To change means to transform and who can't get on with board this! But the problem comes when we don't know how to change our lives, so we try to fix our external worlds first. With so many competing needs, it can seem overwhelming to decide where to put our energies to move the need. We can tap into our inner energy to rise above the fray instead of allowing life to just happen to us. The first step in making change happen is to do a self-inventory. That is right, you need to decide that you are ready for a change because most of us don't want to work at things that prove to be hard. Since we can't control all external things, we need to make a move. To be clear, changing your world doesn't mean that we focus on gaining more material possessions, it is making an internal transformation that will last. With this in mind, here are surprising ways you can change your life.

Go Deeper

It is a rush to buy a new car or buy a new toy. But the temporary fix starts to fade and you are still feeling pretty blah. People and things come and go, but you have to live with yourself every day. We need to dig deeper to find what is making us run to material possession to get a happiness fix. When you have an attack to buy something to make you feel better, choose to think of another person and what you can do for them. This will get your mind off yourself and help you get into a habit of honoring others. How does this change your life? Well, people who help others feel better about themselves than those who are selfish.

Stop the Gossip

Staying out of the gossip will help you change your life for the better! Gossip is poison to any environment and can destroy other people. Engaging in gossip may not seem like a bad decision at first, but you really are damaging your own happiness, since it is negative. After being involved in nasty gossip, who is really happy anyway?

Drop Toxic People

Don't allow people to keep you in isolation because they hurt you. You need to take the journey through those feelings, but they don't need to own you. Understand that people will never give you the deep and complete happiness that you need. You have to be a best friend to yourself. Start supporting the positive and refrain from focusing on the morose that you are feeling. If people are constantly critical and angry around you, this will impact your own life. Of course, this not bound to anger. Envy and jealousy will also cause animosity in your life.

Stop Your Regrets

Regrets will keep you in a holding pattern. You cannot change what you did in the past by reliving it all over again. However, with only one shot at life, we need to make progress now by letting it go. You may be experiencing regret today and here is what you can do. Try the "Balloon Exercise” to help you in this area. According to author Kathryn Sandford, you blow up as many balloons as you need. Then you write a regret on the balloon and then let the balloon go. "As the balloon drifts off into the sky say goodbye to that regret forever. A simple and powerful exercise that works and can change how you live your life."

Love Yourself

Poet Oscar Wilde said, "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance." Many times we don't have this romance with ourselves and it impacts the quality of life. If you want to change your life and the direction that you are headed, really dig deep to find if you love yourself. When we don't love ourselves, we end up caring more about what others think of us and are more prone to fear. If there are old wounds, start working on ways to heal in those areas. "It takes help from someone else who understands the situation to go into these dark places — it could be a close friend, mentor, confidant, priest or therapist," author Deepak Chopra wrote. We need self-acceptance in order truly love ourselves in a healthy way.

Set Small Goals

It's never easy to get out of a rut. Force your mind to see things from another perspective. Start by setting small goals that you can tackle weekly and then slowly build upon them with bigger goals. Psychology Today explained: "Be ruthlessly realistic about how your talents match up with the goal you set. If your goal seems unreachable, pull back and master mental contrasting." For example, if you want to change the way you handle stress, practice breathing techniques. Then you can start to work on anger, worry or other emotional barriers that are harmful. Taking in small goals makes it a lot realistic.

Change is often baffling if we are focusing on changing the outside of ourselves. We can't move forward when we are relying on circumstances to improve or people to become who we want them to be. We have to shoulder the burden by taking a stand. If you are on the hamster wheel of life, it is time to take the power back by doing some inner housekeeping.