In life, by and large, everyone finds themselves in the position of wanting to make a real change — at least from time to time.

Whether it’s with regards to that New Year’s Resolution to finally hit your weight or fitness goals, or whether it’s with regards to things like starting up a business and making it a success, there are always new avenues to be explored, and new ways of improving certain aspects of your life.

But although a lot of the advice out there for self development and life improvement is very complex and specific, there can be some real benefits to “getting back to basics” when looking to make a change.

Here are some reasons to get back to basics when looking to improve your life.

Starting small and focusing on your immediate surroundings can have a dramatic impact

If you’re feeling overwhelmed in life, or as though you’re lacking a sense of direction or balance in one area or another, figuring out some grand strategy from where you are to where you want to be can be very difficult.

What is usually much more straightforward, though, is locally improving some aspect of your immediate surroundings, whether by pressure washing your driveway, decluttering your home, or even just dealing with a huge pile of dishes that have been accumulating for a while.

Starting small and focusing on your immediate surroundings in this way can grant an immediate sense of accomplishment, energy, heightened self respect, and motivation. What’s more, dealing with the most obvious features of your immediate environment that you may not be happy with can then inspire you about where to turn your attention next.

The overall path you’re on in life will be largely influenced by your “small” daily habits

When people are looking to improve their lives in one sense or another, it’s quite common that their attention will go to “big picture” things like their overall career trajectory, or their home ownership goals.

While these “big picture goals” can be very important, it’s just as important to realise that the overall path you’re on is likely to be largely influenced by your “small” and seemingly insignificant daily habits.

By “getting back to basics” in terms of focusing on those small daily habits, you can end up generating quite dramatic change.

Sometimes, it’s a good idea to reevaluate the path you’re on altogether

Getting back to basics implies taking stock of the direction you’re heading in as a whole, in addition to reevaluating your goals and aspirations.

Sometimes in life, you may find that the path you’ve been heading down is no longer the path that is going to best serve you, and maybe it never was in the first place.

Perhaps the career you’ve been building was something that you thought you “should do,” as opposed to something that actually gave you a sense of real meaning and fulfilment.

Getting back to basics in terms of questioning and assessing the overall direction you’re aiming in, is an important exercise from time to time.