Not feeling the spark about who you are and why you’re alive?

Can’t get excited about the day ahead of you?

Feel like you’re not in love with yourself? 

If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my 50 years of life, and over 25 years of helping myself and others lead a life filled with energy and enthusiasm, it’s that everything begins with an authentic desire to feel better. This is just another way of saying that what we all want to be filled with our own love, bubbling up from inside of ourselves, and expressed outwardly into the world. We want to be free to place our energy and authentic desires into creative activities that have meaning to us personally. 

While there are many ways and many paths to achieving this higher state of consciousness, I wanted to share some really specific and concrete things you can do today, right now, or this week to change the dynamics of your relationship with yourself and start feeling excited about your life again. 

Simple, fun, and effective! Here you go…. 

Create a Big Vision for Your Life.
Think big and write it down. There’s something magical about thinking into the future and imaging yourself living a great life. Writing down your dreams begins the process of crystallizing that imagined life by moving it into reality. No longer is your desire swirling around in your ethereal mist. It has now taken a step into physical life. 

Start Small.
A big dream is exactly that—BIG. And big often implies overwhelming. That’s why your big written dream is only a roadmap, not a daily action plan. Use your dreams as a guidepost to determine your everyday choices and actions. With each choice and action you can ask, “Did I move in the general direction of my dream, or did I wander off course?” 

Look for the Passion in Your Journey.
Having more passion involves a sense of knowing what you want and moving in that direction because doing so is important to you. You decide to face your challenges or attempt to bring your desires to life because doing so will allow a new expression of who you really are. You decide you want to feel differently in your body, overcome stress, end your struggles with weight, find a way to move through depression, or begin that new career because you want to live your life differently, more powerfully, and filled with more happiness. You may not succeed right away, but you have to know within yourself that what you want is important to you! 

Live in the Present.
Take whatever steps are necessary to heal your past, forgive and let go, and live in the present moment. Reexamine your past experiences from the vantage point of this present moment. How did you grow as a result? Was there a hidden gift in the experience? What did you learn as a result of the situation? Repeat this process until you can forgive yourself and others, let go of fear, anger, and resentment, and bring the wisdom gained from those past experiences into your present life. 

Demonstrate Appreciation to Yourself.
Author Melodie Beattie explains to us, “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.  It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.  Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”  

Cultivating an inner appreciation for the joy that is already present in our lives shifts our focus from what is wrong with our lives to what is right.  If we take the time, no matter how troubled we feel, we can find something about ourselves and our life to be thankful for. Allowing yourself the opportunity to feel even a little better than you feel right now is how a great life expands. 

Look For the Best In Yourself.
Maybe you’re not sure exactly when it happened, but somehow it became a habit to focus on what was wrong with your body, your life, and your inner being. No need to dig up old skeletons, but there is a need to change focus. Start looking for evidence of your worth and beauty. Don’t just come up with a thing or two you enjoy about yourself, come up with a hundred wonderful things about you. Write those things down and begin the process of teaching yourself to recognize the love that is you. 

Engage in New Activities and Have More Fun.
So much of the self-help journey is focused on attempting to fix the undesirable parts of ourselves and our lives. While it’s important to learn how to love and embrace those hard-to-love parts, we often forget to hit the easy button. In this case, engage in new activities and have more fun. Humans thrive on new experiences. There’s something inside us that wants to play, to experience new things, to expand our talents and knowledge. One easy way to get out the rut and experience more vibrancy is to do something out of the ordinary. Today, find at least one new way to laugh and play and explore! 

Remember that what is most important in life is what will give you joy in both the long-run and the short-run, not just what will give you a moment of pleasure. Reflect on what you truly value in life and make your needs a priority. Give yourself more opportunities to engage in the actions that bring feelings of joy, love, and happiness. There’s nothing more important to yourself—and to the world—than your growing love of yourself!

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