“Instead of having “answers” on a math test, they should just call them “impressions,” and if you got a different “impression,” so what, can’t we all be brothers?”

-Jack Handy

Everyone knows that first impressions are powerful. When meeting new people, trying new foods, or even visiting new places, our off-the-cuff reactions tend to hang around for a very long time.

Like school. For me, a professor has exactly one class period to make or break an entire semester. If that first lecture is dreadful, I immediately know it’s going to be four long months of toil and pain.

Or like restaurants. If I don’t like a dish on my first time eating somewhere, I’ll probably never go back. The other dishes on the menu might be inexplicably divine — but I’ll never know that, now will I? I’m already in my car, driving away.

Fortunately, not all of our opinions are finalized by first-time encounters.

As humans we maintain an invisible spreadsheet of perceptions in our heads. Not only do we add new rows to this spreadsheet, but we constantly update and delete rows as well. Thus, our first impressions can be revised accordingly (which, in the case of dating, might save most of our lives).

Yet some of us aren’t good enough with ‘invisible Excel’ to make these kinds of changes. Well, it’s time for a crash course in spreadsheet basics. Here are five easy steps to change your impressions on just about anything:

Step 1: Open Your Heart

Gut-level reactions are actually our most natural responses, so our hearts are inherently closed to changing them. Realize that there may be a better way/opinion/frame of thought, and become willing to consider accepting it.

Step 2: Eliminate the Noise

You can’t appreciate Mozart at a rock concert. To see the good (or bad) in something, get rid of the miscellaneous and focus on what’s important. Do you dislike your daughter’s boyfriend 1) because he looks like a hoodlum or 2) you’re not used to your daughter being old enough to date yet? The latter is an example of noise.

Step 3: Start From the Beginning

Nearly any movie can become dreadful if you start watching it halfway through. Rewind the DVD and start judging it from the very beginning. The same can be said of a good meal, a decent boyfriend, or a business deal.

Step 4: Put in Your Share of the Effort

Some habits (or even relationships) require a large investment before they start to pay off. Jogging, for example, is usually quite miserable the first time you do it. Forming your opinion at this stage will always lead to disaster. Continue putting in your share of the effort before giving up completely.

Step 5: Accept the Results, No Matter What.

If you’re an overly negative person, perhaps you thrive off of bad first impressions. Trying to change something that’s in direct contradiction with who you are will never work. So don’t try it.

Surprise: you can apply these steps anywhere in your life.

After I wrote the five steps above, I realized that they can be applied to almost anything in our lives. Got a bad relationship? Use the five steps. Want to actually have a relationship? Use the five steps.

Got a problem at work? Five steps. Can’t seem to kick a bad habit? Five steps.

You can change your life. Sometimes you have to move in small steps, but it’s definitely worth it.