The start of a fresh new year, let alone a fresh new decade, is often an opportunity to stop and really reflect on where you are in life. While you may be quite happy and satisfied with your life in general, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. In fact, looking for ways to enrich your life and lead a more fulfilling one is something that people of all ages can do throughout their entire lifespan. There is always something new around the corner, so it’s never wise to close any doors.
If you’ve made the commitment to yourself that 2020 will be the year that you really focus on yourself and your well-being and find ways to lead a more fulfilling and enriching life, then there is no doubt you’ve got your work cut out for you. In fact, it can seem a bit overwhelming as to where to get started. To help provide you with the inspiration and motivation you may be looking for, here are seven tips you can start to use.
Read More Often
Reading is one of those things that most people are aware of how good it is, and how much it can add to your life, but it’s not necessarily something you actively make time for. You get busy with so many other tasks and responsibilities that reading can feel like a hobby that just doesn’t fit in with your life.
So why not make a change in 2020 and make reading a priority. And not just reading for pleasure, but reading to learn more about certain topics, areas of interest, and even to learn about the various literature greats that history has provided us with. Then there is the modern literature that we have no shortage of.
Now, if you want to take your appreciation and understanding of literature to the next level, why not treat yourself to a tutoring session and really dig deeper into the content. It can be extremely fulfilling to peel away the layers and start to understand literature in ways you hadn’t even begun to understand before. You can pick a teacher from here. Superprof is a website that connects people just like you with tutors that can help you to delve deeper into the literature.
Engage in Regular Physical Activity
While you may see the words “physical activity” and instantly think of having to join the gym, nothing could be further from the truth. Adding regular physical activity to your life simply means you are being active and keeping your body fit and healthy. That could mean you take walks on a regular basis, join a local team, enrol in a class such as dancing or yoga, or just get moving.
Physical activity will, of course, help you to maintain a healthy body weight, but it also has all kinds of other benefits. These include:
- Building your strength, endurance, and stamina
- Helping to build balance
- Helping with coordination (especially important in older people)
- Elevating your mood, which makes you feel good
- Helping to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease
- Lowering your blood pressure
- Increasing blood flow
- Helping to energise you
- It can be really fun
As for how much activity you should aim for, ideally, you want to set a weekly goal of 150 minutes of physical activity. That breaks down to about 30 minutes, five days a week. It can seem much less intimidating once you realise it’s really not that much time each day.
Make Time for Friendships and Personal Relationships
One thing that busy people often complain about is that there isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done. What this means is that they focus all their time and energy on their tasks and jobs, and leave no time for their own mental well-being. Where is the time for socialising with friends and family? Where is that downtime where you can get together with your loved ones, relax, and share a laugh?
These moments are just as important as your “to-do” list and help to ensure that you lead a balanced and happy life. If you aren’t feeding your friendships and personal relationships, they are bound to suffer, which means you suffer too.
So how can you make time for family and loved ones? Well, it may require you to actually write blocks of free time into your schedule where you force yourself to walk away from all those tasks, and just relax. Sure, it will seem strange at first to be doing something for yourself, but the more you do it the easier it will get, and the more you will benefit from it.
Start Travelling
Another way to enrich your life is to learn more about people in the world, various cultures, and history. And what better way to do that than by travelling. Even if you can’t afford elaborate international trips to exotic locations, you can still find ways to travel and enrich your appreciation of the world. Why not explore neighbouring towns, villages, and cities and get to know them better? You don’t even have to see it as a trip, it’s just stepping outside of your regular bubble.
Start Giving Back and Volunteer
Another way to really feel good about yourself and feel as though your life is making a difference to people is to give back and volunteer. Where you volunteer doesn’t matter, it simply is the act of helping others that will provide you with that deep sense of connection and happiness.
There are so many different wonderful causes to support nowadays that really you should have no problem finding one that you are passionate about.
Don’t Hang On to Anger and Resentment
Here’s a tip that is much easier said than done. When someone hurts you, it’s only normal to feel angry and it’s also normal to hang on to that anger. The problem with carrying anger around is that it starts to eat away at you and truly take over. The only one that loses, in the end, is you.
Why not let 2020 be the year you let go? Let go of resentment, anger, hate, and negative feelings and just move forward. This doesn’t mean you are excusing bad behaviour, it just means you aren’t letting it dictate your life. This also means you need to learn how to forgive people, another life lesson that can be tricky to perfect.
Learn to Be Thankful for What You Have
How many times have you heard yourself saying things like “if only I had more money”, “if only I had a bigger house”, “if only I had a nicer car”, and so forth? It’s okay, they are natural thoughts, but they aren’t really doing you much good. They can leave you wallowing in self-pity and sadness over what you don’t have.
It’s time to change your way of thinking and focus on what you do have. Learn to be thankful for what you have in your life and your blessings. Being at peace and being grateful for what you’ve got can shift your entire way of thinking.
It’s a Journey Worth Taking
Learning how to lead a more fulfilling and enriched life isn’t something that happens overnight. It’s a journey and it takes work, but the results are well worth it in the end.
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