We all want our life to be better and happier. Every second you spend your life feeling sad, angry, or dwelling in a negative state is every second wasted for you to feel happy and live better.
Life is beautiful and full of opportunities to make it better. These opportunities can be giving up your old lifestyle partially or adopting a new set of habits and routines to completely change yourself for the better, tied in with picking an objective and approaching slowly and carefully to improve your life with a purpose.
However, changing your life, making it positive, and becoming happier, may be easier said than done. But that doesn’t mean it is impossible.
And the first step to doing so is to believe that you can. And then take action to confront and change your life for the better.
In this guide, we will talk about the 7 ways how you can make your life better and happier. Again, it may not be easy, but it isn’t impossible either.
What you need is to have the courage to make small changes, one step at a time. Keep this in your mind:
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
Confucius
So, are you ready to make some real changes to your life? Here are the 7 ways to do it right…
#1 – Start with Your Health and Fitness
The study, A descriptive study of individuals successful at long-term maintenance of substantial weight loss, of the National Weight Control Registry has shown that losing weight led to greater feelings of positivity, more energy, and the ability to get more things done.
It is shown that physical exercise directly or indirectly affects your mental state; lack of physical activity often leads to obesity which can, in turn, lead to various mental and chronic physical conditions.
And therefore, the first thing you want to do to make your life better and happier is obvious – get healthy and stay fit.
But, how can you tell if you are fit enough? Well, one way to do that is to see if you have “love handles”. Excess fatty regions over the hips on each side of the waist are referred to as love handles.
And to effectively get rid of your love handles, you can undergo interval-based exercise programs, particularly high-intensity interval training (HIIT), which are more successful than steady-state cardio for trimming your love handles.
Besides, you should also curb excess food consumption, because it is the first step for sustainable, healthy, and better living.
Including an active hobby or exercise can work on your wellbeing and decrease the danger of fostering a few infections like sort 2 diabetes, malignancy, and cardiovascular illness.
Actual work and exercise can have prompt and long-haul medical advantages. In particular, normal movement can work on your nature of life.
Besides that, taking supplements such as vitamins can boost your immunity, increase your cognitive abilities, and most important of all, supplements will ensure your body is getting enough of the proper nutrients it requires.
Top fitness site Total Shape, in their LeanBean fat burner review, has noted that some supplements are also capable of reducing those food cravings. Supplements can help keep your cravings in check and in return help you trim your love handles.
#2 – Healthy Diet
Not surprisingly, diet and health go hand in hand. Many people get grumpy when they are hungry.
The diet you take determines your health status.
When it comes to diet, we need to be mindful, consuming the right diet is important but it is equally important that you set timings for each meal and avoid skipping meals.
Remember, your health is largely affected by what you put into your mouth, and it starts in your kitchen.
Improving your diet contributes to:
- Improved mood
- More energy
- Helps you think more clearly
- And of course, make your life better and happier
A shift to a healthy diet will complement your life goals and impact wellbeing and advance the avoidance of normal non-transmittable illnesses (NCDs) such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, obesity, and cognitive impairment.
In short, if you want to live a better and happier life, you must take good care of your health.
Even in your pursuit of success, regardless of career, business, or personal success, you need a healthy body to do so. Steve Jobs once said…
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me.”
Steve Jobs
Achieving your goals and striving for success is crucial, but it is also vital to take good care of your health. Without a healthy body, you will never attain the success you desire.
#3 – Set a Limit Between Work and Life
A large section of working professionals has an exceptionally bustling timetable, and this can cause pressure. At that point when life gets overpoweringly occupied with work and individual life, things turn up unannounced.
In such circumstances, it is not difficult to become negative and discouraged prompting a descending twisting mental state.
And this is why you want to set a limit between work and life.
Setting up schedules for workdays and the ends of the week can be helpful. Saving ends of the week or off days for things you appreciate can establish another climate away from your work.
Go out on weekends to get some sun (Vitamin D), a truly significant nutrient for our bodies and our cerebrums.
Taking a break and volunteering to help other people is another way. Helping others in need by volunteering in community service will put you in someone else’s shoes and be grateful for your own state and also boost your confidence.
Other ways like donating to the needy can be helpful as well. Helping others and receiving positive feedback can make you feel wonderful. It’s a fantastic way to boost your mental and physical health.
In short, learn to be productive. When it is time to work, work. When it is time for play, enjoy it.
Put a boundary so that you can have a more balanced life. Some people believe that in order to succeed in life, you need to work like hell and there will be no play.
I don’t agree with this. I believe that the more play and fun we have, the more productive and successful we can become. Work and play don’t need to contradict each other, they both can exist on the same side.
Read this book, The Buddha and The Badass, and you will discover that we have been brainwashed by society and media to believe that in order to succeed, we need to work extremely hard.
