How to Change Your Life in 90 Days

Once in a while we get stuck on this idea that the only time we can do a “life reset” is at the start of a new year. We hold this notion that “new year, new me” comes around every 365 days, and until then, we’re kind of stuck.

But what if things didn’t have to quite be that way? What if you could change your life, now? What if all you needed was a quarter? 90 days of focused energy?

90 days is a LOT of time. There’s a ton we can do and accomplish in a span of 90 days, and in most cases it might be all you need to accomplish those new year goals you set last January.

What if this time around, instead of starting a new transformation on Jan 1, we rolled into the new quarter already feeling our best?

Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to cover today. Let’s talk about how you can transform your life in the next 90 days, and go into the next quarter feeling on top of the world.

To follow along and get yourself organized with these steps, check out our 90 Day Makeover Journals. A series of digital planners designed to help you level up your mindset, plan with intention, and prioritize self-care.

1. Review your wheel of life

The wheel of life is a tool that was created by Paul J. Meyer and it’s used to help you assess and improve your overall life balance. The original Wheel of Life actually came from Buddhism, and was a way to represent six different states of rebirth and existence. There are a lot of renditions of the wheel of life – but for the sake of what we’re talking about today, this one is my personal favorite for assessing day-to-day life. As you can see, each spoke represents a different part of your life.

Health
Career
Finances
Relationships
Family
Fun / Leisure
Self Development
Spirituality

These spokes are considered to be the fundamental pillars of what your life is made up of. You might find that there are more spokes that you would add to your life, the key is to customize this for you and what represents your life in totality, so don’t get too hung up on this specific example.

Once you’ve got your wheel of life visualized, you want to do an assessment of where you rank in each part of your life. The idea is to graphically see how your wheel stacks up. This is a visual representation of where you are in each area, and how you can be better balanced. It shows you where you’re thriving and where you need improvement.

To get a template of the wheel of life and try it out yourself, check out The Mega Productive Planner.

And if you’re in need of a complete 90 day overhaul, check out our 90 Day Makeover Journals. A series of digital planners designed to help you level up your mindset, plan with intention, and prioritize self-care.

2. Determine your direction

The wheel of life exercise, is a good way to help you understand what you actually want to be working on or improving. And in the next 90 days, in order to feel your best, you need to have a clear indication of what direction you’re headed in. Where are you today, and where do you want to be going?

So for this next exercise, what you want to do is grab a piece of paper, and really get clear on what your focus is.

On one piece of paper, do a current state review. Ask yourself, “who am I today?”. Pull on examples from your wheel of life that show you what things you’re thriving in and what things you’re not.

On the back of that piece of paper, write out everything you want to improve on in the next 3 months. Ask yourself, “who do I want to be in 90 days?”.

You might say you want to be healthier. You might say you want to work on your intellect, get smarter.

Find the direction you want to head in, and write it all down.

3. Set specific goals

Once you’ve got that macro level view of what direction you want to head in, then it’s time to set specific goals.

In the last step, you may have realized that you want to get healthier. But what does that mean? Do you want to build muscle and get stronger? Do you want to lose 10 pounds? Do you want to work on your mindset and be happier overall?

Get very specific, and identify what things you want to achieve by the end of the 90 days.

For example, using “health” as an area of direction, your goal might be to run a 5k by the end of the 90 days.

If you want to work on developing your skills, your goal might be to learn basic coding in 90 days.

Get as specific as you can, and don’t overwhelm yourself.

Ideally you’re setting somewhere between 1 to 3 goals at most – we don’t want to bite off more than we can chew.

If your wheel of life needs improvement overall, pick just 3 areas to start for the first 90 days, and every 90 days after that, pick another 3 areas. Self improvement is a long term process so take it one step at. time.

4. Identify your “stop” habits to change your life

A lot of times we focus on the things we want to start doing.

I want to start working out everyday. I want to start eating healthier. I want to make more money.

But before we get there (which we will, in the next step), let’s talk about what habits we need to stop.

Based on the goals you set in the previous step, I’m sure there are things you can think of right out of the gate that are currently getting in your way of achieving those things.

