At our core, we all want the same thing from life. We want to be happy and fulfilled, we want to be remembered positively and find contentment while we live out our days on earth.
Sure, we have other dreams that we chase and other goals we want to achieve, but the basic need is to enjoy life. As such, we tend to look for ways that we can improve our quality of life.
Sometimes we feel as though life is empty and meaningless, generally because we get caught up in the frustration of working too many hours just to afford the things we need.
The truth is, balance is possible and there is a variety of ways you can improve your life quality now, without quitting your job or taking drastic measures, little actions deliver big results.
50 Ways To Improve Your Quality Of Life
- Daily Meditation
Make time to meditation (or pray, if you prefer) three times a day. Start your day off right, find time around lunch to do the same, and practice it again sometime before bed. It’s simple – all you need is a breathing exercise you can follow and the ability to clear your mind of all the cobwebs that gather on a daily basis. If you want to get the best from the exercise, try ensuring that your focus is motivational in the morning. You can be reflective in the evening, while your afternoon exercise can be more strategic and evaluative.
Read At Least One Book Every Week
It’s easier than ever to get your hands on books, most classics are available entirely free on the eBook devices, and you can get them for 99 cents and beyond. People who love to read have better vocabularies and an ability to tap into their imaginations. Books aren’t just about providing entertainment, even books of the fictional variety provide readers with learning and education.
Our lives have been made easier by audiobooks, so you can easily fit in a book a week just on your commute. If you really want to see your life improve – choose books that offer instructive information or that provide an uplifting message. You will find yourself slipping into a new performance zone – maximum. This allows you to read a minimum of 52 books every year and you can cover a variety of topics, thus expanding your learning widely.
Journal Daily
Much like meditation, this is something you should schedule for 5-10 minutes at the end of your day. You may want to meditate first and then journal for a few minutes after. It provides you with the opportunity to completely purge your emotions, making your journal a therapist of some sort. Not only that, but it will allow you to create a detailed personal history, improve your creativity, self-awareness, and provide you with clarity with regards to how you want your future to unfold. It also makes you feel more gratitude about your life. You don’t need to write any more than a paragraph unless you feel like it.
Your Bucket List
You don’t need to create ambitions that fit in with or around your life, instead, you should be creating your life around your true ambitions. What do you really want to achieve before you’re too old to do so or before you die? That should be the starting point of your bucket list. If you’re having trouble getting started, imagine that you’ve been given just a month to live. What would you want to cram into those 30 days before time runs out? Then extend that to five years and finish your ultimate bucket list. We all put things off till tomorrow, but the truth is, we really don’t know whether tomorrow is guaranteed.
The Internet Fast
Humans are creatures of habit, we’re also addictive. It’s why we pour coffee every morning and open social media before we do anything else. While social media has a lot of positives, it is also something that causes us a great deal of stress. You would do well to learn how to limit your social media usage and bow out at least once a week. Think about how many times you pick up your phone and unsure of why you immediately open a social media app. Now, instead dedicate yourself to checking it just twice each day. This will allow you to connect better with the family and friends you are spending personal time with.
Ignore The Paper
There isn’t a whole lot of positive in the news lately, and while it’s important to stay connected, it’s important to think about your mental health. Turn off the news, don’t open that link, and just take a break from the news at least one day a week. The world will keep turning and you will feel a lot better not knowing about the horrors occurring across the globe. When it’s time to log back in, try checking out Google news – you can pick up the biggest stories from all the news agencies around the world.
If It Scares You, Just Do It
Try doing something that terrifies you at least once each day. Whether it’s picking up the phone to call a debt collection agency and deal with your problems or it’s asking your boss for a raise. There are plenty of things in life that we should do, but don’t because we’re simply too afraid. Be honest with yourself, the act itself is never as horrible as you have worked it up to be. Just go for it.
Pay It Forward
Your happiness improves when you go out of your way to do something nice for someone else. What’s the point of living if we can’t do something to ease someone else’s burden? Whether it’s coughing up a dollar for the person who doesn’t have enough money to pay for their products or offering someone a genuine compliment.
Know Yourself
Knowing yourself, truly and deeply is considered one of the highest aims in life. It not only touches the human element of your being, but it reveals the subtle connection that you have to all of life itself.
Experience
Experience everything that life puts in front of you, head on and seek out experiences that you have not yet had. Don’t be afraid to dive into the deep end, sometimes this is the best way to learn how to swim. If things get difficult, you can always get out and try again later. Our very awareness of life itself comes down to this intimate EXPERIENCE of life that each of us is having.