What if you don’t need to work hard to succeed? What if you need to work on the right thing with the right strategy and plan? Well, read the book, the author will show you the secret spiritual art to succeeding at work.
#4 – Nurture Your Relationships
Exercising boundaries or even maintaining a relationship with a toxic person can be detrimental. Truth be told, excess compromising and overcomplicated relations can be a hurdle for a happier life.
There may come a time when your endeavors to establish a better life with a poisonous relation are met with such an excess of obstruction that it can contrarily influence your life by undermining your emotional well-being or removing your energy from your work or different connections.
In such situations, it may be in your best interests to cut relations with the person. Any sort of pressure, regardless of whether it is because of an awful relationship with an inferior individual or a demanding individual, affects the viability of a healthy relationship.
Read: 10 Ways to Nurture Your Relationship
Quick pro-tip to detox relationships:
- Be mindful of yourself.
- Be vocal about your dislikes.
- Set boundaries.
- Observe your relation trajectory.
- Network and spend time with other positive people.
There is a saying, “birds of the same feather flock together.” And make your life better, happier, and more meaningful, spend your time with people who you truly care about, and people who are more successful than you are.
As Jim Rohn famously said:
“You’re the average of the five people spend the most time with.”
So, remember, if you want to live a better and happier life, mix with positive people who are already living that life. And spend less time with negative people who always blame and complain about life.
#5 – Pursue an Exciting Goal
To make your life meaningful and fulfilling, you need to have something exciting that you are looking forward to receiving. And that means you need to have a vision for a better future and have an exciting goal to pursue.
I always love to share the story of the 3 bricklayers…
“A traveler came upon three men working. He asked the first man what he was doing and the man said he was laying bricks. He asked the second man the same question and he said he was putting up a wall. When he got to the third man and asked him what he was doing he said he was building a cathedral.”
As you can see, when you have an exciting vision or goal to pursue, you will act differently. Rather than look at your work as plain work, you will enjoy doing the work because you are fulfilling a calling.
And that’s an important criterion for living a better and happier life.
But, how do you set goals and how do you turn your dreams into goals, and goals into an actionable plan? Check out my ultimate guide on goal setting here.
#6 – Develop a Positive Mental Strength
“You cannot litter negativity everywhere and expect to live a positive life.”
That’s right. The quote above says it all. You cannot improve your life, life better, and become happier if all you think about is negative stuff.
Have you heard this phrase before, “garbage in, garbage out”? What goes into your mind will come out in your life.
If you want to be successful, you must develop a success mindset. And Grant Cardone often said, “You can’t get rich thinking poor.” And he was right.
Hence, when it comes to living a better life, think good and positive thoughts.
Of course, you can’t be positive 100% of the time. But at least you must understand and be conscious of your thoughts.
When you are conscious about your thinking pattern, you can handle and manage your thoughts properly. After all, you cannot fix what you don’t know is broken. And being conscious of your thinking is the first step to changing it.
Here are additional resources to help you stay positive in life:
- How To Stay Positive No Matter What Happens In Life
- Top 10 Positive Attitudes and Behaviors Your Need to Succeed
- How to Surround Yourself with Positive People
- How to Talk to Yourself Positively
#7 – Be Grateful
Yes, be grateful. You see, if you are not grateful, you will never feel that your life is enough. You will live in insufficient and that creates a lot of stress in your life.
First, understand that being grateful is to accept what you already have in life.
Once, Tony Robbins interviewed Sir John Templeton, a billionaire investor, about his secret to wealth. And do you know what Sir Templeton told Tony Robbins?
He said that wealth is gratitude. If you’re grateful for what you have, you feel wealthy. But if you’re not grateful, you will feel poor even if you have a million dollars in the bank.
Second, there will always be more. There will be more money to be made, higher goals/targets to pursue, greater success to chase, a better car, a bigger house, etc.
Thus, if you want to live a fulfilling life, you need to learn to be grateful.
In his best-selling book, Happy Money, Ken Honda interviewed hundreds of millionaires in Japan. And when he asked someone who has made a million dollars, “Do you feel rich?” The answer he got is this, “No, because I’m yet to make $10 million.”
And when he asked someone who has made $10 million, “Do you feel rich?” Again, the answer he got is this, “No, because I’m yet to make $100 million.”
And when he asked someone who has made over $100 million the same question, “Do you feel rich?”, again, the answer he got is, “No, because I’m yet to own a private jet.”
And finally, he asked someone who owned a private jet, “Do you feel rich?” Guess what answer he got? “No, because my private jet is only a 6-seater!”
Can you now see why it is important to be grateful for everything you have in your life? Because if you don’t, you will feel broke even if you have a million dollars in the bank.
But if you are grateful for what you have in life, you will live a better, happier, and more fulfilling life.