These are the obstacles we inflict on ourselves, these are things we do that stop us from getting where we ultimately want to be.

Write these “stop” habits out, and be completely honest with yourself as you’re doing this.

Your “stop” habits might be that you spend over 2 hours a day on social media, and you always feel crappy by the end of it.

Or, it might be that you’re going to stop eating out everyday.

Be transparent and totally real with yourself during this step.

5. Identify what things you need to start doing

Contrary to the last step, what we’re going to do now, is determine what things we need to start doing in the next 90 days to get us closer to those goals.

If you’re trying to eat healthier, for example, that might mean that you’re going to start meal prepping every Sunday.

If you’re trying to learn how to code, that might mean that everyday after work, you’re going to spend an hour from 5-6pm doing an online course.

Get crystal clear on what habits you need to start doing to get you to where you want to be.

Again, you don’t want to overwhelm yourself. Don’t tell yourself you’re going to start doing 10 new things, that’s really difficult.

Pick one habit per goal. So at most, it’s 1-3 new habits you’re going to start.

6. Create a visual reminder

90 days can fly by so quickly. Days turn into weeks, which turn into months, and next thing you know it’s 2024 and you haven’t achieved what you set out to do.

Creating a visual reminder of the time span you’re working with, can really help keep you on track.

Maybe that means putting a calendar up, and marking a huge “X” each day that goes by when you complete those habits for the day. Or, it could be using a habit tracker you keep on your desk to mark off your new habits.

Or, maybe it’s something as bold as having 90 sticky notes on the wall, and taking one down every time you complete your routine.

Having this visual cue will remind you what you’re focused on and give you momentum when you start to see the pattern you’re creating day after day.

You’ll probably get addicted to the satisfaction of marking that “X” or taking that sticky note down too, which will keep you on right on track.

7. Be consistent

No matter how much planning or prep work you do, if you never take action, you’ll never see results.

And to get more specific, if you don’t take consistent action, you definitely won’t see results.

Making a dramatic change in your life doesn’t come easy. A personal transformation requires you to work on yourself just a little bit every single day. It’s not about that one amazing workout you did once in the last month, it’s about that 30 minute walk you took every single day over the last 30 days.

You’re going to need to prep yourself going into this, that every day is NOT going to be perfect. It is inevitable that you will have moments where you feel demotivated, and don’t feel like doing anything.

Brace yourself for these days and acknowledge that no matter how motivated you are right now, there will be dips in next 90 days where you don’t feel so great.

These are the times when you have to stay consistent.

You need to push past your mind negotiating with you, you need to put aside all the demotivating thoughts you have, and you just have to do it.

8. Consume content that helps you grow

During this 90-day period, on top of your goals and new habits, try to consume content that energizes you and helps you grow.

We are in the full swing of content consumption with ability to consume across so many channels and outlets – there’s audio, visual, so many ways to receive and hear different ideas and thoughts.

And whether we realize it or not, our moods and minds are susceptible to allowing what we consume, to affect us.

So in the next 90 days, if you make an effort to consume things that make you happy, make you laugh, educate you, inspire you, motivate you, I’m sure you’ll feel more energized than if you were to consume content that depletes you.

As it’s so often stated, our diet is much more than what we eat. It’s the podcasts we listen to, the videos we watch, the people we hang out with, the conversations we have. So just look out for yourself and what you’re feeling over the next 90 days and fuel yourself with information or entertainment that makes you feel better instead of worse.

9. Never give up

Last but not least, if you want to change your life, you need to change your mindset.

And that means, never giving up. The next 90 days will be tough, they will present very difficult times, and in moments like that you will hear a small voice in your head telling you it’s not that important, you can start again later, just give up.

You are going to need to ignore that voice in your head and push through.

Once we allow that voice in our head to be heard, it will take over. We will start reasoning with ourselves as to why we shouldn’t do something when deep deep down, we’ve always wanted it.

Keep your eyes on the prize, focus on those daily changes, and these things will start to feel habitual.

Don’t give up. Believe in yourself fully. Give yourself grace, and allow yourself to transform into the best version of you.

How to Change Your Life in 90 Days