Bedtime
If there’s one thing that you should strictly schedule it’s your sleep and rise pattern. You should go to bed at the same time every evening and rise at the same time, too. There has been plenty research over the years, indicating that people who do this are better planners, more optimistic, and are healthier overall (ref.)
An early start to the day allows you the time to imagine your day and set a routine that will create the right tone for your day.
Your morning routine can include a spot of relaxation while you enjoy a bite to eat, meditation, a podcast or whatever else will help you start your day right.
Additionally, getting the right amount of sleep is important. The ideal is around seven hours each night. It’s something that can provide your life with an instant improvement to your memory, focus, creativity, attention span, inflammation, and can even extend your lifespan. It also reduces stress levels and makes you more likely to make healthy choices.
PLAY
Be sure to enjoy your life. Make sure you have enough fun to keep your life balanced. Fun makes all that hard work to achieve goals much more worthwhile, and adds to your general fulfillment and happiness.
Don’t Forget To Say Thank You
Whether it’s the barista making your morning coffee or a busser in a restaurant, a little thank you goes a long way. Not only does it make them feel as though you appreciate their efforts, it gives you a boost of happiness, and that feeling spreads to everyone else that each of you encounter throughout the day.
It’s amazing how a simple thank you can give someone such a boost in his or her day. Studies indicate that a thank you can increase service by 66% and more importantly, it’s also a great way to remind yourself of how many things you truly have to be thankful for
Feel Everything
Don’t be afraid to feel out what life has to offer. Feel all your emotions and acknowledge them. Emotions are powerful things and it is wise to observe them, understand them, and utilize them. Your emotions reveal our capacity for love, fear, excitement, the desire for change and many other things.
An Expedited Life Plan
Where do you see yourself in five years? Why should it take five years when you can make it happen in two or three?It’s great to have an ultimate life plan, but if you set your goals out to be achieved within those five years could slow your progress right down. Instead, know where you want to end up and launch short-term projects that will serve as building blocks that will help you get there.
Be Curious
Be curious, be inquisitive, question everything, and explore anything that peaks your interest. Curiosity didn’t just kill the cat, it liberated people from despair and suffering, and it introduced entire generations to continents and new understanding of things they never even dreamed possible.
Build A Budget
There’s a lot to be said for creating a budget and sticking to it. Money can be a major source of stress, so managing your money is a great way to give your life quality a boost. So, sit down and work out what comes in and what is set to go out. Factor in 10% to sock away in savings and then work out what is left over. You can withdraw it in cash and organize it into envelopes for specific things (social events, grocery shopping, etc.). Once the cash is gone… so is your spending. We’re so used to paying by card it’s easy to lose track of what money you have, having physical cash is a great reminder of where you are in your finances.
Only Buy What You Need
When you sit down to make that budget, bear this in mind – for the next 30 days (it’s always wise to take it one-step at a time) you should buy only what you absolutely need. Don’t buy coffee in the morning, don’t go out to eat instead of cooking, focus on servicing just your needs. When the end of the month arrives you can see how much money you have saved – in turn, you can pay off debt, put it into your savings, invest it, start a college fund for the kids or put it into a vacation fund.
Passive Income
Money isn’t everything, but when you have enough, it’s just one less stress on your mind. Dedicate as much time as you can every day to creating a passive source of income, whether it’s a webpage that produces traffic to profit from ads or a small online shop.
Declutter Your Mind
It’s time to start taking notes – you can do that in a notebook or just use the notepad on your phone. Either way, make a note of everything that is bothering you or cluttering your mind and then deal with it.
Keep Track Of Your Time
Do you have difficulty managing your time? Why not keep track of exactly how you spend for the next week. Use that information to accurately budget your time and use your habits to gain a better idea of where it is you waste it.
Stop Doing
In the business world, management often completes ‘stop doing’ surveys. They ask their employees what they (personally) should keep doing, start doing, and more importantly – stop doing. Identify an unimportant task that you do that you should stop doing and then drop it in exchange for an important task.
Stop Wasting Time
Now that you know how you spend your time, it’s time to identify how you’re wasting it. For example, if you are guilty of spending a lot of time on social media then restrict your time to 30 minutes a day. If you’re guilty of watching television instead of dealing with more important tasks – curb your watching to 45 minutes.
Stop Multi-Tasking
At some point, we got into the habit of bragging about how great we are at multi-tasking. It seems like a great idea, but it’s distracting you from fully focusing on one task and from doing a good job. So, stop it – and start giving one task your full attention.
Prioritize
Always complete the highest priority item on your to-do list before you even look at anything else.
