When you’ve been living in one place for a while, doing the same things everyday, you start settling into a comfortable routine. And it can be very hard when you want to change or improve your regular routine, because it’s been baked into your subconscious over many years. I’ve always had a problem with maintaining motivation and discipline, and back home I felt like I was starting to stagnate. That’s why this move felt right for me, it’s a new chance, a clean slate. 

It is the chance to shock my system and reset it. And I’m trying to condition myself to improve right from the start, build better habits from the beginning so it’s not as much of a struggle later on. There’s a lot of things I want to do here, be more independent, have a healthier diet and activities, be more productive, pick up good hobbies and make new friends. Of course this all is easier said than done. But every step forward is progress, no matter how small. 

Our environment plays a very large part in our everyday life. I believe it influences your mood and outlook more than you would think. If you have to be stuck in traffic looking at the back of a car for a good chunk of your day, and when you step outside you get hit by the heat and smell of smoke and pollution, it's surely going to negatively impact your daily mood, whether you realize it or not. That’s one thing I’ve really appreciated since I moved to Germany, the solid infrastructure that underlines everything in life. Everything is designed to be efficient, clean, safe,  comfortable and pleasing to look at, everything simply all makes sense, and it puts your mind at ease. 

But just changing your environment isn’t the end-all be-all solution. Because the real change you need to make is within. Otherwise you’d just end up making the same mistakes and going down the same paths you were on before. It’s going to be a choice you have to make every day, the choice to improve yourself, because the only person you need to be better than, is the person you were yesterday. The road to self improvement is a long and difficult journey, but it will get easier; we just have to do it every day, that’s the hard part. But it does get easier.