“Stop waiting for friday, for summer, for someone to fall in love with you, for life. Happiness is achieved when you stop waiting for it and make the most of the moment you are in now.”
Shihori Obata
When we go through the motions of our daily routines, life can quickly become stagnant and repetitive. Eat, sleep, work, repeat. Most of us live in a state of being on autopilot where we mechanically make our way through our daily deeds. Unfulfilled. We forget what we are here for, and we become blind to the incredible beauty of life that is RIGHT IN FRONT OF US .
The good news is that every single day, we are presented with the choice: Going through the motions or attempting to make the best out of today. We will be doing our daily deeds regardless of whether we want to or not, so why not make the best of it? We only walk this Earth for so long, so what’s the point of not trying to live the very BEST life you possibly can?
Everyday, there’s potential for hundreds of exciting, challenging, inspiring, and fulfilling opportunities for growth. The problem is that we just don’t see them. This writing will help you establish healthy habits that can open your eyes to these wonderful opportunities and create a fulfilling everyday life.
1. EVERYONE Is Your Teacher
EVERY SINGLE PERSON you encounter during your daily endeavors is your teacher. Whether you’re dealing with an atrocious boss, a good friend, or your significant other, they all have important lessons to teach you that you can learn and grow from. That is, if only you are willing to listen.
If your boss doesn’t give you recognition for your diligent work, do not complain. Instead, choose to view it as a lesson on acting with integrity and self-respect without the need for external acknowledgement. If your good friend insists on spending all your free time together, do not let yourself get drained. Rather see it as a lesson on establishing healthy boundaries. If you are arguing with your significant other, do not mindlessly start yelling, but view it as a lesson on how to look inwards rather than pointing fingers.
Even the brief, “insignificant” encounters with our friends in the service industry are placed in your life for a reason. They are OPPORTUNITIES ; opportunities to smile, learn, and make their day a little better. In doing so, you create a sphere of positive energy which reversibly boosts your happiness, laying the foundation for a fulfilling everyday life.
There are SO many lessons hidden in our daily lives, but we miss most of them because we’re not aware of them. In short… Pay attention to small opportunities for growth and remember that EVERYONE is your teacher if you choose to be a student of life.
2. Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously
A study from 2019 revealed that the average American considers life to be “boring” or “dreadful” 131 days of the year, the reason being that they feel too “grown-up”. Considering our tendency to believe that being an adult is equivalent to carrying out tedious, heavy tasks on a daily basis, this response isn’t surprising at all. “That’s just the way life goes” people say, but that is FALSE .
It is alarmingly clear that there’s a need for lightness to live a fulfilling everyday life. Life is so quick to become heavy and dull, but that is not what life is meant to be. One way to ensure lightness is not to take ourselves too seriously. When we let go of internalized control and restraint, we find joy even in the smallest details of life.
When looking at a beautiful child, we observe pure lightness and playfulness. A 6-year old chasing pigeons or playing with a new friend or laughing uncontrollably. To them, life is FASCINATING. We forget that this is exactly how YOU were born too. Playfulness is deeply engrained in all of us at the very core and the more connected we are with our true self, the easier it is to revitalize your inner child. Being stimulated and fascinated is our true nature.
By not taking yourself and your tedious tasks too seriously, you can break the repetitive cycle and experience more magic in everyday life. Truth is that ANYTHING can be made fun if you make it. Allow yourself to think out-of-the-box to activate your creative side and new opportunities for endless exploration will reveal.
In the words of the inspiring American musician Bobby McFerrin:
“Don’t worry, be happy.”
3. Accept the Negatives
Another important reminder for a fulfilling everyday life is to accept life as a whole — even the negatives. “Fulfilling” doesn’t mean that you are happy all the time, it simply means that you accept and embrace the FULL range of your feelings.
There is NOTHING harmful about negative emotions, but when we refuse to accept their presence in our mind, they become harmful. As a result, we hide or disguise what we are truly feeling, suppressing what was meant to be expressed. Negative suppressed emotions are stored in our subconscious mind, where they slowly gain power and control until the storage is full. Suddenly we struggle in trying to find our true selves, and we are not acting in accordance with who we really are.