The Week In Review
Sit down at the end of the week and take stock – what went well, what didn’t, and what did you accomplish? More importantly, what do you have to be grateful for?
Engage
Be engaging, and allow yourself to be engaged by those who inspire you and encourage you. Allow life to pull you into its whirlpools, its mysteries and you will learn more about yourself than you ever thought possible.
Question Yourself
Don’t be afraid to stop what you’re doing and ask whether you are happy, healthy, and safe in the life you have right now. If not address the issues.
Commit To Vegetables
Commit to eating three portions of fruit and five portions of vegetables each day.
Drink More Water
Put down the soda can, walk on by fruit cocktails on the grocery store shelves, and instead drink water. Thirsty? Drink water. Reaching for another sugary beverage? Drink water.
Plan Your Meals
There are plenty of benefits to meal planning. Not only does it help you plan your shopping list, it makes budgeting easier, and it provides you with the opportunity to stay focused on eating better. Organize your breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.
Keep A Food Diary
Keeping track of everything that you eat will help you identify your weak spots, whether it’s a specific food item or a certain time of day, you tend to get off track.
Exercise
Exercise every day – there are a few ways you can boost your physical activity. You can track your steps and promise yourself getting in at least 10,000 steps daily. Or, you can cycle to work, go to the gym, or join a local sports team.
Everything Has A Home
We often underestimate how frustrating it can be living in clutter. So, live by a few rules – put it away, hang it up, pick it up. Make sure everyone else in your home knows the rules and sticks to them, you’ll be surprised at how big a difference it makes.
Stop Tolerating
Look at all of the things and people in your life that you tolerate. Maybe they are just annoying or worse yet, are really infringing on your mental health, peace, serenity and wellbeing. Get rid of them! Eliminate all that does not support your light.
Be Inspired
Allow yourself to be inspired. Seek out sources of inspiration, like minded people who think and feel the same way, who are focused on the same goals or who have walked the same path before you. This can inspire you to maximize your potential and soar to the greatest heights.
Record Your Inner Dialogue
We often don’t realize what our self-talk is doing to us, so keep a record of what’s going on so that you can improve it. How often do you put yourself down, feel inadequate, thinking critically of others, and your positive thoughts, too. Once you know your thought patterns, you can start to change them for the better.
Learning Something New Every Day
Whether it’s the capital of a country, you didn’t know existed, the name of a bird you saw perching outside the window of your office or the name of a song. Go out of your way to learn something new every single day.
Laugh
Sometimes laughter happens naturally, but other times you need to go out of your way to make it happen. So, go look at websites that provide you with jokes, read the funny pages, catch an episode of your favorite sitcom.
Feed Your Mind
With positive words, images, and thoughts – make sure they are consistent with your core values and your goals.
Your Loved Ones
Whether it’s your partner or your children – find something positive about them each day and write it down.
Make A Scrapbook
Take those positive comments, create a scrapbook with them and other memories, and give it to your partner.
Social Connections
Make a date with a friend at least once a week.
Think First
When someone upsets you, take a moment to think before you react.
Actively Listen
Whether it’s at work or at home, make a point of actively listening to the people around you.
Stop Comparing
Don’t worry about what other people are doing or what they have.
Spend Time Outside
Whether it’s walking to work or just enjoying a few minutes in the park, spend time outdoors.
- Sing
Sing to the sky, sing to the earth, sing to your children, sing to your friends, sing to yourself, and sing until your heart’s content. Singing has a tremendous ability to ground us, and at the same time give our minds a break from habitual thought patterns. It is freeing, and a beautiful way to express yourself.
Reach
Reach out, reach within. Reach to the highest height and the deepest depths. Explore every aspect of yourself by reaching for your goals and pushing your reach further and further each time. You never know, if you try hard enough, you might just reach your destination.
Manage Stress
Understand how best to manage your stress levels, stress kills and destroys your peace of mind and physical health.
Live your life to the fullest!
Do you ever stop to think how short life is? In the blink of an eye, we are here and then we are gone. How do you want to spend this short time? True fulfilment can and does only come from honest and genuine insight into the fundamental nature of your own self and your own reality. And in simple terms, fulfilment is key to living life to the fullest.
Therefore, the appropriate response to the question, ‘How Do I Live Life To The Fullest?’ is ‘What Is Your Idea Of A Full Life?.’ We must always bring ourselves back to finding the deepest and most fundamental meaning of fulfilment, because that is our quest – to live life to its fullest.
Living life to the fullest, means you get everything out of life that you possibly can, whatever that might mean to you. Once you realize this meaning in your own life, then you can make a plan on how you will get there, after all, there are no results without action.
