Six Tips for Living Your Best Life Now
Posted on April 24, 2014 by Danielle Siegel , One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.
Living life to it's fullest can be more difficult than it seems. Here are tips to help you appreciate the "now" and to feel confident to move forward.
How often do you find yourself saying “When “blank” happens, then I will be happier, more fulfilled, more balanced, etc? Or do you notice that you make decisions based on emotional comfort and avoidance of fear? Often, we are afraid to take risks, we find that we put ourselves second behind our work, our families or life. We either forget about or feel guilty for wanting to focus on “me”. Here are tips I use with my clients and myself to help live our best lives now.
Live in the moment, not the future: Make a conscious choice to make changes to improve your happiness, life situation, self care, or whatever you have put off starting today rather than holding onto the thought “that will come with time”. When you make this choice, you will start to notice the opportunities that are out there for you. Seize those opportunities when they present themselves to you. This can be really scary, because in some ways you are going to let go of “status quo”. My stomach still gets queazy when I think about that.
Identify what’s important to you: Make a list of your values and passions. Prioritize that list and chose to honor one value or passion a day. For me, helping others/effecting change in others is very high on my list of values. Even when I knew I needed to do something different with my career, I honored this value on a daily basis with the clinicians I supervised and the clients we served. This gave me the energy I needed to continue the work I was doing.
Notice the negative self talk that has you paralyzed when you want to move forward or take a risk in your life: What messages do you tell yourself about change? Risk taking? Doing something different? Are these messages true or are they holding you back? Notice what they tell you and when they show up. Just noticing these “untruths” takes away some of their power and will free you up so you are no longer paralyzed. This tip is what allowed me to do what I am doing today. If I had continued to make decisions based on my negative self talk, I would not have taken the risk to start my own business and do what I love. It has also helped me and clients push past comfort zones and limits.
Change your perspective: Do you sometimes feel like a hamster on a wheel seeing situations from the same viewpoint? This is probably true if you are only finding one solution for a problem or situation, you feel stuck in a decision you are trying to make or you keep doing the same thing over and over. If so, it’s time to change your perspective. When I work with my clients on helping them see situations in a new light, I describe it like a pizza. Imagine that you are standing on a slice of pizza. I have them describe what it’s like to be standing there. Words that often come up are “stuck, boring, lack of motivation”. This is the current perspective. Imagine if all the other pieces were different ways to view the same situation. How do you do this? You can literally get up and move, changing the scenery around you, and notice if you see the situation differently, or challenge yourself to see the situation from someone else’s point of view (your 5 year old child’s, your best friend’s, your dog‘s…).
Notice the gift or opportunity in all experiences, especially the ones that don’t work out or feel like failures: If “failures” are viewed as “aha” moments, we can learn from them and change our perspective. It’s amazing to me that when I do this with myself and/or my clients how new ideas, thoughts and perspectives arise. Identify at least 3 learning moments and make a choice to take action from those.
Think BIG!: What’s possible for you? What action can you start taking NOW to be your best self? Set intentions for yourself by saying them aloud, writing them down and telling them to others. I feel personally connected to this tip, because for the first time in my life, I did it! In December, I set my intentions for my business for 2014 with my coach (to be bigger and reach more people). Because I said it, wrote it and shared it, it is now present in all decisions I make for myself around my coaching practice. Bring others into your vision and ask them to hold you accountable.
