How to Enjoy Your Journey Through Life (Even If It Seems Miserable Right Now)
A friend of my wife is forever complaining about her job. Her manager is annoying; the pay is too low; the hours are too long. You get the idea.
Unfortunately, she’s had this negative attitude towards work for as long as I’ve known her. But just stop to think about this for a moment: She’s spending 40 hours of every week feeling miserable and bitter? That’s about 250 working days a year — or calculated differently — 2,000 hours a year.
That’s a lot of time to squander!
The good news is that life doesn’t have to be like that.
Whether you have problems with your health, relationships, finance or career — there are steps you can take to turn issues into opportunities and hardships into adventures.
As I’ll explain in this article, your perspective makes a huge difference to your life. See the negative side of things, and you’ll feel down and depressed. See the positive side of things, and you’ll be excited about life and will always have something to look forward to.
Let me show you now the steps you can take to make your journey through life an enjoyable one…
7 Steps to Enjoy Your Life’s Journey More
Imagine a perfect day.
You wake up next to your partner who you love. You live in a home that makes you feel warm and secure. And each working day is happy and fulfilling.
Now imagine that every day was that enjoyable!
It is for me, and it can be for you too — as I’ll demonstrate through the 7 steps below:
1. Look for the positive in every situation
Scroll through the comments on Facebook or Twitter to a trending news story and I guarantee you’ll see hundreds of bitter, angry and often offensive remarks posted by members of the public.
But it’s not just online that negativity is rife.
The next time you’re in a bar or café, just listen to the conversations around you. Apart from the odd table where people seem to be enjoying themselves, everyone else will be talking about how bad the weather is (too hot or too cold!), the state of the economy, and why — in their opinion — all politicians are useless.
British author Douglas Adams once said:
“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.”
How right he was.
People love to share and dwell in the midst of bad news. It’s almost like a comfortable place for them. However, if you want to be happy and successful in your life — you need to break free from the bad news trap.
You can do this by training your mind to always focus on the positive side of every situation.
Take your relationships. If you’re struggling in this area, my advice is to stop focusing on the negative stuff (all relationships have some of this) and start focusing on the positive things. For example, this might mean overlooking your partner’s untidiness — and instead, putting your focus on how well they cook or how humorous they are. I’m sure you get the idea!
When you keep the majority of your thoughts and feelings positive (nobody is perfect), you’ll have discovered one of the key steps to a happy and enjoyable life.
2. Be grateful for what you have
It’s easy to look at others and feel like you’re missing out. Perhaps they have a more expensive car than you, or a bigger house, or a job that seems more important. However, if you want to avoid becoming bitter about life, then you need to switch your thinking.
By this, I mean instead of feeling that you’re missing out on the good stuff in life, be grateful for what you do have.
I’m sure you wouldn’t have to look very far to see people who are worse off than you — either physically (health and fitness), materially (money and assets), or emotionally (relationships and well-being).
Once you become grateful for what you have, you’ll put yourself in the perfect position to increase and expand on these things. This could take the form of a manager at work who notices your positivity and asks you to step up to a new senior role, or it could be your social life that gets a boost as friends and family find you to be happier and more upbeat than you’ve been before.
An ‘attitude of gratitude’ can make a BIG difference in your life. Try it and see.
3. Help others
When we help others without any thought of reward for ourselves — it feels good.
I’m sure you’ve experienced this feeling yourself. However, it’s easy to get endlessly caught up in our own lives, leaving little time for us to be altruistic.
To make helping others more of a regular part of your life, why not donate some of your time every week to a charity or not-for-profit group? If you like meeting people, you could help in a public-facing role such as in a shop, museum or information center. If you prefer to be behind-the-scenes, then look for administration, accounting or marketing roles that you could volunteer your time to.
Helping others in this way is intensely satisfying. Even if you only contribute in a small way, you’ll enjoy being part of something bigger.
4. Find time for rest and relaxation
Waking up early to commute to work. Stressing out throughout the day. Crashing on the sofa when you get home. We’ve all been there, and it’s not pleasant, and it’s definitely not sustainable.
If you don’t have at least one full day of rest and relaxation every week, then your mind and body won’t ever have a chance to be refreshed and revived. Without this essential rest, you’re likely to be forever on edge, moody and perhaps even short-tempered.
You might think you don’t have time to take a rest day every week. But I urge you to do so. And I guarantee you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results, which will include having:
- Less stress
- Better mental and physical health
- Increased creativity
- Improved focus
- Higher productivity
5. Be a team player
As the famous expression goes: “No man is an island.”
To be successful and happy in life, it’s important that we work well with others and have harmonious relationships with our family and friends.
When you’re a team player, you’ll have support when you need it, and you’ll be able to help support others when they need it! You’ll also be able to tap into other people’s creativity and ideas. This may lead you to change your thinking and your path through life.
Ultimately though, being in a team will mean you’ll feel part of a community. This is something that is natural and desirable for all of us.
6. Strengthen your physical and mental health
Multiple studies have shown that regular exercise not only improves our physical health — but it boosts our mental health too. In other words, exercise is a holistic tonic for our minds and bodies.
While running 15 miles a day and exercising for 2 hours a day might be your perfect exercise regime, you don’t have to push yourself this far. Even if you just have a brisk walk outside for 30–40 minutes a day, this will bring you many benefits. These include: supporting your joints, building up your muscles, improving your circulation, lightening your mood, and increasing your lifespan.
My tip for you is to choose a form of exercise you really enjoy doing. That way you won’t find it a burden, and you’ll be much more likely to keep doing it.
7. Set SMART goals
One of the key concepts we teach at Lifehack is SMART goals.
Instead of relying on your willpower to try to achieve your goals and dreams, it’s much better to have a clear plan of action to accomplish them.
You can do this by following the SMART goal setting framework, which looks like this:
S — Specific
M — Measurable
A — Achievable
R — Realistic
T — Time bound
Being specific means knowing exactly what you want. For instance, just saying that you’d like to change your career is way too vague. You need to pinpoint the exact new position that you’d like to be working in.
Measurable means that you have a way of knowing when you’ve achieved your goal. Take going on a diet for instance. If you want to reduce your calories by 500 a day, you can measure this by calculating how many calories you’re consuming. Once you’ve cut your overall daily intake by 500 (on a consistent basis) — you’ll have achieved your goal.
As the SMART framework suggests, your goals need to be achievable. While it might be fun to dream of earning $10M in the next 12 months, this is probably not going to be a realistic proposition!
Finally, make sure that your goals all have specific timelines. By this, I mean that you should know exactly what date you plan to achieve them by. When you have deadlines, you’ll have the motivation to take the necessary actions.
Welcome to a New Chapter in Your Life
When you adopt the 7 steps above, you’ll put yourself on a path to happiness and personal satisfaction. You’ll also become your natural self, which means you’ll be more relaxed and more authentic.
Just think of a puppy…
They’re incredibly enthusiastic about everything — eating treats, going for walks, meeting new people, and sleeping on the sofa!
Dogs and other animals can teach us a lot about our own lives. They live naturally and happily. They also live simply and instinctively.
Mexican-American actress Laura Harring once said:
“Life is a wonderful beautiful journey. Every episode of my life is like a dream, and I am at peace and happy with what life has given me.”
Be grateful for what you have — but strive for more and enjoy the adventure!
If you’ve enjoyed this article, then please check out Lifehack’s 3-Step Guide to Break Free and Design the Life You Want. This free guidebook will help you take charge of your life right now.
