After hundreds of videos, podcasts, and motivational monologues, I finally figured out what actually helps you move forward. Keep reading and become a different person by the end of this article — trust me
If you’re new here, I’m Nina. I talk about travel, life, career, and everything in between — historically only writing on this blog, but as of last week on Medium as well.
As a visionary girlie with way too many ideas and dreams, I have always been an avid consumer of self-help and self-growth content, constantly trying to improve and better myself with every tool possible. Now, after spending far too much time listening to self-help influencers and reading countless of tips and trips on how to become your best self, I started noticing a pattern.
Most of the advice sounds dramatic. Become your best self. Never give up. Wake up at 5 a.m. Change your life in 30 days. Personally, I don’t buy into this extreme propaganda and it all sounded overwhelming, stressful, and probably not even that effective for the majority of people.
But underneath all the noise, there are a few genuinely useful ideas. Not flashy hacks or instant transformations — in fact, the first thing you need to learn is this just isn’t a thing. What I did find though are incredibly simple principles that really make progress feel possible, and be possible.
So without further ado, here are the five lessons I keep coming back to, that I promise you will change your life if you apply all of it:
1. Don’t focus on the goal
I know: this sounds counterintuitive. Goals matter. They give you direction, and they can be incredibly motivating.
But when you’re starting something new, a long-term goal can feel so enormous that it stops you before you’ve even begun. You can see the finish line, but not the first step — and when you can’t see the first step, procrastination suddenly feels very reasonable. As a procrastinator myself, I know this very well, and this is why it is my number one tip as it’s truly crucial.
You tell yourself you’ll start tomorrow. Then next week. Then once life calms down. You keep putting it off because just the thought of finally starting gives you anxiety.
The problem isn’t always laziness. Sometimes the goal is simply too big to hold in your head all at once, and your brain reverts to shying away from it for as long as humanly possible, making you feel miserable and most likely like a failure in between (speaking from sad experience).
So keep the goal — but stop staring at it. Ask yourself a smaller question instead: What can I do today that points in the right direction?
That question is much easier to answer, and it brings me to my second learning,
2. Build structures instead
A goal tells you where you want to go. A structure helps you get there when you’re tired, distracted, or absolutely not in the mood.
Think routines, systems, and small decisions you make in advance. The less you have to negotiate with yourself in the moment, the more likely you are to follow through.
To give you a common, practical example: let’s say you want to lose 20 kgs within three months.” This might sound motivating at first, getting you excited about it for a bit as you already start envisioning your future, fit self. But it can quickly turn into an exhausting cycle: eat less, work out more, burn out, miss a day, feel guilty, quit entirely. Anybody had this before already?
The reason why this doesn’t work, and I am speaking from years of experience at failing to achieve some big goals I had set for my self, is that what I needed was not the goal — it was an effective structure. I will write a whole different article on life systems because this really was a game changer for me when I read about it for the first time, but for now just picture this: instead of stressing about having to lose 10kgs in 3 months, you decided that you will do a short workout every day, or every other day. You will try out new healthy recipes every day. You will walk for at least 10 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour every day.
The trick is, the goal is still there, but you’ve just turned it into something your ordinary life can actually support. The key here is not setting the structure too high: don’t expect yourself to start exercising every day for one hour — promise yourself 10 or even just 5 minutes every day. But consistently. And I promise you, by the end of week one, your body will have adjusted so much that it will WANT more.
Which brings me to my third point,
3. Create familiar patterns in your life
Structure becomes powerful when it turns into a pattern. You might have heard this before in different terms — “rituals,” “routines” and so on. No matter the label behind, the magic trick is always the same — attach one action to another and repeat the sequence until it starts to feel automatic. Coffee, then journaling. Work, then a walk. Dinner, then ten minutes of tidying. The specific ritual doesn’t matter as much as the repetition.
Honestly, this was the most dramatic tip for me. Because I wasn’t really focusing on things that I HAD to do, but on creating a familiar routine that felt cosy and familiar to me, giving me structure and reducing fatigue other what to do first, what to focus on, and so on.
