Why I stopped talking to some of my best friends

In the last article, I told you how I identified what was holding me back and resolved to change it. The surest way to lose a fight is to not even realize you’re in a battle. This is why admitting you have a problem is the first step.

I admitted my problem was drinking. Changing that habit changed my entire life. I wanted more options for my life because I hated feeling trapped in mediocrity. This was my “why” — my motivation to change. Now I want to tell you how I did it.

More importantly, I want to teach you how to make any powerful change in your own life.

First of all, let me say this: It's important to quickly make important changes. The faster you make changes, the faster you reap the benefits of those changes.

But there are many ways to go about making those changes. My way worked best for me. It works best for most people.

The best way to change your life is to change your environment. A great barrier to improvement is spending time in places a lesser version of yourself preferred.

Once I identified my problem and committed to fixing it, I began to change many parts of my environment in order to give me the best chance at success. I stopped going to the places I had previously frequented, and I stopped spending time around the people I enjoyed most.

These people were my close friends — and still are to this day — but fixing my life required changing how I spent my time. Clearly the way I was living was not getting me any closer to a better life. In fact, it was only through some miracle that I hadn’t been seriously injured or was rotting in a jail cell.

Changing your environment is not just the key to self-improvement. It also leads to self-awareness. When I stopped going to my regular places, and when I stopped hanging out with many of my close friends, it allowed me to evaluate what was really important to me. We think we know what we want out of life, but often times we’re just playing out the script that society gave us.

So how do you change your environment to gain self-knowledge and self-improvement? It’s actually easier than it sounds. Simply take up a new hobby or discipline and immerse yourself in it and the culture surrounding it. Personally, I made a dramatic shift by joining the military and taking up a physics degree. This, combined with committing to my girlfriend, dramatically altered my life. It allowed me to see, for the first time, what I wanted and what was holding me back.

Think about how you will change your environment. I’ll talk to you in a couple of days.