Does your life ever seem like a trap you can’t escape because you have failed too much in all important areas of your life?
I empathize, because I have been there a few times (read: unemployed, broke, lonely, depressed).
I want to share with you three habits that will turn your life around and free you from your trap – if your take them up.
It worked for me and many others, so give it a try.
The three habits are not solutions to specific problems, but rather something you can do to master any tough spot and create well-being for yourself so you can lead your life towards success. (Success results from well-being more so than the other way around).
1. Move and break a sweat six days a week
Yes, I know it can be hard. But you’ll know it’s the right thing to do by how great you feel after a workout: calm and clearheaded, relaxed and fresh, able to tackle whatever needs tackling. Able to make things happen.
If you are a stranger to using your body, go into this new territory of movement by doing whatever draws you in: if dancing attracts you, then dance. If your muscles are screaming to be exerted and exhausted, do strength training, sprinting – or whatever feels good to you. How much you need and want to move on a given day depends on you and your physical state. (Check with your doctor first how much and what kind of movement is right for your individual needs.) But do it six days a week. You can thank me later.
Make this a habit like brushing your teeth. Just as with brushing your teeth, you know you have to do it because you’ll end up smelling, looking and feeling awful and unhealthy if you don’t. It’s the same with your workout: You’ll feel dejected, irritable, too cerebral, disconnected from your body, and confused if you don’t keep at it. Just speaking from experience.
Break a sweat and clear your mind: The world and your problems will look different afterwards.
2. Learn to help yourself
Can you afford a therapist as often as you need one? Do you always have someone to talk to who will understand, listen without judgment and coach you through a tough spot?
If not (welcome to the club!), you will be happier for having ways to dig yourself out of a hole – without the help of others. There are many ways and you have to find out which ones are the best fit for you. Here’s a short selection:
• meditation
• yoga
• systematically questioning the thoughts and beliefs that make you unhappy
• energy work (aka energy healing), like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT, or tapping), The Emotion Code, and many more
• journaling
• etc.
All these approaches help you get rid of the thoughts and emotions troubling you. They get you back in the present, into your body, and lead you to knowing the next steps you can take in your situation.
3. Make an effort to enjoy your life and have fun every day
Happiness doesn’t come from removing your problems from your life. To live a life fulfilled and passionate, which you secretly want (don’t you?), you need to add something important: fun, enjoyment, pleasure. It’s your lifeline! If you don’t make an effort to have fun every day, your life will be dull and boring, even if all your problems suddenly disappeared. For what is the purpose of being alive? Is it just working through one problem after another? Or is it enjoying this life, this body, this incredible planet with each other?
How to have fun: Follow your desires!
In each one of us, there are big, burning desires, whether or not you feel them. Can’t think of something you would really love to do? Start with something you’d kind of like to do, and find a way, however small, to do it. Start having fun every single day. Make the fun a bit bigger and bolder. Go deeper inside and admit what you really, really want. Feeling the desire alone, and imagining what it would be like to get exactly what you want (while banishing all thoughts about how it isn’t possible) can be very pleasurable in itself. Try it!
Start making these three things into habits and you won’t regret it. I have found them to be indispensable, the corner stones of happiness. When I break them from time to time and end up feeling depressed and overwhelmed by life, I know why I adopted them in the first place.
Make time for each of them. Your life will change and there will come a point when you look back, maybe at an old photo, and ask yourself: Who was that unhappy, worried, confused, limited person? You don’t recognize her or him because you have turned yourself into someone who can make things happen. Who creates their own happiness. You did it: You have turned your life around!
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Written on 11/3/2013 by Julia Felberbauer. Julia Felberbauer is from Austria and runs her own business, helping people all over the world enjoy their lives more by releasing stubborn their blocks and burdens with energy work. She is a certified practitioner of The Emotion Code, the energy work technique she uses to help her clients and herself. She is also enthusiastic about writing blog posts that are honest to the point of embarrassment! Find her at www.energysessions.at. |
Photo Credit: Sander van der Wel