Let me be blunt with you and come right to the point. You don’t know what your life in the future holds. You don’t have any idea what is going to happen tomorrow. There are, therefore, absolutely no signs you will find that your life will never get better.
The mere fact that you landed on this page is a huge sign that your life is about to get a whole lot better. Don’t believe me? Open the calendar on your phone and send a reminder for one year from now – don’t wait for five, don’t wait for ten years. Set a reminder for one year from now and write to me on this date next year telling me how you thought your life would never get better. But all you did was give it a year.
Table of Contents
Living conscious lives
I get it! You had a bad day, a bad week, a bad month. Hell, you may have had a tough life till this very waking second of your life. So fair enough, you don’t feel ecstatic about it today. But you know NOTHING about what tomorrow holds. So stop making assumptions and looking for signs that your life will never get better. Like I said, there are none you will find.
Not very long ago, I sat in my room feeling like I lived in a cage. I was wallowing in my sorrow and self-pity raising all the questions that you are raising today. Why is this happening to me? I’ve done everything by the book in my life. Why me? Honestly, every time anyone suggested anything to make it better, I landed up in a fight with that person. What do they know I’m going through?
One of my friends even suggested that I get in touch with the professional. Guess what? I fought with that friend. 🙂
Anyway, after much convincing, I did get in touch with a professional who only very remotely suggested that I could do exactly what I wanted to do in my life and pivot it in the way I like. So then, I fought with that professional! 🙂
I told her – what do you know about feeling what I am feeling today? I told her that I had no faith in the process and I was only there because my friend told me to give it a shot. But my friend was right, I had nothing to lose. I only had everything to gain and gain, and I did. I’m here – telling you that you don’t have to live an unfulfilling life.
What’s next from here on?
I didn’t feel better instantly. There are days when I feel deficient even today (like you) and I have to remind myself that today may be bad but there are also good days! And on the bad days, I know now that I don’t have to just sit and wait for them to go away. As much as possible, I try to keep moving forward and taking conscious steps to live a happier and fulfilling life.
And I swear to God, it helps! I am happier (mostly – which is fine because wouldn’t it be supremely boring if all our days were to be the same? We wouldn’t even know true happiness), more focused, more productive, more present and better connected with my friends, family and surroundings.
If I can be sitting here and telling you this today, you can be sitting and typing out that email to me exactly one year from now telling me that all you needed was one year to follow this action plan.
The Action Plan
Take control of your life
Like I said, don’t wait for things in your life to get better because they won’t get better on their own. Nobody else but you are responsible for making your life worth living for yourself. Think about yourself – What is it that you like doing? What is it that you want from your life? How do you want your life to look like one year from now?
Think about all the things that you would want to change. Do you want a better social circle? Do you want to be doing better at work? Do you want to set better boundaries at work? Do you want to improve your financial situation? Do you want to promotion? Do you wish you spent more time with your family? What is it that you think you need to feel truly zen?
Once you have a vague idea of how you want your life to look like, I want you to put pen to paper in your journal. Then, please read out loud each of the things you have written and get specific under each vague idea.
Let me give you an example: If you want a better social circle, what are the kind of people that you want to be reaching out to? What kind of a circle do you want to be sitting with exactly one year from now and having dinner with? Are they your old college friends or are they people from your workplace that you don’t speak to or don’t connect with? Where/how can you reach out and say hello?
Deal with the clutter around and inside you
Get rid of the mess – start with your immediate surroundings including your bedroom and your workplace and branch out to your life.
Clearing the space around you instantly gives you a sense of accomplishment. It helps you think clearly and get more organised – taking away the feeling of being overwhelmed and cluttered in your head.
Take care of yourself
Start prioritising yourself and your needs. Sometimes we give so much of ourselves to the circumstances, we tend to forget who we are. We’re either too busy taking care of others around us, giving a lot of ourselves to work with, or simply just getting complacent sometimes. The result of this is a vicious cycle of not making any space for what you want and need in your life and that space getting lesser and lesser over time.
Believe me, everything will fall into place as soon as you start taking care of yourself. When you do that, you remind yourself that you’re important, how you feel about yourself matters and you matter! You’ll realise that when you’re truly happy with yourself, all that chaos won’t seem like a gigantic problem to deal with. You’ll learn to be present more at home, focus better at work and work towards a life worth living.
