FIVE rules for living your best life…. every day.
- Insist on self-expression
- Get In Action. Stay In Action.
- Seek gratitude awareness
- Try and help someone everyday
- Move the Body
I’ve been on this little journey exploring how to go about living my best life for a few years now. It started out as an act of desperation. I was drowning in the world of working for others instead of building-up my own business and brand. Now that I’m out here I’m realizing living my best life is much more than that. Living a happy life is an intentional practice, and living your best life is the natural side effect that comes from pursuing and improving that practice every day.
Over the past year I’ve been playing around with different daily routines. The 5 practices above have become my daily rules for happy living.
There are numerous ways to seek happiness in your day, but this is what has worked for me as a busy young professional. I encourage you to identify the things from this list that are helpful to you and try them, tweak them…make them your own.
- Insist On Self-Expression
This one is at the top of my list because it is absolutely essential to preserving some semblance of sanity, nurturing a sense of self, and feeding your vision and purpose for life as you continue to live it. Let me clarify what I mean by “self-expression.”
We express ourselves generally as a part of our every day lives. In our professional lives to our colleagues, clients and counterparts. In our personal lives to our family and friends. Sometimes even to perfectly good strangers when they do things like cut us off on I-495. I’m not talking about how we express ourselves in these ways. What I mean by “self-expression” is the expression of your feelings and thoughts through intentional activity.
The benefits of active self-expression are often times subtle and work “behind the scenes” in our lives. When practiced regularly, intentional and active self-expression promotes self-awareness, self-knowledge and self-control.
What does active self-expression look like? Active self-expression is different for everybody at different times. That’s the beauty of it! There aren’t any rules to how you do it because it’s yours! Singing, dancing, drawing, writing a blog article, journaling, speaking to others, designing a new workout… these are just a few that I rely on, but the possibilities are endless.
- Get In Action & Stay In Action.
If you’ve ever gotten stuck, or just had trouble getting started during the day you’ll appreciate this one. Procrastination is frustrating, It can jack-up a whole day. Worse, it can kill enthusiasm and the drive necessary for knocking out your list of goals.
Procrastination is usually rooted in fear, but knowing that isn’t always helpful in the moment because, “hello” we have things to get done. Pausing to evaluate our hang-ups, anxieties and inner struggles when there is a deadline to meet is not going to work.
What IS helpful when you’re stuck, or can’t get started, is reminding yourself to “get in action, and stay in action.” Say it to yourself, BELIEVE IT, repeat it, and then get moving.
No overthinking or catastrophizing here! Just get yourself in motion and try not to resist the flow that follows. The moment you jump in, complete even the smallest task, and GET IN ACTION, you’re going to feel better. Your brain is going to be reminded that “you got this!” Your self dialogue is going to improve. You’re going to have more hope. Your perspective will change and you will be in position to create momentum in your day.
- Seek Gratitude Awareness.
How many times have you ended your day thinking about all the things you DIDN’T get done? How about you stop doing that?! Instead make a mental note of what you DID accomplish for the day and what things you did well. Appreciate yourself and your efforts, even where you’ve fallen short. Identify and appreciate the things that did work out for the day, even if its just as simple as remembering to make it to the dry cleaners. Let them carry you into appreciating the ways you’ve fallen short as lessons that have the potential to carry further than you knew you could go.
This is a simple example of practicing gratitude awareness in your everyday but there are many more. Ideally getting in touch with some gratitude before the day is all the way over is going to benefit you more, but hey, sometimes the end of the day is all we got and that’s better than nothing.
I love this rule because gratitude is truly a game-changer. A beautiful way to incorporate it into your morning is with a gratitude list. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Keeps some note cards in the car or make this a part of your journaling (Insist on self-expression) before jumping into your work for the day.
The point is that what we focus on throughout the day magnetizes in our minds. Choosing to focus on gratitude and positive takeaways keeps us MOVING FORWARD (Get in action & stay in action) and attracts more good things in our lives.
- Try To Help Someone Everyday
Helping others should be a natural extension of every business leader’s responsibilities. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come as easy as you would think. As leaders, we often get too caught up in operations or our own problems to give people the help they need. Working in a service profession I’ll admit this one did not become a regular daily practice for me for some time because, well, I thought what I was doing professionally was enough.
Helping others is more than just service work, its work on yourself. It forces you to get out of your own head and shift your focus from self and all the things you can’t control in life. It offers valuable perspective that can help you deal with your own struggles and worries. It cultivates gratitude and awareness of the blessings already present in our worlds. (Seek gratitude awareness) Those are all good thoughts and feelings we get to carry with us as a result of reaching out to others.
- Move The Body
Last, but not least, and by far my favorite rule for a happy and winning day is moving the body.
Most of us spend a considerable part of the day sitting or standing still. Its unavoidable, and we all know it’s unhealthy for the body, but it is also toxic to the mind. Depression, sadness and a host of other negative emotions like anxiety and fear are acutely allergic to things like sunlight, fresh air and movement.
Making room for physical activity in your day is making room to take care of yourself. Moving the body can be a form of self-expression. It’s also a great way to get unstuck (Get in action & stay in action) and jump start your brain. It builds confidence and self-esteem over time which are essential to living your best life, happy joyful and free!
For ideas….Follow me on Instagram @SahmraStevensonEsq or @OfficeWithoutWalls
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