On New Years eve we all posted selfies claiming 2020 as “our year”, but now that we are 2 months in, how do we maintain that same level of enthusiasm to the new year every single day?
For some, enthusiasm can be difficult to sustain once routine has sunk in. We have these visions or “revolutions” that we set for ourselves, but after reality sinks in, we slump back into our previous ways and continue living life as before. Thus, not sustaining the same level of enthusiasm.
HOWEVER it is ENTIRELY possible to sustain the same level of enthusiasm and positivity to every single day of our lives 🙂 it doesn’t have to be the start of a new year or the first day on an incredible vacation in a new country for us to stay enthusiastic about life. The reality is that we can and should sustain excitement towards every single day, and these are some tips as to how you can achieve your dreams and sustain positivity and happiness.
1: PRACTICE SELF-LOVE/ SELF-CARE
It is entirely possible that you may be lacking in the self-love department or the self-care department if you are feeling a lack of enthusiasm towards life. And that’s ok! We can get you back on track!
For starters: taking care of yourself physically and mentally is extremely important and a very easy way to express self-love towards yourself. Some tips to do this include:
1) Going to the gym: Going to the gym releases feel-good hormones that will keep you motivated throughout the day 🙂 (not to mention you can blast very upbeat/ inspiring music). Your main focus at the gym doesn’t have to be to have a “killer body” it can be as simple as wanting to vibe out to your favourite music while jogging on the treadmill. Your intention can just be to have fun 🙂 (plus there are a lot of cute and fit people at the gym that you might even end up becoming friends with!)
2) Proper Hygiene: Daily showers, skin care routines, clean/ fashionable clothing, and rocking perfume will motivate you and make you feel good and confident about yourself. If you like make-up, play around with it! Or if makeup isn’t your thing, wear cute/ comfortable clothing that makes you feel confident in yourself.
3) Self-love ring/ flowers/ gifts for yourself: When you love someone, you want to make them smile. Sometimes you do that by bringing home surprises for them or giving them compliments. You might take them out on dates, or buy them food… well, then if you want to practice self-love, you have to do all of the kind things you would have done for someone else, for yourself. Buy yourself food from fancy restaurants, buy yourself a self-love ring as a reminder of your commitment to self-care. You don’t have to spend a lot of money, but small reminders to yourself is a good practical way to express self-love.
2: MONITOR WHAT YOU CONSUME
So now that we have practiced some self-love/ self-care tactics, what other ways can we practice being more positive? Well, for starters, we have to watch what we consume. Sad music and stressful news updates have its time and place, but if we want to keep ourselves in a positive mental state, we have to ensure we are consuming positive things. 🙂
Start listening to upbeat music that you agree with 🙂 I know for myself, I would feel a loss of hope for humanity if I was listening to too much pop music which harshly depicts hookup culture and the idea of objectifying women and using people for ones own benefit. But once I started to limit the amount of “offensive” music I listened to, I started to recognize more positive artists whose belief systems aligned better with my own 🙂 I limited the number of sad songs I listened to in a day and decided to listen to more motivational female empowering songs, and I instantly started feeling more inspired and more positive.
3: MANAGE YOUR EMOTIONS/ TAKE CARE OF YOUR MENTAL HEALTH
Being positive and overall happier does not necessarily mean you need to be happy 24/7, that isn’t human. Things happen, you may miss a person or opportunity and you might be grieving something or someone, everyday stresses also add up. But, just because you are experiencing human emotions, those negative emotions do not have to define you. You can make the choice to acknowledge and manage your emotions but continue to live a more positive and balanced life.
JOURNALING AND MEDITATION helps with this.
If you take the time every day to acknowledge your true feelings, you don’t have to mask them with a fake sense of happiness. We aren’t trying to block out the negative emotions. We are simply trying to embrace them and acknowledge them, but also look at the larger picture and realize there is more to life than those emotions and we need to put our energy into the positives.
Being positive doesn’t mean never feeling sad, it means acknowledging that sadness is temporary, and moving past those emotions to be resilient and find the happiness in all circumstances.
4: SURROUND YOURSELF WITH POSITIVE FRIENDS
Our group of friends have a LARGE impact on our perception of the world. If we surround ourselves with positive people who are good for our mental health, we feel better about ourselves.
Sometimes we need to limit our time with people who are a little negative at the present moment so we can focus on the positives.
Being your own best friend is CRUCIAL BUT also opening your heart to others and allowing yourself to be the sunshine in others lives as well as your own is also vitally important for your own mental health and the mental health of those around you.
5: EAT HEALTHY AND REGULARILY
Cooking yourself healthy alternatives to take-out foods can do WONDERS for your mental. When you are drinking enough water, and meeting your basic necessities, you start to feel better about yourself and you put yourself into a more positive mind-frame.
6: SLEEP BETTER AND WAKE UP EARLY
So here’s the trick, setting up a morning and night routine for yourself is CRUCIAL to feeling better. Getting your full 8-hours of sleep is really important for your mental health, but sleeping in too much can be just as harmful to your positive outlook. Instead, try setting a consistent bed time and wake-up time for yourself everyday. Fill your morning routine with things you life doing, like listening to music and eating a healthy breakfast if you need the inspiration to wake up. Setting a routine for yourself will keep you motivated and productive throughout the day. You’ll find yourself thinking; “WOW it’s 9 am and I have already, showered, ate a healthy breakfast, hit the gym, read a few pages of my favourite book and journaled. I’m already so productive and the day just started!” It will do wonders for your self-esteem.
7: BE GENTLE ON YOURSELF
In order to be more positive it is crucial that we set goals for ourselves but it is EQUALLY important to be gentle on ourselves whether or not we meet those goals in the way we wanted to.
Being positive means staying open-minded. If you didn’t accomplish exactly what you wanted to, don’t fret! You are still a success.
As a for instance, If your goal for the day was to wake up at 6am but you slept in instead and had to hit the gym in the evening instead of the morning BE PROUD of yourself for hitting the gym that day! You DID accomplish your goal, it just didn’t go exactly as planned, but since you are practicing positivity and flexibility, things do not have to go entirely as planned 🙂 you are ALLOWED to be flexible and you are ALLOWED to “make mistakes”. Mistakes help you grow, and growth is a positive thing. If we want to sustain positivity in our lives, we should strive for growth, not perfection. 🙂
Now go out there and ENJOY LIFE 🙂