What It Is Living Life To The Fullest
What does it mean to live life to the fullest? As children, we roam freely, are open, and carefree. We are naive to the pains and trials of the world. As we begin to mature our childlike view of the world begins to vanish.
We learn that we will endure scrapes, scratches, bruises, and understand we will get hurt. As such, we become further and further away from living our life to the fullest. Due to the pain we learn to protect ourselves at all odds. We do this by building walls and closing off our hearts.
Living your life to the fullest is something that everyone should strive for. Though it is not always the easiest of tasks, it is sure to be well worth your efforts. In order to open your heart to living life to its fullest, you must first understand what it means to live life to the fullest and how to have an open heart.
First let us understand what it means to live your life to its fullest. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, living life to the fullest is defined as, “ to fully enjoy one’s life.” In order to live your life to the fullest you must follow your passions, be your authentic self, live for yourself, and enjoy each and every day.
Is Your Heart Closed?
Now that you know what living life to the fullest means, you need to understand the signs of a closed heart. If any of the below rings true with you, you may be experiencing a life with a closed heart. Do not fret, if you are experiencing a closed heart. With a quality and consistent effort a person is able to change their closed heart to an open one.
Clairvoyant and Energy Healer, Elizabeth Hunter Diamond, has deemed the following characteristic of having a closed heart.
- Repressed Emotions
- Holding onto a Past Relationship
- Personal Needs Coming Last
- Pushing Others Away
What Is An Open Heart
Think of the human body as a computer. Your feet are the keyboard, your stomach is the charger, your eyes are the brightness keys, and your heart is the computer chip. The computer chip allows the computer to function properly. Without it the computer would be broken and useless. According to Merriam-Webster, opening one’s heart is defined as, “to talk in a very open and honest way about one’s feelings” or “to begin to be generous and kind.”
When you have an open heart, you will feel complete. Physically, you will feel warm and relaxed. Mentally, you will be completely stable. Emotionally, you will feel empathy, joy, love, and compassion.
Moving your heart from closed to open is not an easy task to complete. It takes consistent effort, time, and positive energy. The reward of an open heart is worth far more than the hard work and dedication that goes into achieving it. Below are steps to begin the process of opening your heart.
Opening Your Heart To Live Your Life To The Fullest
Saying No to Things that Do Not Excite or Help You
The first step in opening your heart to living your life to the fullest is by saying no to anything and everything that does not excite you or help you in some way. Society has us programmed to believe we need to “Just get through it” and to “Just go with the flow.”
This is pounded into our heads from a young age and follows us through our careers in adulthood. Teaching yourself to say “No” is not an easy lesson to learn. Begin by saying “No” in small ways at home. Tell your significant other that “No, we cannot have chicken stir fry tonight because I already made meatloaf.”
Next practice with coworkers by saying, “No, I’m sorry but I won’t be able to answer emails this weekend when I’m off.” Though this is certainly not easy in the beginning, the more and more you practice the more and more comfortable you will become with saying “no.”
Saying “No” to things in your life that do not excite you or do not help you in some way will free up your time, space, and energy for things you do enjoy. This will help open your heart and allow you to live your life to its fullest potential.
Make You A Priority
The next step in opening your heart to living your life to the fullest is by making yourself a priority. There is no point in just existing in this world. You should want to be successful and/or enjoy your life. There are a multitude of way you can make yourself a priority
a| Core Values
In order to make yourself a priority you must first come up with a code of conduct that you want to live your life by. How do you want to be treated, how do you want to treat others, what is important to you, and how do you want to live your life. These values need to be one hundred percent your own. You need to cast away any previous values thrust upon you as a child or during your life that do not reflect your own personal beliefs. Knowing what you stand for will allow your heart to open to living your best life.
b| Growth Mindset
In order to make yourself a priority you must then be prepared to have a growth mindset. The more knowledge you soak in the more your mind can develop. Keeping a growth mindset will give you the ability to open your life up to possibilities you previously thought were impossible. Having a growth spirit will help open your heart to living your best life.
c| Schedule in Breathing Time:
In order to make yourself a priority next make sure you schedule in breathing time. This may seem like a no brainer to some but truly ask yourself when the last time you sat down and just allowed yourself to merely exist. I bet most people can’t remember the last time they did that. We live in an extremely fast moving society.
Our minds are traveling a million miles an hour hopping from one task or activity to another. A key part of prioritizing yourself is to allow yourself moments to recharge, relax, and simply breathe. These can be simple moments such as sipping tea in your favorite chair or on the porch at the start of your day. If you choose, these can be more intense too.