Aiming to live without negative emotions is impossible because pain is a natural part of life that we must learn to deal with. In fact, some of life’s greatest lessons are hidden within these negative emotions. Sadness, anger, shame, jealousy, and guilt etc. are great teachers of the human experience, and these negatives make us find deeper appreciation for the positives.
So, our advice to you is that you listen to your negative emotions when they arise (even if they are irrational). Listen to them and hear them out. Feel them come, and feel them leave; like a freight train slowly rolling by. If this process seems uncomfortable, you know you’re doing something right. Ultimately, by giving yourself the time to be sad (or whatever you may be feeling), you’re allowing yourself to FEEL the fullness of life.
4. Use the Law of Reciprocity
Picture this: You are going to a restaurant for your friend’s birthday, and the waiter is giving you very poor service. Despite your hopes for a nice dinner, the waiter is mean and continuously disregards your attempts to order your food.
Our judgmental minds will tell us that he’s a bad waiter or maybe even a bad person. “What an a**hole, huh?” But the truth is that we have NO IDEA why he’s being short with us. Maybe, the guests before didn’t leave a tip. Maybe, he’s trapped in the repetitive cycle of an empty everyday life and is not aware of how to find lightness. Or maybe, his wife passed recently and he’s struggling to put food on the table for his family. There’s no way to know what other people are going through.
What we DO know, however, is that the Law of Reciprocity is one of the most powerful laws of human nature. The law states that what you give is what you get; or in this case, what you get is what you give. If you look beyond is rudeness and give the waiter a genuine, warm smile and ask how his day is going, the Law of Reciprocity says that he will likely respond to you in kindness in return. The bottom line is: If YOU want to feel good, try to make OTHERS feel good.
In everyday life, we encounter many individuals like the waiter. When we practice non-judgment, we teach our mind to be empathic and relate to people on a human-to-human level. Like ripples spreading in the water, we inspire the people on our path to go out and practice non-judgment which in return brings US great fulfillment.
5. Enjoy Mindful Moments with Purposeful Intent
Another important reminder to live a fulfilling everyday life is to set aside time to enjoy mindful moments with purposeful intent. So what is purposeful intent? Glad you asked! Purposeful intent is the opposite of being on autopilot. It is when you actively make a conscious effort to really FEEL and appreciate something to the fullest. With purposeful intent comes the ability to CHOOSE where you want to focus your energy as opposed to living as a product of your conditioning.
Let’s look at some examples: You can choose to really feel every bite of a meal, stimulating all of your senses. You can choose to look around at the everyone living their busy lives, yet finding appreciation in our shared humanity and bonds of love. Or you can choose to look up into the sky and give thanks to the nature serves as the backdrop to our daily lives. You get the picture.
All in all, it’s very important to take a few moments everyday to release yourself from autopilot mode and find appreciation in something you are grateful for. Take a deep breath and FEEL the peace inside you; this is your safe haven that you can ALWAYS return to in times of stress and anxiety.
6. Feed your passions
If you water a flower and make sure it gets enough sunlight, what happens? It grows. But if you don’t take care of your plant, it will dry out and wither. The human mind functions similarly to a flower. Whatever behavior we choose to nourish — good or bad, it grows. Every day, we feed behaviors based on our habits that shape the entirety of our lives which is why outgrowing bad habits is SUCH a crucial process in life.
Now, all human beings are born with passions. These are given to us as seeds when we are born, and throughout our life, these passions can be nourished and grown into full-blown flowers. When we feed our passions, it brings us great satisfaction and fulfillment. It FUELS us. On the contrary, if we never bother to feed what fuels us, life can quickly become dull and empty. Just like a flower, life can wither.
Not everyone is fortunate enough to make a living from doing what they are deeply passionate about. If this is you, this reminder is even more powerful. The daily decision to feed your passion, WHATEVER it may be, is your decision only. In short, the power to live a fulfilling everyday life rests in your hands, and your hands only.
Make it a daily priority to nourish the seed that is your passion, and witness the wonders that its blossoming will bring you.
7. Be Impeccable with Your Word
The inspirational term of ‘being impeccable with your word’ was originally coined by Paulo Coelho in The Four Agreements. This “agreement” has helped change SO MANY people’s lives for the better that it would be a shame not to include it in your daily reminders. It is a simple golden nugget of knowledge that makes the world of a difference. So what exactly does it mean?
