugged into my devices for 18 hours a day, deliberately drowning my thoughts so I didn’t have to ask the hardest question: What next?
✅The cost was heavy. My body weakened, my weight shot up, my cholesterol spiked. I stopped meeting friends, stopped going out. Even a coffee catch-up felt like a burden.
✅The scariest part? I saw it all happening. I knew every pillar of my life—health, work, relationships—was collapsing. And yet, instead of fixing it, I put my AirPods on and scrolled to avoid the pain. It was denial at its best.
My family and friends tried everything to motivate me. And yes, sometimes I made new routines. But they never lasted more than a week. I’d slip back into self-pity, telling myself nothing works for me.
Inside, I felt cheated. By life. By circumstances. But most of all, by myself.
“Denial is the most predictable of all human responses.” — The Matrix
✅Key takeaway: You can’t start transforming yourself until you honestly face where you are.
The Wake-Up Call That Forced Change
✅The turning point came in the most unexpected way. I had taken my mother to the doctor for what I thought was a simple knee ache. The diagnosis—acute arthritis—landed like a punch in the gut.
✅In that moment, I felt the ground shift. My parents were aging. They were fragile in ways I hadn’t let myself see before. And here I was, wasting my own life away, pretending I had time. If they couldn’t depend on me, who would they depend on? That thought broke me.
✅That evening, for the first time in months, I unplugged everything. No reels, no shows, no distractions. Just silence. And in that silence, the truth echoed: I had already lost so many years. I had wasted my energy, my talent, my time. I was the one standing in my own way.
✅Yes, I was lazy 😴. Yes, I was a procrastinator 🐢. And yes, I knew change wouldn’t happen overnight.
But if I wanted to learn how to change yourself in the truest sense, I had to start somewhere.
Excuses had to die.
How to Change Yourself Step by Step
I realized that learning how to change yourself starts with your body. When the body moves, the mind follows, and everything else begins to shift.
That night, I went for a walk. Just a walk. Then I jogged a little. Tried a few basic stretches. It wasn’t much, but it was more than I had done in months. My heart was pounding, my breath heavy, but something inside me stirred.
For the first time in years, I felt a spark—an adrenaline rush that whispered: You’re not done yet. You can turn this around. You can change the game in your favor.
“Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.” — Tony Robbins
Building My 10-Day Routine
👍That evening walk became more than just exercise—it was the first step in my journey of how to change yourself in small, consistent ways.
👍Changing my health, my mindset, my work, my income—it all felt like climbing a never-ending mountain. The weight of it was crushing. But then a whisper crossed my mind: start small, not all at once.
👍If you want to know how to change yourself, the secret isn’t in massive overnight transformations—it’s in the small, consistent steps that stack up into something bigger.
👍So I gave myself a challenge: a 10-day plan. Nothing fancy. Nothing extreme. Just a routine I could actually stick to—a framework to rebuild myself brick by brick.
Mindset Shifts That Helped Me Change Myself
✔️The first and most important rule was simple: no negativity. No negative self-talk. No unnecessary complaints. No gossip. I had always known from my spiritual journey that words carry energy.
✔️What we speak becomes what we think, and what we think becomes what we live. Yet at my lowest, I had let negativity dominate my every breath.
✔️This time, I flipped the script. Every word I wrote, every thought I entertained, every affirmation I repeated had to be positive—until positivity became my reflex, my default state of being.
✔️My routine wasn’t about perfection; it was about rewiring myself. Here’s what those 10 days looked like:
- 🌿 Start with water: The very first act of my day was drinking a glass of warm water. It wasn’t just hydration—it was a signal. A fresh start. A reset.
- 🌀 Move the body: Just 5–10 minutes of shaking, stretching, or walking around my home. Enough to tell my brain, we’re alive, let’s go.
- 🚿 Take a shower: Washing away the heaviness of yesterday, creating space for something new.
- 🧘 Meditation & breathing: Even 10 minutes of stillness gave me clarity. I realized silence can heal more than endless distraction ever could.
- 💻 Focused work: No more lying in bed with my laptop. I forced myself to sit properly at a table, treating work with respect.
- 🥗 Healthy eating: No junk, no emotional bingeing. Just home-cooked food that nourished instead of numbed.
