10 Steps to Living a More Meaningful Life

You can have a richer more meaningful life. You can increase the depth and meaning of your life. You can increase the quality of your experience of your life. Here are 10 steps to help you get more out of life:

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Take the time to really get to know yourself
What makes you tick? What are you interested in? What do you emotionally attach to? What are you passionate about? What brings you satisfaction? What brings you peace? If it helps set up a specific journal just for this purpose. Write down what excites you. Write down what you dream about. Write down what you feel connected to. Write down what makes you feel great. Having a journal like this is great to reference on an “off-day”, when you’re not quite feeling yourself. It can be a great tool to get you back on track and into higher spirits.

Do more of what you love
As you learn more about yourself, you’ll get a better idea of what you really love. Incorporate more of what you love into your schedule. Pursue the activities you are interested in. Make more time by cutting out the things that don’t serve you. Give less time, energy, and attention to what you don’t love. Set Boundaries. Remember, you have a choice as to what you emotionally attach to. Exercise that choice!

Work on your inner dialogue
You don’t need to introduce judgment into everything. Learn to give yourself more grace. Be kinder, and more gentle with yourself. You don’t need to beat yourself up! How constructive is that? Instead, speak to yourself with love and compassion. Encourage yourself. Celebrate yourself. Allow yourself to feel good about you. Work on loving yourself more.

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Work on being more present in your life
Stop worrying about the past or future. Life is happening now and nowhere else. If you spend time thinking about the past or future, that’s time you are not spending in presence. Be here now. Life is happening now. Pay attention. Don’t let your mind drift. Engage with the moment. Whatever you do, do it with heart. Add value to the moment by putting yourself into the moment.

Act with love
Live life with a gentle perspective. See and act with eyes of love. Be compassionate. Show caring. Don’t be afraid to show love. Feel unity and connection with your fellow man, and with your world. You are a part of something greater. You have an important role to play. The biggest contribution you can make in this world is to share your love with others. It is the most important thing you can do for yourself and for others. The more love you give, the more love you will receive. Whenever confronted with a situation ask “What would love do?” before acting.

Do what is right for you
Make your own decisions. Only you will know what works and doesn’t work for you. Only you will know what’s right for you. You’re not living someone else’s life, you are living yours. That means you need to figure out what that means to you. How will you decide to live? What will you choose to do? Don’t be afraid to disappoint other people’s expectations. This is better than constantly disappointing yourself by living a life that is not of your choosing.

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Clean up your perspectives
What you see is what you get. How we choose to see things has a tremendous impact on our experience of life. We have a choice in how we see and accept things. We have the power to change our mind. The biggest shift we can make is to stop taking everything so personal. Most of what happens outside of us, has nothing to do with us. We are not responsible for how other people act. We are only responsible for how we act. How other people act towards us is not a reflection of who we are, or anything we have done. We have a choice as to what we emotionally attach ourselves to. If you are constantly surrounded by drama, if drama is always in your life, chances are you are the drama. It’s a choice you are making. Disengage. Engage mentally with anything and everything that works with you, for you, and which serves you. Face yourself. Take the time to work through your perspectives. A great tool for this is cognitive behavioral therapy. Sometimes the way we see things can get so jaded that we don’t even notice. Don’t be afraid to seek help with this. Sometimes even dialoguing with someone we trust and who is safe can be invaluable in “hearing” ourselves.

Live a balanced life
Self-care! Even if you are motivated, ambitious, and have a million things to do: Put yourself on that list. Eat properly. Rest. Take reprieve. Exercise. Look after yourself. Make time for you. If you actively work on living a more balanced life you will be more productive and effective in all areas of your life. Don’t run yourself into the ground by neglecting your self-care. Be mindfully aware of what you’re doing, how you are doing, and work to maintain that balance.

Don’t just think positive, be positive
Being positive is more than just trying to think positively. It’s taking positive action, for yourself, for your betterment, for your life. Self-care and self-love are important aspects to living a positive life. Boundaries are another. Doing things you consider to be positive can create a tremendous shift in our energy which in turn affects what we feel we are getting out of our life. When we feel good about ourselves, life feels good. Positivity begins with intention and is manifested by action. Actively working to be more positive, being mindful of what that means to us, makes the experience of life more positive.

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Learn to set boundaries
In short, learn to say no. Don’t guilt and shame yourself. Say no to people and things you don’t want. Just say no. It is your right, it is your time, it is your energy. If it doesn’t serve you, work for you, empower you, help you or make you feel good seriously ask yourself if you must have it in your life. If the answer is no, nix it. Exit it out of your life. A happy, fulfilled, rich life is also one with strong boundaries. The two go hand in hand. You can’t let people walk all over you. That’s not doing them nor you any favors. Learn to respect yourself. Learn to demand respect from others. When people disrespect you, your time, your energy, or your effort, understand that they do not have boundaries and that it is your responsibility to enact them. Boundaries are an essential part of your responsibility to yourself and to your self-care. Surround yourself with the right people.

The more you fall into alignment with what feels right to you, the more you build a lifestyle that accommodates you and what you’re passionate about, the more you will find your life rich and full of meaning. Every time we act against ourselves, we betray ourselves. We can’t fool ourselves into not noticing when we betray ourselves. We will notice and it will affect the quality of our life. Build a lifestyle you love. Incorporate habits in your life, that reinforce and maintenance you and your lifestyle.

The key to living a more meaningful life is to live it more authentically. Live a life true to you.

-Akiroq Brost