Do you ever find yourself thinking, “I just have to make it to Friday?”

When did we stop being in the driver’s seat and let the outside world drive the wheel of our life? The third passenger being this gnawing gut feeling that tells us in a light whisper, “there has to be more.”

These thoughts dancing around your head: you’ll be happy when you get the promotion, when you fit into some size jeans, when you get the relationship … and on the other end when you get the “thing” and the happiness isn’t there, you think you messed up the assignment.

Speaking as someone who was addicted to the drug of achievement, I can (after seven long years on this journey) tell you that my addiction came from never feeling like I was good enough. Raised in a single mother-household, I was labeled as a chubby C student with a speech impediment. By outside world standards, it seemed that I would never amount to much (and I believed it). I didn’t grow up talking about the hard stuff, so I learned to stuff it down. When you don’t have the language or the toolkit to handle your emotions, you look for a safe harbor. For me, it was the first thing that made me feel validated and worthy: my job.

The accolades. The recognition from senior leadership. When I achieved, I was lovable; I was validated; I was worthy. I was an addict, always looking for the next “hit.” I would sacrifice anything for it, and it sucked the fun out of life.

Fast-forward 15 years; I found myself sitting on the side of a major expressway having a mental breakdown. The car shaking with semitrucks whizzing by, but somehow, I didn’t notice. I was too consumed by the thought, “How did my life get here?” Being $20,000 in debt because I thought materialistic things would make me happy, a loveless relationship, binge drinking to numb myself, and cut off from my family and friends.

What I realized is that I hadn’t been living life for the past 15 years. I was going through the motions. I was doing what the world told me I should do, be, and have — and it left me unfulfilled, living a shell of a life. The common denominator in all of this was me (not the job, not the relationship, not the world). Here’s the cold, hard truth, my friends: If you want any area of your life to improve, you must take the time to work on yourself.

When our problems seem big, we think the solutions are big, so we never begin. Even though we know deep down that we’re meant for more, we do the things we know we shouldn’t. We check email at night, we stay in the loveless relationship, we spend money we don’t have.

Here are three micro-steps to help you lay the foundation to begin to live your truth:

1. Make time for you.

Get up when the alarm goes off. Spend five minutes before you scroll through emails and social feeds putting pen to paper on how you’re feeling today. Cut depression by 36 percent by spending 20 minutes moving your body.

2. Keep the promises you make to yourself.

As someone who is a calendar junkie, I would block out something as simple as going to the DMV over my lunch break and cancel it because someone needed something from me. On the other end of that, there were many regretful Darth Vader moments. Silence the voice in your head that tells you that you suck and that this will never work. Keep the promises you make to yourself. When you said you wanted to sit outside with a book for 10 minutes (no screens), do it. Go to the salsa dancing lesson even though it’s 4:30 p.m. on a Tuesday. Make the time to go for the walk (even though you’re “busy”).

3. Be consistent.

Repetition is the mother of all skills. It’s not what you do once in a while — it’s what you do consistently. When the roommate in your mind tells you that you don’t want to do “the thing,” that you’re busy, that you have no time, stop that voice right in its tracks by taking action on doing “the thing.”

There’s no lack of information in this era we live in. What we lack is action. Make a promise to yourself below (one micro-step, the first thing that comes to your mind) and do it within the next 24 hours. When you do that, you’ve just broken through the biggest barrier of all: yourself.

My Micro-Step Commitment to Myself

What’s one thing I can do within the next 24 hours?