First, it is important to understand that our word holds great power; power that we can choose to create good or evil. It is a double-edged sword. The Law of Attraction has taught us that everything we speak, we manifest. How we use our word, literally shapes our world.
If we THOUGHTLESSLY let our word hurt and destroy, whether we realize it or not, it hurts us just as much in return. But if we use it to help other people and bring good values into the world, our word will become a gracious gift to ourselves.
Being impeccable with your word simply means that we should always aim to communicate in ACCORDANCE with the values you believe to be true. Every time we go against our true selves (which happens more often than you may think), we lose a little bit of our power to craft good. So… When wake up tomorrow, gently remind yourself to live in harmony with your true self.
8. Monitor Your Self-talk
From the moment we wake up to the moment we close our eyes to sleep, we are bombarded with messages from the EXTERNAL world. Most of us allow these messages to play a determining role in our well-being which can be either positive or negative depending on the message. However, by focusing on our INTERNAL world, we can manifest all the positive in the world via self-talk.
To live a fulfilling everyday life, we must first establish a healthy relationship with the voices in our heads. Although it may sometimes feel like more, everyone has TWO inner voices: One that is rooted in fear and one that is rooted in love.
By becoming aware of who is talking (fear or love), we automatically gain the power to choose which one we want to listen to. Who do we want to put behind the lectern?
By monitoring our self-talk, we gain the ability to reduce the mind’s messages of fear and boost the messages of love which is a simple but powerful eye-opener in terms of finding fulfillment in life. Long term, this skill will help increase self-esteem, confidence, and reach achievements we NEVER imagined possible.
9. Don’t Take Anything Personally
An essential part of living a fulfilling everyday life comes with the ability to handle the people that may not be too kind and cooperative. When dealing with real a*sholes, most people either ignore them, confront them, or try to change them. However, all of these approaches lead NOWHERE .
The best thing you can do when dealing with an individual who is not aware of his/her word is not to take their word personally. Try to understand that this person may be having a rough day, or a rough life, and is merely projecting his/her internalized pain onto the world.
As a defense mechanism shielding us from more emotional suffering, the mind can protect us by projecting our unbearable feelings onto others. If you look around, you will see that it happens all the time on a subconscious level. Hurt people, hurt people…
So, the next time you encounter a real son of a gun on your path, you’ll know that his/her harsh words has NOTHING to do with you. Don’t take anything personally.
10. Have a Strong Back and a Soft Front
The term ‘having a strong back and a soft front’ was coined by Brené Brown in her truly inspirational podcast episode. If you haven’t already listened to it, we highly recommend that you do (you won’t regret it).
We know Brené from her famous TED Talk on the power of vulnerability and that’s exactly what strong back, soft front is about — vulnerability. In short, having a strong back and a soft front means that you feel strong enough in your sense of self ON THE INSIDE to open up and be vulnerable ON THE OUTSIDE .
STRONG BACK is your foundation and your belief that you are good enough exactly the way you are. A lot of people have have soft backs and try to hide this insecurity with by showing a very strong front. These are the countless of “tough guys and gals” out there who struggle with showing emotions and opening up to themselves and others. This road does not lead to fulfillment.
When you have a strong back, it gives you the power and self-confidence to be loving, kind, and vulnerable. Your power on the inside, will likewise manifest on the outside. This is your SOFT FRONT . Ultimately, it is clear that vulnerability is the strongest measurement of courage. That is true toughness. In your everyday life, do you have the courage to be your truest, unfiltered self despite of what people might think or say about you?
Most importantly…
It doesn’t matter who you are, where you are from, or what you have been through, the power to create a happy and fulfilling life lies in your capable hands and your hands only. It is time that we stop blaming others for our shortcomings and ‘unfortunate turnouts’ in life. Time has come to look inwards because this is where growth resides.
If you feel bored and unfulfilled in the grand scheme of things, it is because you do not find fulfillment in the little things; the “insignificant”, mundane things. Fortunately, you have FULL CONTROL over the little things, and these10 reminders will guide you towards a more fun, inspirational, and fulfilling everyday life.
As always, we encourage you to go out and help and inspire the people around you. Society as a whole is suffering from spiritual stagnation, so BE the person who gives your friend in need that ONE piece of advice that will stick with them forever. Feel free to share this writing with anyone you think could benefit from it.
Thank you for your time.
— Guides for Growth