Recently, I’ve been going through a lot of realizations and life lessons (haven’t we all?) and I really want to share with you 10 things to remember about life.
These are my own recent life lessons and things that I’ve learned. I think it’s great that we as humans can constantly evolve and can find ourselves in a non-stop learning process. I love learning and educating myself and I think our life can offer so many great lessons for us to become better.
Things to remember about life
Those are the things that I still work on and have to remind myself of them all the time. Life moves forward and so are we, nothing is set in stone and our views can change. But I truly believe those things, that you are going to read about, are kind of fundamental to our happiness.
Everyone has to go through different life lessons but I think ultimately we come to the same conclusions in one way or another. So here are my things to remember about life…
My life lessons
1. Embrace your passions. The older I get, the better I understand that our passions and hobbies are something that nurtures our souls, minds, and even bodies. So it is important to maintain a balance where you have time for something that you love a lot.
For me, it is art, exploring, creating, writing, thrifting, and learning. I accepted the fact that these things will probably never be my main job but I still want to expand my knowledge in these areas even if there is no monetary value in it.
2. Explore more. No matter where and what exactly. It can be your own town with the museums and places you’ve never been, or the state you live in and want to learn more about it or the country on another continent. Discovering new places is something that makes me very happy.
I know some people complain about how they can’t travel but the reality is that there are so many places we never visited in our own cities that I think it should be fair to start small and then have goals to go bigger (aka travel abroad).
3. Do what makes you happy. OK, so this one kind of goes hand in hand with the first two points. Making time for the things that make you happy will definitely improve the quality of your life and your overall mood. Some examples from me that do not require extra work:
- Coffee in the morning with my favorite creamer
- A quick tarot spread
- 15-minute journaling session
- Listening to my favorite music and dancing
- Drawing, writing, singing
- Gardening
- Being outside
- Reading
- Creating new things
- Watching sunset/sunrise
As you can see those are not grandiose tasks and will not require a lot of time. Learn how to enjoy small things in your life and do them more often.
4. Put yourself first, focus on yourself. I always used to put the desires of others or their ideas of me and my life first and it led me to nowhere, or should I say it led me to the life I didn’t want to live and still working on improving it. Certain things can’t be undone just rewritten, I guess. But I have to say that since I started being more selfish and putting myself and my goals first, it made me feel better.
Of course, there are ups and downs when it comes to it. As I mentioned in one of my blogs, change is never linear and prioritizing myself is something I have to constantly learn over and over again.
5. Radical acceptance. This truly changed my mindset because the reality is that before we can make any other changes we have to realize what we have, or don’t have, who we are or not, and only then we can proceed further and improve our lives if we want to. But accepting yourself is also important for your happiness and confidence. When I accepted my body, my face, my skin, and my tastes as they are it took so much weight off my shoulders. I was able to breathe slightly better and it definitely improved my confidence. I am who I am and that’s it.
Read my blog post about accepting my body for more information and life lessons when it comes to our appearance.
6. Avoid things that don’t nourish your body, mind, or soul. Once, I started cutting off people, platforms, social media, things I don’t want to do and foods, drinks, and activities that influence me negatively, life became happier. There is still a lot of work to do when it comes to food or certain activities like watching silly reality TV. But being able to unfollow a lot of social media accounts or say “no, this is not me and it does not make me happy” definitely helps me daily.
7. Stay true to yourself. I know, there are so many people who say that but this is the best advice I can give. Stay true to yourself, listen to your intuition, live your life for yourself. People can give you many pieces of advice but it is up to you if you want to accept them or not. At the end of the day, this is your life and only you can live it.
I heard so many things about life like “you can’t be happy at work”, ” life is a constant struggle”, “if you have a creative job, you’ll be poor”, and unfortunately back then I listened and believed it. It’s been taking me so much time to untangle this web of lies that does not fit into my lifestyle. I don’t believe in these things and refuse to accept them. I know I have the power to create the life I want if I keep being honest with myself. Period.
What are some values and beliefs that stop you from being your most authentic self? Work on this.
8. Pursue your dreams. I know, you might think it’s repetitive and sounds similar to embracing your passions. While these two things can be the same, they can also represent different parts of your life. While my passion is crocheting and making clothes, I don’t think it’s my dream to have a fashion brand.
My dream is to live a peaceful and abundant life surrounded by nature and animals with my husband in our house, having a stable income that comes from the job that I love and a few of my side hustles, while having a positive impact on the local community and having like-minded friends. This is in a nutshell, of course.
What is your truest desire?
What is your real dream?
9. Don’t have expectations from anything or anyone (have hope and a positive attitude but learn how to let go of a situation). The more expectations you have, the more it will hurt. I am learning how to have zero expectations from anyone or anything.
Currently, I am looking for a job and I applied for this nice position, I was sure they will contact me back, but they didn’t. A few weeks passed and nothing. It did hurt a lot but eventually, I had to let go. There are many more jobs and opportunities, and what is mine is coming to me easily. So now when I apply for a job, I move on quickly without any expectations.
The same comes for people and relationships in general. Living with the thought that no one owes you anything and does not have to fit into your idea of them is truly freeing. Also, because it goes both ways (you don’t have to fit into someone else’s idea of you), it can be extra beneficial.
10. Don’t wait for others. Throughout my entire life, I heard the following “don’t rush”, “don’t worry, someone else will do it”, but I think it is useless to hope that someone else will pick you up or do something that no one else wants to do. The best option is to rely on yourself and not to wait for others. If you want something, I’d say do it yourself and do it as soon as possible.
Bonus life lesson. OK, as usual, I have something extra. So here it is..
11. Leave the past in the past. Get over it, I know it can get hard but we can’t live in the past while life and everything else (including our bodies) move forward. If it’s hard to let go of the things try to find help, work on your traumas, heal yourself. We live in a world where getting help is way easier than before.
My point is that the past is done. I used to drown myself in the past memories, in the things I did or didn’t do, or how horrible I thought I was. I thought “how did I deserve to live? I was such a mess, did so many awful things!”. Meanwhile, those awful things were primarily being a teenager, arguing with everyone, and saying mean things. And you know what the best part of it is? Those things are over and I am no longer a helpless teenager.
It sucks that whatever happened to us earlier in life affects us and can form our personality or even change our lives, but if you’re reading it, I am pretty sure you’re an adult and can make changes. Let this first change be healing yourself and moving from the past that hurts or bothers you.
So those were my 10 things to remember about life plus a small bonus. What life lessons have you learned recently? I love learning from other people and their experiences, so make sure to leave a comment down below.
What are some of your life lessons? What are the things to remember about life from your point of view?
Read more:
Giving Tuesday. 6 ways to give back to your community.
15 things to do this spring
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