10 Ways to get More out of Life

Surely we remember the good old days – those fun-loving pastimes when the whole world seemed a bit brighter.  Let’s travel back in time.  Shall we?

Here’s how to get back to good…

Good friends:

Having good friends in our life may not seem like a priority, but it should be if we want to get more out of our life. Studies found that those older people with good friends lived longer. The researchers suggest that friendships improve our lives because friends boost our self-esteem, help to keep us healthy and provide support when we’re in need.  So, if we want to improve our life make sure we work on our friendships.

Say yes:

Wave goodbye to our routine, forget everything we thought we knew about ourselves and throw us into new challenges, experiences and situations. Trying new things out, even if we don’t think we’ll like them, will make you feel free and we’ll also probably have a lot of fun along the way. Even if we didn’t enjoy an experience, by doing something that is outside of our comfort zone our confidence will be boosted. Just make sure we don’t do anything that goes against our morals or that could put us in danger.

Enter competitions:

Can’t afford a car or a new holiday? Then enter a free competition. Not only because we might actually win an awesome prize without having to fork out, but also because winning a competition we had forgotten we had entered was the second most popular little success that people found boosted their moods. The first was finding money we forgot we had in a pocket.

See yourself through other people’s eyes:

A lack of confidence can be a big fat barrier that stands between us and opportunities that will help us to get the most out of our life. Yet building confidence can be a long process. If we want a quick confidence boost to get us through the short-term, pretend we are someone else and look at us through their eyes. Remember that other people won’t judge us as harshly as we do, plus they will also see qualities we miss.

Make more effort:

If we don’t put any effort into things we can’t expect to get much out of our life. Making an effort, whether that means making exquisite meals when we can or putting 100 per cent of our effort into our relationships, will ensure we get more pleasure out of the experiences and people that are already in our life. Alter our attitude and add some enthusiasm into our life so that we can really enjoy living our life.

Tap into the abundant resources around us:

When we adopt an attitude that life owes us something we set ourselves up for frustration and unhappiness.  Realize instead that life has already provided us with a world filled with abundance, and that creating meaningful value out of this abundance is up to us.

No matter who we are, where we’re from, or what our socioeconomic status is, a life of fulfillment requires commitment and effort from ourselves.  It is through positive, productive choices that we line up life’s abundance in ways that uniquely express our personal dreams and values.

Take the best bits:

Some situations in our life won’t seem like much fun, but learning strategies that help us enjoy those parts we don’t enjoy will boost our overall happiness. For example, if we hate working away from home try to do things when we’re away that we can’t do at home, such as indulging those habits that wind our partner up.

In 10 years’ time:

A great exercise that will help us get the most out of our life is to imagine in 10 years’ time what we will regret more – not taking on a new challenge or opportunity, or taking the risk? Projecting ourselves into the future helps us to take the enormity out of the present and we will feel more empowered when we have to make decisions that could help us get more out of our life.

Self-improvement:

None of us are perfect, but that doesn’t stop us from striving towards flawlessness. Although we shouldn’t be too harsh on ourselves, recognizing areas that we can improve upon can make our lives a lot better. Ask ourselves simple questions like: do I listen to people; am I too judgmental, could I be more proactive?  Once we’ve found one or two areas that need improvement, work at making ourselves better. We’ll quickly notice how situations we might once have struggled in become a lot simpler to handle.

We have the power:

There are some things in this life that are totally out of our control. Yet equally there are lots of things in our lives that we can control and if we want to get more out of life we should make an effort to understand which parts of our lives we can control because then we know what areas of our lives we can change.