Creating the life of your dreams may sound too far-fetched at a glance. Though you would love to have such a life, you would still feel skeptical and doubtful about this ever happening. And, that is exactly the stumbling block that is preventing your dream from coming true.
Do you know that the life you have always dreamed about is within your reach? By embracing yourself in the true sense, you are creating a life filled with gratitude, compassion, positivity, fun, and excitement.
What is your day like? What is your job? What are your hobbies? Who are your friends?
Whether you want to accept it or not, you always have the opportunity to take charge of your life and create a path to take you where you want to go.
Is your curiosity piqued enough? Would you like to learn how to make this possible? Read on.
This article describes 6 steps or activities you can use to bring about the transformation you want in your life and build a life you love. All these actions are meant to boost your self-compassion, self-esteem, and self-love, which will ultimately help you live your life to the fullest.
Step 1: Drive out doubts
Confusion, indecision, uncertainty, hesitation, or suspicion can do more damage in your life than the worst sins and wickedness. Negativity will weigh heavy on your mind and pull you down all the time.
Now, set all this negativity aside, and consider a life filled with positivity. When your heart is filled with happiness, contentment, and gratitude, won’t it motivate you to aim for the stars?
The question is how to reach this mindset?
The first step in your journey towards positivity is to accept these negative traits as an integral part of life. It is alright to feel confused or suspicious. It is natural to hesitate or feel undecided. The trick is not to let these negative feelings last for long in your mind.
You may begin the process by understanding the source of such doubts. Doubts can affect and thrive in diverse aspects of your wonderful life. You should work on your tendency to self-doubt and negative self-talk. You should take steps to eliminate doubts from seeping into your relationships and wreaking havoc in your personal life.
Doing a bit of introspection every day can reveal a lot, help you become self-aware, and come out a winner.
Step 2: Overthinking is your enemy no. 2
Doubts and overthinking have a lot of overlapping. They are like two peas in a pod. Equally vicious and harmful.
Ever felt overwhelmed by a sudden rush of thoughts? Do you dwell in your past too often? Do you ruminate at the end of the day?
If you frequently indulge in any of these activities, you would be aware that the memories or thoughts you dwell on are mostly negative and seldom positive in nature. As you ponder and ruminate, the voice in your head will take over and do its demonic dance.
The first step towards shaking off this habit is to learn to let go of the past. Making that annoying voice in your head shut up is vital to regaining control of your mind. Social anxiety is another area you need to work on to stop overthinking.
Freeing yourself from self-doubt and negative self-talk can help a lot in getting rid of your tendency to overthink. Work on your current relationships and build new ones. Open up to the people around you and discover new experiences.
As you become more and more interested in the present, you will find it easier to let go of the worries about your past and the anxieties about your future. Your overthinking habit will dry up naturally.
Step 3: Get to know your environment
As you free up your mental space from the various forms of negativity, you will find yourself with spare time to do what you want. You can start by exploring your surroundings. And, this includes the people you meet in your daily life.
You may never have done this before and it may be making you feel anxious. You should know that this will defeat the purpose of this activity. Take it easy and slow. Do only what you feel comfortable with.
You can start by stopping your tendency to shut out the world around you even when you are in a crowd. Become aware of the people around you and try to notice them and engage with them. Small-talk with the person standing next to you at the checkout or wish people you meet on the elevator a good day or join a group – all these can be starting points.
Another aspect to work on is your ability to be authentic. To be authentic, you need to be comfortable in your own skin. You can start this with self-acceptance and self-love.
Expectation is another dealbreaker. They create a false narrative in your mind that would be hard to accomplish. Trying to achieve perfection and expecting the worst can rob us of the pleasure of being in the present. Refocus on the present moment and you will find a whole lot of negativity in your life just fading away.
Step 4: Mindfulness is the key to happiness
Most of us are victims of rumination and anxiety. We tend to replay unpleasant experiences endlessly in our minds and try to find alternative outcomes even when we know that we cannot change the outcomes.
Even before something happens, we work ourselves up thinking of worst-case scenarios. Are your tendencies to dwell in the past and the future helping you in any way? The answer is an emphatic no. All this exercise will bring to you is grief.
Mindfulness is all about training your mind to be in the present moment. It also involves compassion, self-love, open-mindedness, and desisting from self-judgment.
Though the idea of mindfulness may sound attractive and simple, don’t be under any illusion that it is easy to achieve. You can start the process by paying attention to your five senses. A body scan can help to ground you and keep your mind from wandering into undesirable territories.
Mindfulness meditation is considered one of the most effective techniques to raise your mindfulness quotient. Do you know that coloring can help with mindfulness? You can practice mindfulness in every action you do throughout the day, no matter how inconsequential they are.
Teaming it up with self-compassion can do your life wonders you never imagined possible.
Step 5: Discard barriers and deterrents
When you were introspecting, did you find out why you are unable to move ahead in life and achieve what you want? What is preventing you from living a life you love?
Do you know that as humans, our brain is hardwired for negativity? When there are so many things to rejoice in our lives, we keep harping on that one setback we had or that one disagreement we had with someone. We replay that one episode over and over as if we enjoy reveling in negativity.
Maybe we do feel we can get something out of pondering over our failures. Unless we consciously decide to push these thoughts and feelings out of our minds, they are going to stay put and keep us in misery forever.
How can we elect these unwanted guests from our minds?
Fear, resentment, and toxic relationships can keep you enslaved and create barriers in your path. Start the spring cleaning of your mind by permitting yourself to let go.
Step 6: Cling on to the good things
As you free up your mind space of unwanted and undesirable elements, you find yourself in a position to add new ones that will help you get ahead in life. At the same time, you may want to hold on to the good things and not let them go along with the rest.
If you haven’t done this before, you may feel confused about how to discern good from evil. An obvious place to begin this is by writing down a list of things you consider inspirational. Here are some more suggestions for you to understand what to hold on to and which ones to add and build on.
Among the ones you want to retain, your values and happy memories top the list. Your uniqueness, reputation, brilliance, merit, spirituality, and ability to pursue goals with single-mindedness are all positive elements that you should cling to.
Bottom line
The capacity to embrace yourself with all your vices and imperfections doesn’t come naturally. It is arduous, challenging, and uphill all the way. However, let this not deter you from your goal of building a life you love. Turn the demanding aspect of the entire task into something positive – to inspire and motivate you to scale the heights.
A point worth noting here is that living a meaningful ideal life is a life-long project. Just because you accomplished what you set out to do, doesn’t mean you can sit back and relax. If you do that, negativity will creep back into your life unawares.
Make positive living a lifestyle choice to enjoy a happy, fulfilling, and successful life.
To learn more about the “6 Things You Can Do To Develop Self-Compassion and Live Fully”, download the ebook “Creating the Life You Love”.
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