Don’t do it all by yourself – you’re not alone
A lot of us believe that because we entered the world, we also have to live alone. You may have even got good at taking care of everything on your own but you need to know that it doesn’t have to be that way.
If you are not reaching out for help because you think no one or nothing is going to be able to help you out – you could NOT be more wrong. Not long after you reach out to them, you’ll most likely realise that the negative thoughts that were preventing you from reaching out were the only things working against you, making you isolate yourself.
If you don’t want to get in touch with a professional for whatever reason, reach out to the people around you. Call a friend and just vent it all out. Just that one friend listening to you vent should be enough to make you realise that you’re not alone in this or in anything you do.
Use ALL the reinforcements
Use all your reinforcements in your inner circle. If you want to steer away from them, why not think about joining a support group?
When you start talking about how you feel, not only will you get the support from the people around you but you’ll also see that so many people out there feel exactly how you are feeling today and you’re not alone in this.
I constantly see so many people coming on Reddit communities just to vent and ask for advice. Vent there and watch everyone pitch in to help you feel better and get to work on making things better. Mind you, these are all strangers going out of their way to help you and want absolutely nothing in return. There are some communities but we’ll stay far away from those. We don’t need that shit in our lives.
Having said that, if you need any kind of medical intervention for dealing with any physical or mental health issues, please put that first on your list because while all of the above is helpful, none of it is a substitute for a real professional who knows what they’re doing.
Get back to/create a social life
I am a huge advocate for prioritizing your time and enjoying the comfort of your own company. But you can’t truly enjoy it till you’re happy and fulfilled yourself. If you’re already feeling low, lonely and in need of connection, then please don’t isolate yourself.
Go out after the office with your colleagues, and definitely, turn up for the school/college reunion. Create your support system and keep them close! If you’re not up to that then just go and watch a movie, eat dinner or go to the park and sit. Notice the world around you and what it has to offer to each one of us. It’ll make a huge difference putting yourself back out there in society and talking to new people! It may be difficult at first but just take that first uncomfortable step!
Make your life worth living
You don’t need to just go on with whatever life is throwing at you. You can choose to do the things that make you happy. These don’t have to be big leaps, you can start by taking small steps every day.
Start by making and eating the food you like to eat, listen to the music that fills your heart with joy, go for hikes, join book or movie clubs, or dance classes. Don’t miss out on a chance to pamper yourself. Anything that reminds you that YOU matter. You deserve to be taken care of and who better than yourself to start living up to that?
Block out the negativity
You don’t need anything or a person/who pulls you down or makes you feel low. If you feel low when you do something or meet someone, take it as a sign that your brain and body are giving you. It feels like something is off because you probably shouldn’t be doing that or being there with that person. Listen to yourself and don’t put yourself in uncomfortable situations. Keep it simple!
When it comes to people who you don’t feel great with, I would suggest that you set some strong boundaries (not walls) to protect yourself and your core. You don’t have to feel guilty about it but honestly, isn’t the discomfort of having said no better than being angry and resentful for doing what you don’t want to do?
Prioritise yourself, surround yourself with the things and even content that make you feel good, people who help you to do well in life, support you, are happy in your happiness and contribute to making your life a more fulfilling one. You can spend all day watching reels on Instagram which makes you keep questioning your own life or you can pick up a book that motivates you and teaches you how to be a better version of yourself.
Stay in the present moment
Your past could have been messy and you have no idea what the future holds. It’s only now that you’re living in. Don’t get me wrong – things happen and we want to and should mull over those and not suppress what we’re feeling. But do that for a while and get back to your life. If you’re someone who finds it hard to move on from what happened or is anxious about what is to come, this is not going to happen overnight. But that’s okay, as long as you start to inculcate that practice daily.
Pro tip – You can put reminders on your phone every few hours to remind you to stay grounded in reality and notice where you are in that moment. Over time, you won’t need any reminders at all because they will be ingrained in you.
Life gets hard sometimes but that’s just life! Our reacting to it is the most normal and healthy way to deal with it. But if you sit back for a few minutes and watch over your life, you’ll see that you’ve had some wonderful moments too.
So I just want you to know that it’s not permanent. While it lasts, feel it all! But when you feel stuck and you want to move on, get right to it instead of waiting for your whole life to pass you by. You can choose to be happy every single day and you must!
