Key tools for loving yourself and increasing your internal happiness.
Executing our Agency
Agency is different than attempting to have control over everything. Instead, it focuses on encouraging you to take an active role in your own life, aiming to build a life around things that make you happy.
Agency is something we should be trying to implement in every aspect of our lives. This requires a lot of self-awareness and emotional intelligence to steer us towards jobs, interpersonal relationships, activities, and/or behaviors that raise our self-esteem and feelings of self-worth.
When we don’t take charge of creating a world that promotes our happiness and desires, we are plunged into feelings of resentment, self-doubt, anxiety, and insecurity. One tip on executing your agency would be to think of a thing you wish you were doing (this could be going to the gym, reading for pleasure, meeting someone new) and come up with a plan to do this activity once over the next week. Small steps lead to great change!
Setting Goals
A helpful tool for executing agency is setting personal goals, and then actually spending free time working towards them. Create and prioritize your goals for one month from now, 6 months from now, one year from now, and five years from now. (made these smaller since some people struggle to think too far ahead!)
Many of us feel there is not enough time in the day to work our jobs, and then work on our personal goals on the side, but if you are the agent of change in your life, you can reach your optimal level of happiness.
Try and spend at least 15 minutes a day working towards your short and long-term goals.
Start by making a list of your small goals and break them down into their smallest steps. Pick one step a day and see if you can do this for a whole week. Productivity and execution help to avoid feeling stagnant and are effective ways to feel personally successful and satisfied!
Start by making a list of your small goals and break them down into their smallest steps. Pick one step a day and see if you can do this for a whole week. Productivity and execution help to avoid feeling stagnant and are effective ways to feel personally successful and satisfied!
Celebrate Yourself & Practice Gratitude
Being humble is great, except when we start constantly discounting small and large achievements. At the end of each day, take a moment and reflect on your mini victories. Sometimes it can be hard to see them and they may feel trivial like getting to work on time, or perhaps they may be larger like getting through a difficult conversation with a friend successfully. Whatever they are, it is important to recognize them and praise yourself for them! These moments of positive reflection can elevate our mood and our overall sense of accomplishment.
Whatever they are, it is important to recognize them and praise yourself for them! These moments of positive reflection can elevate our mood and our overall sense of accomplishment.
Another common misstep is ignoring the things we are thankful for in life. We spend so much time comparing ourselves to others, that we are unable to feel that we have enough, or that we are enough.
Along with taking time to reflect on our mini victories, it is important to also reflect on what we are thankful for in our lives.
Writing out a list of things you are grateful for each day/week along with your mini victories forces our eyes and mind to hone in on what is going well, instead of only concentrating on what isn’t going well. This balanced view of oneself and one’s situation allows us to view ourselves positively and therefore increases self-love.
Self-Care
While challenging, self-care is crucial for all around happiness. Self-care means doing healthy and restorative things you want to do, just for you.
This includes exploring activities or hobbies that bring you pleasure, putting up boundaries with individuals you feel are toxic, trying to avoid harmful habits, and setting aside personal downtime for yourself. Self-care can even be something as little as taking a moment to be mindful of where you are and what your surroundings are.
Try this: take a deep breath and look around. What do you see? What do you smell? What do you taste? What do you hear? What do you feel?
By activating our senses, we can be present and when we are present, we are in the best place to take better care of ourselves. This small mindfulness step can help you take steps towards better self-care!
Now that you know four tips for living your best life, try some of these exercises this week and see how you feel.