Jonathan Swift penned the line, “May you live every day of your life.” It’s a simple sentiment, but it packs a punch that asks us to consider how we spend our time. Are we devoting our energy towards the things that matter most? Would we be happier if we could change things?
Living our lives to the fullest isn’t as much about our accomplishments as it is about how we experience each moment. We can go through life and accumulate a lot of things we think will make us happy and end up being derailed to the point we don’t experience them with joy. You could have a lucrative career, a beautiful house, and a soulmate relationship but not be able to find fulfillment from them. There is a fundamental spiritual truth that we are here in this world to live every moment with excitement. Not only are we meant to, but we are capable of it.
Here are 4 tips to live each day with excitement:
1. Awaken appreciation each day.
Our appreciation for even the things we love most can naturally wane over time. We can eventually get to the point where we start to take our biggest blessings for granted and find that the things that matter most don’t bring us the same level of fulfillment anymore. The remedy for that is to consistently awaken our appreciation. Appreciation changes the way we experience life and keeps our blessings alive.
None of us live with gratitude 100% of the time, but the purpose of our spiritual work is to help give us the tools and right frame of mind to awaken more and more appreciation. Take time to appreciate your blessings so that they can continue to bring you joy and fulfillment. The more moments of appreciation you find throughout the day, the more you will find that life opens up for you.
2. Catch your negative thoughts and work to redirect them.
Our minds are more powerful than we realize. Our thoughts shape our experience of life. When we entertain a thought and allow it to stay there, it grows roots and becomes a belief that becomes a characteristic. This is why it is so important to be mindful of the kind of thoughts we allow to linger in our minds.
Most of us don’t actively think about our thoughts or about editing them, but catching and redirecting negative thoughts can shape your emotions and overall mindset. Pause and think about the primary thoughts you have each day. Which thoughts come up consistently? Decipher which ones don’t serve you and choose to redirect them to something positive. It’s not an easy task! It takes constant practice, but it is possible to change the way we think about ourselves and the world. What makes a life fully lived is not about what we do but about how we feel about what we do, driven by our thoughts.
3. Use spiritual study, meditation, or prayer to introduce positive thoughts in your day.
Practicing spirituality is an important part of our day that can introduce brighter, lighter thoughts rather than creating space for us to entertain negative ones. When we study, meditate, or pray, we quiet the negative noise and implant something positive in our minds that wasn’t there before. When you feel good about something you’ve studied or learned, it can lead to different thoughts you have about yourself.
So often, we have blinders on that prevent us from seeing who we are or are meant to be. Almost all of our problems come from seeing ourselves or a situation in a narrow view. We only see a sliver of reality, and often, that sliver is full of limiting and negative thoughts about ourselves. The purpose of spiritual study is to expand our vision so we can see a greater and greater view. The wider our vantage, the more we understand and appreciate that everything has a purpose and is part of the great story of our lives. If you see the bigger picture of the beautiful parts of yourself, that’s when your life becomes expansive, and your days become fully lived.
4. Avoid writing bad days off.
When we’re having a particularly challenging day, it’s easy to think things like, “I can’t wait for this day to be over,” “I can’t wait to be home in bed,” or “I can’t wait for the weekend.” The truth is that each day has a unique energy that brings with it unique opportunities. The energy available to you today will be gone tomorrow. Tomorrow will have its own unique energy and opportunities, but it will be different than what you can receive today.
Know that you can choose to restart your day at any point. Just because things are difficult or not going to plan doesn’t mean the day is a waste. There are still powerful opportunities available for you. We often grow most from our challenging times. Writing days off is how we experience less of our lives. Instead, choose to grab the opportunities that each day brings, especially the hard ones!
The truth is that none of us live every moment of our lives to their fullest capacity. Everyone has happy, sad, challenging, and exhilarating moments, but the question is: what happens in between? There is an underlying spiritual truth that we are all meant to experience a greater sense of joy in our lives. It is possible for each of us, but it can only be accomplished by using these tools.
Take the time to awaken appreciation each day, be aware of your negative thoughts and choose to redirect them, use spiritual study and prayer to introduce more positive thoughts, and grab the unique energy available each day. This is the path to start living each day of your life to its fullest capacity.
