What does it mean to live your best life? This is a question that many people ask themselves when they are going through difficult times, or even times in which they feel are good but could be better.
There are so many things that can help anyone enhance their life to the fullest extent, like giving up social media, releasing expectations, and living in the now. But many other things are subjective and will vary from person to person.
Overall, there are 16 things you can personally do that will help lead you to living your best life. So read on to discover what it means and how you can do it!
What Does It Mean To Live Your Best Life? Discover Meaning, Motivation, and Support
The phrase “live your best life” may have been used many times prior to this, but its fame came from Oprah in 2005 when it was on the cover of O Magazine. Since then, it’s been used online, in self-help books, and in music of all genres.
Your best life is the one that you design for yourself. It’s about living your ideal life by making choices to be happy, healthy, and successful. Everyone’s best life is different, so your best life is unique to you and your story. What “living my best life” means for one person might not be the ideal at all for another.
There are certain aspects of a best life that apply to everyone, though, such as meaningful connections with others and contributing to your community in a meaningful way.
16 Steps to Living Your Best Life
The ideal way of living your best life is by putting in the work on a consistent basis because it’s not easy and there are always going to be challenges along the way. These 15 in-depth steps will help you stay on track and build the life of your dreams.
1) Discover your best self and embrace your strengths
What kind of person do you want to be? What are the best qualities that you would like to embody in order to live a happy life? The first step is discovering who you are by exploring what makes you tick and being honest with yourself about how your past has shaped your present. After this, explore what kind of best life you want to build in the future and what best qualities are needed to accomplish this feat.
You can do this through a self-reflection routine such as journaling, self-hypnosis guided visualization. This means knowing yourself in and out. Self-reflection doesn’t come naturally for some people, but it is absolutely necessary for living your best life.
READ MORE: 75 Deep Questions for Personal Growth
2) Think about what you need in life.
What do you need? What are you lacking? You might need money or time to do what makes your best life. You might need to work on your stress management.
Do you have a job that makes it impossible for you to spend time with your family? Maybe this is why you’re feeling exhausted and unfulfilled at the end of each day. If being with your loved ones is important, then maybe you need a job that will allow you to work fewer hours.
3) Think about who you want to be around.
What kind of people do you enjoy spending time with? When you examine the type of person you like to have in your life you can see what you want to be like best. Do you love being around creative and inspiring people? Then live with that type of person or surround yourself with them as much as possible.
Do you enjoy spending time with laid back, humorous individuals who have a good sense of adventure? Think about the people who inspire, motivate, or bring out the best parts of yourself, whether they are a friend, your children, or your soulmate. Identify them and take steps towards living with or near these types. Make sure they are present so you can say “I’m living my best life”.
4) Get off social media
But you also want to choose how you interact with your favorite people. Social media is so detrimental to our mental health that it is definitely recommended that you limit or remove social media from your life altogether.
Basically, whenever you use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Tiktok, you think you’re getting a boost of self-esteem and self-worth, but in the end it makes you feel worse. Higher use of the platforms are actually associated with “anxiety, depression, and even physical ailments“.
That’s not the kind of life you want to be living! Be very selective about the social media platforms you choose to engage in, and how long you spend on those sites. The more you’re off the screen, the more you can live in the present moment.
5) Do things that are uncomfortable
Once you have a basis for who you are, what you’re best at, and who you want to be around, it’s time to get out of your comfort zone. Growth never happens in our comfort zone, so it’s crucial to be willing to try new things.
– Learn a language that you’ve never tried before
– Volunteer at a cause of charity near and dear to your heart
– Take a risk and tell someone how you feel about them
The best way to live your best life is by trying something new every day. You never know what you don’t like until you try it.
READ MORE: Learn How to Release Your Fear
6) Practice gratitude
It’s easy to get frustrated when this ideal life you’re trying to build is taking a long time or doesn’t seem to progress. One way to counter that is by practicing gratitude. Gratitude is the practice that helps you see all the good things in your life. Think about what is going right, rather than what’s wrong or not as you want it to be.
You can also focus on how far you’ve come. On this journey, you will make tremendous progress, but it doesn’t always feel like you’re making progress fast enough. It’s good to take a step back and think about how far you’ve come already, so that the little things don’t bother you as much.
But be careful! Gratitude doesn’t mean that you look at how others have it worse than you. Only compare yourself to where you were yesterday.
7) Be frugal
When you’re trying to build this ideal, magical life, it can be tempting to spend all your money on things to make life better, easier, or more appealing to others.
But the truth is that these are just distractions from your true goal of living life to the fullest. Being frugal and saving money can make a big difference in the best life you can live. To save money, do your best to not use credit cards or get into debt and avoid eating out at restaurants all the time. You’ll be surprised how quickly you see savings grow!