- 🌳 Walk in nature: A 30-minute walk outside to reconnect with life beyond four walls.
- ✍️ Journaling affirmations: Writing down 5–10 minutes of positive affirmations daily. Over time, they became my truth.
- 🌙 Sleep before midnight: My toughest challenge. But slowly, I retrained my body to rest earlier, so my mornings could truly begin.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle
Every day I followed this, something shifted. My energy grew. My mind felt lighter. I felt, maybe for the first time in years, that I was in control again.
Changing your mindset is only part of the battle. To fully change yourself, you also need to let go of habits that no longer serve you. Learn how to break bad habits and replace them with good ones here: How To Break Bad Habits (and Replace It With a Good One)
The First Real Struggle
The first few days of my new routine felt almost easy. I was carried by the rush of fresh motivation, proud that I was finally taking control of my life. But by day four, reality hit. The spark started to dim. I caught myself thinking, “Maybe I’ll skip journaling tonight, I’m too tired.”
✅That moment was a crossroads. And strangely enough, it wasn’t the big changes that defined me—it was that tiny decision. I picked up the pen anyway. My handwriting was sloppy, my eyes heavy, but I did it.
✅That simple act felt bigger than any workout or long walk. It was proof to myself that I could keep going even when it was hard.
✅The real battlefield, though, was sleep. For years, I had lived like a night owl—scrolling until 3 or 4 a.m., waking up groggy at 10. Changing that rhythm felt like fighting gravity.
✅Every night, my old habits called to me: one more reel, one more episode, one more distraction. But I knew that if I wanted to learn how to change yourself in a real, lasting way, it had to start with discipline in the small things. So I forced myself—night by night—to turn off the lights earlier.
At first, it was uncomfortable. My body resisted. My mind craved the old chaos. But slowly, the shift happened. I began waking up refreshed, with mornings that felt like a new beginning instead of a hangover from the night before.
✅And that was the first lesson in my journey: change isn’t about giant leaps—it’s about the small promises you keep to yourself when nobody’s watching.
“Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.” — Abraham Lincoln
How to Change Yourself Through Health First
By day eight, I noticed a shift. I wasn’t perfect, but I was consistent, and that in itself felt new. Still, one thought kept circling in my head: Now what?
The answer came quickly—my health. The weight gain, the high cholesterol, the constant sluggishness—these weren’t just numbers on a report; they were signals that my body was begging for change.
If I wanted to learn how to change yourself in a lasting way, I had to start with the body that carried me through life.
Simple Diet and Movement to Change Yourself
So I committed to a four-week diet plan. Nothing extreme—just simple, home-cooked food, no junk, no shortcuts. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was doable.
I didn’t need a fancy gym membership either—money was tight, and honestly, I didn’t want excuses. So I stuck with walks, light workouts at home, and the discipline of eating clean.
At first, the reason wasn’t even weight loss—it was energy. For months, I had dragged myself through each day, no matter how much I slept or how many cups of coffee I had.
Lethargy had become my default state. But once I paired my diet with consistent walks and basic workouts, I began noticing small but powerful changes.
My steps felt lighter, my breathing smoother, and my days didn’t feel like I was wading through mud.
Small Wins That Built Momentum
One evening during a walk, it hit me like a revelation: the most complex problems in life often have the simplest solutions. My weight had felt like an unsolvable puzzle, this big monster I couldn’t tame.
But the solution?
Eat healthy 🥗. Control portions. Cut out junk 🚫🍔. Move your body 🏃.
That’s it. No magic formula. No rocket science. Just consistency.
And that thought cracked something open in me. I realized how often we complicate our lives—not because we don’t know what to do, but because we avoid doing the basics. The real problem wasn’t knowledge; it was consistency.
If you want more strategies to strengthen your self-discipline, check out my guide: 10 Powerful Ways To Build Self-Discipline For Success
The Change/Shift by Day 39
By day 39, I could see and feel the results 🌟. My face looked fresher, my skin clearer ✨, my body lighter ⚡. The brain fog and lethargy that had chained me down for months were fading.
💪For the first time in a long time, I looked in the mirror and felt proud—not the loud, boastful kind, but a quiet pride that whispered, “See? You’re not stuck. You’re moving forward.”
