Change Your Life in 30 Days is a self-help book that takes the reader through a journey of change. The underlying principle behind change is that for change to happen, a person has to be true to himself. The second principle which the author emphasizes is that a person should break the cycle of fear that holds the person back for change to take place. In this book, she outlines the steps to making those changes one day at a time. For people who want to make some major changes in their lives or who want to start over, each day is a journey that takes the reader through several questions to answer, create affirmations, define life goals and outline the steps needed to reach those goals. Within 30 days, a person can create a new fresh start in life.
Day one sets the pace for making changes in one's self. Here, the path to change involves knowing that life's dreams can be fulfilled. Whether it's an intangible dream or something concrete, people can have it all by being true to themselves.
In Day 2, a person is guided to acknowledge himself, giving credit for what he has done in the past. This technique helps the person build his confidence level. To do this however, he or she has to acknowledge what kind of filter system he or she has when dealing with information.
Day 3 has the person define his or her confidence. An extension of Day 2, confidence building involves recalling times, by writing it down, when a person in a given situation was confident in his or her life. When that happens, the person then uses those moments as stepping stones in doing things differently.
In Day 4, making changes can only happen if a person has purpose and passion in life. Writing down what a person loves in life helps define a person's purpose in life and using passion in creating a better life. This is what is called passionate purpose.
Day 5 shows how a person can use affirmations as a powerful tool in introducing changes in his or her life. Affirmations combined with intentions and broken into goals can produce powerful results.
Day 6 shows how a person can remove negative habits or thoughts from his or her life. By showing a person how to move on from their comfort zone, stretching, risking and dying, changes can be introduced in any area of one's life.
A person in order to be true to himself or herself has to face the truth. That is instead of blaming or making up excuses, he or she has to examine the whole truth in any event in their lives.
In Day 8, the words disciplined freedom is defined as working in a disciplined manner and taking responsibility for one's work. While both words (freedom and discipline) have different meanings, here, Britten points out that both words can be used in life as a means of being true.
Shining one's light actually is a form of acknowledgment for the wonderful things that a person has accomplished. Shining or giving compliments or given compliments helps a person boost his or her self esteem.
Day ten is a day that a person has to examine his or her accomplishments. Integrating all the past exercise on this day is important as it helps a person gauge whether changes have been made. By rating himself honestly, a person can get a clear picture where he or she stands.
At this stage, a person has to examine core needs, an expanded version of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. By doing so, a person can identify what he or she really needs in order to be fulfilled, happy or satisfied with life.
In Day 12, knowing what we want by separating feelings and thoughts is one way of introducing change in our lives. By knowing what we fear or what is holding us back, we can really ask the world for what we want.
Words like actions can empower a person. However, when a person uses disempowering words, his or her life remain stuck in a cycle of negativism. It is true, we are what we think.
As part of being true to oneself, a person has to change the habit of lying in situations. If a person stops lying and instead tells the truth, then change can happen because a person's life is not hidden with lies but is open to change.
Trust is an important element in change. Here a person has to learn how to trust himself in the things that he or she does. This also requires that a person has to learn to trust other people specially those close to his or her heart. Without trust, peace of mind is not possible and a person will always doubt himself or others. The most important person to trust is one's self to begin with.
The Myth of Balance is that people believe that they can have it all. The truth is that they create stress in having it all. We all live in an information age where we are bombarded daily with different information wanting attention. Jobs are becoming stressful simply because of information overload. What makes it stressful is that a person only has 24 hours in a day to live through it.
The exercise for releasing excuses in one's life involve writing down the top three excuses that a person has been making all his or her life. By acknowledging these excuses and removing them, a person can move on and make changes in life.
Intuition is an important gift that a person can use to make judgement calls. While there is no scientific explanation for how intuition works, Britten believes that intuition can guide a person in life.
Hurt is a powerful burden that a person can carry all through out his or her life. In order to relieve one's self of this burden, a person has to be willing to forgive and let go. By identifying the hurts that a person has faced in the past and knowing the source of hurt, a person then has to take the first step in forgiving.
Day 20 is another milestone that the reader has to take time to examine. The lessons learned or changes that happened during the past 20 Days serve as a reality check for the reader.
When bad or good things happen to people, they usually blame it on luck, fate or destiny. However, by taking a proactive approach in life, people can really make changes just by identifying things that they can control and can't control.
Learning how to accept rejections is an important factor in the change process. This is because rejection keeps a person frozen with fear and humiliation. In the process, he or she does not move forward. By knowing how to deal with rejection, a person can really move forward and still make changes in his or her life.
For or against are mindsets that a person uses as a filter in seeing how the world behaves. For means the world is "for you" while against is the opposite. To overcome these two mindsets, a person has to learn how to be grateful for any situation he or she encounters.
Loving one's self is an important step in introducing change in ourselves. Loving is important because it gives a person self-worth. A person who hates his or her self cannot go on living and loving another person.
Instead of motivation which is a short-term solution in making people take action, Britten offers contentment instead. The connection again between these two is explained.
In this chapter, Britten proposes clarifying issues when dealing with situations involving people. The underlying principle is that no two people are alike and when they do not meet half way, misunderstanding happens and confrontations occur.
In this chapter, a person is asked if there have been any significant changes in his or her life. That is because at this point, some changes must have already happened.
Embracing beauty is a part of making a person's life beautiful. Britten offers three simple exercises that a person can use to introduce beauty in their lives: smiling, reading the daily newspaper and asking questions.
Day 29 is a milestone for a person. This is the day when a person has transformed his or herself. This day is compared to being in heaven. Heaven on earth for being able to bring wonderful changes into one's life. To fully become a changed person, one has to undergo one last exercise by writing a commitment letter.
The last day summarizes the past 29 days that a person has undergone. In this chapter, Britten helps the person review what has happened in the past 29 days by guiding the reader through a set of questions. The reader is then asked how he or she feels about undergoing change. The main point in all this is that the person should have overcome his or her fears so that change can happen and that the person can be true to one's self in the process. Congratulations are in order for going through change in 30 days.