Also, don’t forget to practice money affirmations!
8) Treat your body right.
An important step in building your ideal life is to prioritize your health. This means eating well and exercising.
Start by improving your diet to nourish your body. Choose nutritious foods that will fill you up without making you feel weighed down, like fresh vegetables, fruits, whole grains and lean proteins (like chicken or fish). Experiment with different recipes to find one that best suits your taste buds while still keeping your best interests in mind, too.
When it comes to exercise, the best thing you can do is start small. Even just a few minutes of activity each day will help your body stay happy and healthy, as well as give you the opportunity to build up stamina so that exercise becomes more enjoyable over time. You might also choose an easy form of physical activity like walking or gardening and work your way up from there.
Good health and success are connected, so make sure you’re taking care of your body.
9) Make peace with your past.
This may very well be one of the most difficult tasks on your path to living your best life. You can’t move forward if you’re still holding on to things that happened in the past. Examining your past, your trauma, your mistakes, and the things you regret are not for the faint of heart.
This can be a messy, painful process. You may need to seek therapy and help from friends or family members in order to make peace with your past. But once you have made it through the other side of this process, you will find that not only does life seem a little less daunting, but also fulfilling on some new level.
10) Set goals.
Setting goals is a critical step in living the best life for you. Goals give you something to work toward even if they seem too difficult. They also help get your life on track by making sure that all aspects of your life are taken care of, including finances and career goals. You can set goals for anything from saving money to going on a date or traveling the world – it’s up to you!
When you’re living your best life, you want goals that are realistic yet push your life to new heights.
11) Believe in Yourself
Do not skip this step! You cannot proceed to build your best life if you don’t believe it’s attainable for you. Loving ourselves is a key factor in making anything possible.
– Consider your best attributes and skills
– Reflect on what you want to achieve and how it will make you feel when it is completed
It’s time that we start believing in ourselves, as hard as this may seem at times. If we don’t believe in ourselves then who else will?
Check out: 20 Amazing Affirmation Cards for Personal Development
12) Release any expectations you have.
In other words, you’ll need to be accepting of the outcome. We grasp onto all sorts of ideals, dreams, and even people, thinking that if we live without them, that we’ve somehow failed. That end destination, that end goal becomes so essential to our being that we lose living in the moment and so many joyful, wonderful things pass us by on the journey because we were so fixated on something else.
But sometimes, when we’re focused on the journey and life gives us something different, we discover that it was actually better. Giving up your expectations for living your best life can be hard, but it can also be liberating.
13) Make the world a better place for others.
If there is something I believe in ardently it is that people are not meant to be islands. We don’t live for only ourselves. Independence is a myth. We’re meant to live together with others, supporting each other and working together.
Making someone else happy, relieving their suffering, and working toward a better future for our children are ways that we can bring our special unique talents to benefit the lives of others.
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14) Live in the present moment.
We set goals for the future and think about this ideal future we’re creating, but the problem comes when we spend too much time in that future ideal world.
A part of releasing expectations is living in the present moment. Truly living life in the present moment means to live in the best of now.
Living in the present moment means to enjoy what’s happening right now and not worry about anything else. You are able to live your best when you’re living presently.
Learn how to live in the present moment.
15) Know what motivates you.
Knowing what motivates you is an important step in living your best life. When you know what motivates you, you’re more likely to stay inspired and motivated even in the most draining of circumstances.
No one’s path to success was a straight line. You’re bound to have ups and downs. When your journey is getting difficult, you might feel down, depressed, or unmotivated.
But when you know what gets your motivation going, you can implement those things and help yourself move forward. Some things that might motivate you? A brisk walk in the woods, revisiting some of your favorite memories, or a talk with a friend. Find those simple joys to keep you going.
16) Make a bucket list.
When it comes to living boldly, you don’t want to leave anything out! Making a bucket list helps you remember all the things you want to do and experience. Living your best life now happens by making a list of everything on it that will make for best memories with friends, family or even just solo!
Create some time each week (or day) where you can check off an item from your bucket list, if it’s a small task.
For the bigger tasks, like skydiving, staying overnight in a haunted castle, or traveling to all 7 continents, make sure you plan! Give yourself plenty of time and resources, and stay focused. These can help you stay motivated as well.
Conclusion
Living your best life takes planning and a lot of self-reflection. But when you do, you’ll find that it’s worth the effort.
It’s time to live the best that you choose! Use these 15 steps to lead yourself to your own fulfilling and satisfactory life and stay there!
I’m still working on living my best life.
What does your best life look like to you?
Share in the comments below!
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