“It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It’s what we do consistently.” — Tony Robbins
And that whisper was enough to fuel the next step of my journey.
Leveling Up Every Area of Life
After crossing that 40-day mark, I knew I couldn’t stop here. Health had restored my vitality, but now it was time to rebuild every part of my life. Learning how to change yourself doesn’t stop with one habit—it’s about creating momentum across all pillars.
🎯I deepened my meditation practice. What began as a casual 5–10 minutes of breathing turned into intentional, grounding sessions. The noise in my head started quieting. I felt clarity, focus, and even peace—things I didn’t realize I had been craving all along.
🎯I also shifted my routine. Evening walks became morning walks. It was tough at first—I had always been a night owl—but rewiring my body to wake up earlier gave me rhythm and purpose. Mornings no longer felt wasted; they felt like a head start.
🎯But the biggest transformation was with my work. For weeks, I had been overthinking, reflecting, worrying about what to do. Now, I decided to act. I reached out to old contacts, collaborated with professionals, and most importantly, I started learning again. The world was evolving fast with AI and new technology, and instead of resisting it, I chose to adapt.
🎯That’s when I took the leap: I launched my own blog and Instagram page. I promised myself this wouldn’t be another abandoned project. This time, I showed up consistently. I posted, I wrote, I shared my journey. For the first time in months, I wasn’t hiding from the world—I was stepping into it again.
🎯Slowly, the pieces began to align—health, mindset, and now, work. And for the first time in what felt like forever, I wasn’t just surviving. I was rebuilding.
The Calm After the Storm
🧘Meditation and deep breathing began transforming me in ways I hadn’t imagined. I became calmer, clearer, less irritable. For years, I had been short-tempered without realizing how much it pushed people away. Now, I noticed the shift—and so did the people around me. They could see it in my words, in my reactions, in my energy. I wasn’t just changing on the outside; something deep within me was healing.
🧘By day 55, life responded to that shift. Opportunities began trickling in. Small projects, yes, but they felt like blessings. I picked up assignments in content writing and, out of curiosity, began experimenting with graphic design through basic software. I even dabbled in social media marketing, learning skills I had once ignored. The money wasn’t much, but the confidence I gained from delivering those projects was priceless.
🧘Each success—no matter how small—was like laying a brick in the foundation of my comeback. I rebuilt my portfolio, refreshed my profile, and began inviting more work. It wasn’t flashy overnight success, but it was steady progress. And sometimes, that’s all you need to keep moving.
🧘This was no longer just about survival—it was proof that change was possible. Proof that no matter how far you’ve fallen, you can rise again if you choose to.
Day 88 — A New Me
👉By day 88, the numbers spoke for themselves. My weight had dropped from 70 kgs to 64.3 kgs. My cholesterol levels had lowered. My work was slowly, but steadily, growing. But beyond the numbers, what I truly felt was this: I was no longer stuck in the quicksand.
Habits That Became Lifelines
👉The habits I once resisted—walking, exercising, meditating—had become non-negotiable parts of my day. They weren’t just routines anymore; they were lifelines. If a day passed without them, I felt incomplete, almost like I had betrayed myself.
Freedom and Self-Belief
👉And with that discipline came freedom. I wasn’t just lighter in my body; I was lighter in my spirit. I began exploring healing and Reiki again, but this time with a new awareness—not as a lost seeker searching for answers, but as someone who understood the value of energy, mindfulness, and inner balance.
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” — C.S. Lewis
👉When I looked in the mirror, I no longer saw the person who once lay in bed for hours, endlessly scrolling to numb the pain. I saw someone stronger. Someone reliable. Someone who had faced the storm inside and still found the courage to rebuild.
🌟 Key Takeaways
Changing yourself is possible for anyone—no magic, no gurus. The formula is simple:
- Decide who you want to be ✨
- Build small, daily habits 🏃♀️
- Shift your mindset 🧘♂️
- Take care of your body 🍎
- Take consistent action 🚀
Follow these steps, and you’ll start to see real, tangible results. Your transformation might not happen in a day—but in time, you’ll look back and be amazed at how far you’ve come.
I felt like version 2.0 of myself—dependable, responsible, and, above all, a true fighter and survivor. For the first time in years, I knew I wasn’t just surviving anymore. I was growing.