These can include spending a week camping or attending a weekend yoga retreat. Whether intense or simple this time should be specifically scheduled and utilized for breathing, relaxing, and recharging.
d| Pamper Yourself
In order to make yourself a priority, you need to take time to pamper yourself. In order to put your best foot forward and live life to the fullest, you need to feel special and well taken care of. Pampering oneself is going to look different for each and every person because we all have different ideas on how and what makes us feel amazing. For some, a spa day may be just the ticket. You can take a bubble bath, enjoy a deep tissue massage, and get a manicure and pedicure. For others, a weekend filled with loud music and friends may be the ticket.
For others, a calm and quiet weekend at home binge watching a movie series may be the best way to pamper themselves. The full purpose for pampering yourself is to feel your absolute best and have no cares in the world.
e| Try Something Brand New
In order to make yourself a priority, finally you need to try as many new things as possible. Experiencing new people, places, and things allows your brain to digest new information and allows your senses to explore new smells, sights, feelings, tastes, and sounds.
Putting yourself in new situations allows your horizons to broaden and the ability to make personal decisions based on what you truly like. Exploring new things is a great way to make yourself a priority and open your heart to living your life to the fullest.
Keep Your Eye On The Ball
The next step in opening your heart to living life to the fullest is to keep your eye on the ball. Too often we are distracted from our end goals and our true wants by new, shiny, and unimportant things.
In order to live your life to the fullest, you must put blinders on and only focus on what is important to you. This is easier said than done as distractions are usually quite tempting. At the end of the day, the choices you make are your own. Keeping your eye on the ball will allow you to open your heart to living your fullest life.
Keep A Positive Attitude
The next step in opening your heart to living your life to the fullest is always keeping a positive attitude. Your heart can not be open when you have a negative outlook on life or by possessing a negative attitude. Negative outlooks can cause mistrust, anger, resentment, laziness, and dishonesty. All characteristics of a closed heart and not an open one.
The following are ways you can practice keeping a positive attitude:
- Smiling and Laughing as much as possible
- Reading positive quotes
- Surrounding yourself with positive people
- Always seeing the glass as half full
Embrace Simplicity
The next step in opening your heart to living your life to the fullest is embracing a life of simplicity. With the speed and intensity of life, we often make life more difficult than it needs to be. Life can truly be as difficult or as easy as we want it to be. Remember at the end of the day, less is more.
In order to open your heart to living your life to the fullest, try incorporating the following to embrace simplicity:
- Stop worrying about missing out on things
- Declutter your home, car, or workspace
- Uncomplicated your schedule
Stop Pretending To Be Anyone Other Than You
The next step in opening your heart to living your life to the fullest is stop pretending to be anyone other than yourself. This can be extremely difficult when we live in a social media driven world where the sole goal is to present a pristine and perfect picture of one’s life.
Living this way does not promote open one’s heart but rather closing it. No one life is perfect and each person is a unique individual. In order to open your heart to living life to the fullest, you must cast all masks and costumes aside and come out simply as yourself.
Concentrate On Connections And Not Possessions
The next step in opening your heart to living your life to the fullest is to concentrate on connections and not possessions. Meaningful memories and strong relationships mean far more than materialistic possessions that can be broken or can fade away.
Truly listen to others when they engage in conversation with you. Encourage more and more conversations to build relationships and amazing memories. Concentration on connections will help open your heart to living your life to the fullest.
Love Not Fear
The next step in opening your heart to living your life to the fullest is to live in love and not fear. Live by the wisdom of Elisabeth Kubler Ross who states, “There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy.
From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt. It’s true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it’s more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They’re opposites.
If we’re in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we’re in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.”
Do not fear this life. Do not fear missing out on a party or a new piece of gossip. Do not fear speaking in public or taking a test. Do not fear your promotion at work or a meeting with your boss. Do not fear being right or wrong. Instead love.
Love with all your might. What you put into the world will come back three times over. Love your friends. Love your family. Spend all day in love. Bring food or beverage to a homeless person you pass on the street. Surprise a friend with a new book. Give smiles to those on the street and those you meet throughout the day. Living in love and not fear will help you open your heart to living your life to the fullest.
Free Your Spirit
The next step in opening your heart to living your life to the fullest is to free your spirit. Let your mind, body, and soul connect as one. Use all your senses and allow yourself to feel all your feelings.
Your inner child, inner self needs to have the ability to mix and mingle with the external world you live in. Allow your creativity to emerge from deep down.
Dance in the streets, sing in the woods, play in the rain, draw all day until the sun sets. Allow your spirit to come out and come alive. Freeing your spirit will help open your heart to living your life to the fullest.
Final Thoughts
What does it mean to open your heart to living your life to the fullest? It means to fully immerse yourself in your passions. It’s allowing yourself to enjoy each moment of each day.
In order to achieve having an open heart you will need to free your spirit, live in love and not fear, concentrate on connections and not possessions, stop pretending you are anyone but yourself, embrace simplicity, keep a positive attitude, keep your eye on the ball, make yourself a priority, and learn to say no to everything that does not excite you.
Striving to have an open heart to live life to the fullest is something every single person should attempt.