My personal example: for me, mornings became easier when I stopped treating them like a series of decisions, and instead gradually created a routine that my body got used to doing without even thinkin: I got up, made coffee, took a few quiet minutes, worked out, and showered while breakfast was cooking. Initially I started with one action — making coffee and and relaxing- and gradually I added more and more actions. Eventually, the routine became almost mechanical, to the point where now I wake up on auto pilot, get everything done, and start my day already feeling accomplished.
Why this works: first of all, patterns reduce decision fatigue, which — especially when you’ve literally just woken up — can take a toll on your mind. They also make the behavior you want feel less like a heroic act and more like something you simply do. And after a while, skipping the pattern feels stranger than following it.
4. Focus on who you want to be
This isn’t about inventing a perfect future version of yourself or turning your life into a performance. It’s about getting specific about the kind of person you want to become. To me, this came with a very clear mindset shift — I don’t HAVE to do something. I WANT to do something. And that’s an entirely different thing.
Let’s take a step back and deconstruct this. You might start by asking yourself….
What is it that I want to achieve?
Wrong.
The question is:
Who is it that you want to be?
Are you trying to be more adventurous? More disciplined? More generous with your time? More confident? More present?
Once you know the quality you’re building, ask a better question than “What would successful people do?” Ask: What would a person with this quality do today?
A financially successful person might track their spending. A healthy person might make a decent meal and go for a walk. A kind person might send the message they’ve been putting off.
This shifts the focus away from impressive outcomes and back toward everyday identity-building (going back to moving away from goals, and focusing on structures instead). Now, you’re not waiting to become that fantasy, future person someday: you are already being them now.
Because let me tell you this: at the end of the day, the people you admire aren’t operating with some secret supply of human potential: they’re repeating behaviors you can begin repeating too. The only different is, who is doing it and who isn’t.
Which brings me to my last, and crucial point…
5. Trust consistency
Motivation is useful for starting, sure. But consistency is what carries you after the excitement disappears. And this is my last, truly key lesson for you that will ensure every other tip ties in together to give you the best results.
That’s the part many motivational videos skip, which I find absolutely counterproductive to the point. They can make you feel inspired for an hour, but inspiration alone doesn’t build a life, and without a structure to support it, motivation fades — and when the promised transformation doesn’t arrive, you end up blaming yourself and feeling even worse than when you started.
What you need is the unglamorous, powerful idea behind “trust the process”: keep showing up, especially when the results are invisible.
For lack of a better, poetic metaphor, think of yourself as a rock that just fell off a cliff and onto a beach: you see all the soft, rounded rocks around it you and you wonder why your edges aren’t as smooth. The sea washes over you, but you still look the same. Until one day, after the waves went through you ten, one hundred, one thousand times, you take a look at yourself again and you’re suddently just as smooth as all the other rocks. Why? Because change needs consistent action, and not a magic solution.
Your habits work the same way: asingle workout won’t transform your body. One page won’t write your book. One brave conversation won’t reinvent your life. But small actions, repeated consistently, start to change what feels normal. And believe me — one day, you will wake up, look at yourself in the mirror and think — “wow, were did THEY come from?”.
The part nobody puts in the thumbnail
Despite there being so much advice out there, and we could dive much deeper into any of the 5 points, these truly are the key to building a successful, fulfilled life.
If you have to keep one message with you from this article, is this: the best-help advice is rarely about becoming a completely different person overnight: t’s about making the next useful action easier to repeat.
Set goals, but don’t let them overwhelm you. Build structures that support the life you want. Turn good choices into familiar patterns. Focus on the person you’re practicing becoming. Then give consistency enough time to do its quiet work.
You don’t need another burst of motivation.
You need a small step, a simple structure, and the patience to keep going.
Ready to take action today?
Access my free playbook here to put these learnings into motion and start reinventing your life right away!
Let me know if you integrate any of these in your daily life and I would love to hear about your progress!
As always, I wish you all a lovely day,
Nina
