How To Live For Yourself: 14 Tips To Achieve Self-Fulfilment
From a young age, many of us learn to live for others: parents, teachers, or peers, naturally seeking their love, acceptance, and approval.
The thing is though, there comes a time when we grow up. We start to find that seeking approval from others around us is no longer practical.
In fact, this behavior has the potential to hinder our own self-growth and self-acceptance.
So how do we turn this external validation, the seeking of approval from others, into internal validation, seeking this approval from within?
Let's explore this now.
14 Tips to Start Living for Yourself
Every moment is an opportunity to live life exactly as you want it. Stop spending too much time with all those negative thoughts.
They just get in the way.
Instead, begin embracing each moment as it comes at you on a daily basis. I promise you that you will begin to experience, really experience, your life as you live it. And once you start pay attention to each moment, you will have the power to change the direction that it goes. You will begin to live life to the absolute fullest.
1. Begin The Journey Of Self-discovery
The first step, find yourself and, in the process, figure out what it is in your life that's most important to you.
Understand that there's no time limit for your journey. In fact, for the rest of our lives, all of us, no matter who we are, will be on a constant journey of self-discovery.
To help yourself out, understand there are ways to fast-track your self-discovering journey.
How?
A focus on experience and self-exploration will do the trick. And it's actually much easier than you may think.
In fact, research has shown that there are two main reasons why experience and self-exploration can help you to live for yourself and find more happiness in your life.
Experiences allow people to be more open to positive interpretation. In other words, new experiences help to see things that trouble you in a whole new light. This is can be incredibly helpful when a significant event in our lives has us feeling âstuckâ. This can lead to rumination and overthinking, something that can sometimes be a very hard habit to break. Thankfully, new experiences can help to break this mold and form new, more positive, thoughts.
Secondly, experiences are more likely to encourage successful social relationships. Friends from different walks of life are important to our self-growth, they offer new perspectives on problems we may be having in our lives.
These kinds of experiences will help you discover who you are, what it is you'd like to do in your life, and how to live for yourself.
2. Learn To Be Happy With Who You Are
We all have our own unique character and personality, it's what makes us, us.
And to begin with, as hard as it may be, it's important to your own self-growth that your individuality is embraced and you learn how to express it in a healthy way. In order to achieve this, you must learn to let go of other people's judgments or provocations and allow yourself to be more open, honest, vulnerable, and, most importantly, real with yourself and others around you.
The best way to do this?
That is who you truly are. Your heart will tell you what you want and your inner voice will guide you along the journey to achieving it. Start listening to your heart and your inner voice.
3. Check in regularly with Your Self-talk
Our inner dialogue can get a little out of hand at times. In fact, it can go so unchecked that it may start to seriously affect our inner peace. And, perhaps worse, self-talk can so easily become increasingly negatively skewed. We say to ourselves, "I can't", "I'm too scared to", or "what will people think?".
If your self-talk sounds like this, it's time to flip that inner dialogue around and turn it in a different direction. If your inner voice is telling you no, challenge it.
Instead of no, why not yes?
Begin to replace negative self-talk with positive self-talk. Start saying "yes, I can", "no, I'm not afraid", or "I don't care what people think, I'm going to do it anyway".
4. Align with your personal values and Morals
Another great way to live for yourself is to stand by your morals and own self standards. This involves finding a balance between happiness and success without compromising what it is that is most important to you.
A practice such as this will allow self-acceptance to start entering your life, encouraging feelings of self-approval and self-love. This will help life become more than just keeping other people happy and satiated and, instead, become more about what it is you'd like to achieve.
The more you do this, the less you rely on external validation and more on internal validation.
5. Learn How To live In The Moment
When you take the time to step into each moment with full awareness, you will be amazed by how much fun it is to simply be alive.
Itâs true!
Those dreaded conversations filled with small-talk turn into the highlight of your otherwise mundane experience of going to the grocery store. The chilly air on your walk to work becomes an exhilarating dance of sensations all across your body. A hot coffee meant to bring you to life becomes a slow indulgent and luxurious moment just for you.
Start to pay attention to the little moments and details of your day to train your mind to be present in the moment.
When you're so busy living a life that interests you, you won't have time to pay attention to the negative feelings or fear-based thoughts that often get in the way being happy.
If you have a hard time embracing the moment, give meditation a try.
Meditation trains your brain to pay attention and focus for longer periods of time, making it a lot easier for you to focus on the good in your life. It also mitigates stress hormones, making happiness a much more attainable goal than you may have realized.
6. Observe Your Thoughts, Feelings, And Memories
Okay so all this talk about being in the moment⊠but how does one actually achieve that?
Try by practicing observing your thoughts, feelings, and memories. Whenever negative thoughts or negative feelings pop up, try to notice them instead of ignoring them or pushing them away. At first, let your mind do its thing, trying on the negative emotions for a little bit to see what it's like.
Then take a step back and observe that experience.
What story is your mind telling itself that makes you feel so badly?
How many of your negative thoughts are based on fear?
And how many are based on the truth?
Spend some time on a daily basis observing your thoughts and feelings as they arise. You don't need to change them, just start to notice them.
The more that you can recognize your experience in each moment, the easier it becomes to change the direction of the experience.
And that is when you begin living the life you want.
7. stop trying to find meaning in everything
Do you remember the last time you had to close the door and have a moment to yourself for fear of having a full on meltdown, whatever that would look like to you?
If you really think about that moment and observe the feelings you experienced, the thoughts that cluttered your mind, and the story that led up to that moment, what would be left?
You would have thoughts. You would have feelings. And you would have a series of small moments.
There isn't all that much meaning behind any of it, is there?
The only relevant meaning behind these thoughts and feelings is based on the story we tell ourselves behind them.
While I totally understand that a major promotion at work may help you achieve your goals and help you live the life you want, it only feels that way because you've told yourself that these society-based goals and aspirations are the makings of a happier, more fulfilled life.
When you can detach yourself from the meaning behind these goals and aspirations that you so tightly hold onto, you will have true, blissful freedom to begin living the life that you genuinely want.
8. Make Decisions Quickly
Making decisions doesn't have to be a long, difficult and deliberate process. In fact, no matter the decision you end up making, it will likely lead you to both happy and tough times. So make your decision based on the best information that you have available and move forward.
Not knowing the ways in which your life will play out is frightening, sure. You will make mistakes and you will experience pain.
But these things will happen no matter what, so don't get hung up on big, scary decisions. Have the courage to make a decision and to follow it through. You don't even know the possibilities that wait for you on the other end!
9. Dare To Say âYesâ
Have you ever thought about the way that you view the world?
Is it something that wears you down until you eventually wither and die?
Or is it a massive playground for you to enjoy and explore until you eventually wither and die?
WellâŠboth perspectives are true, right?
Depending on how you approach the world can seriously change the way that you experience it. It can seriously change your mood for the better, too.
So, when an opportunity arises that is aligned with the kind of life you want to live, embrace it. Say yes and pursue it. The more that you say yes to the things that truly align with your values, the more that you will realize how fun creating a life you love is.
10. âŠAnd give yourself full permission To Say âNoâ
In the same spirit as saying yes to opportunities that jive with your personal goals, feel free to unabashedly say no to things that donât.
Do you want to be kinder and happier? Say âyesâ to things that help you with that.
Do you want to be more fit and healthy? Say ânoâ to things that get in the way of that.
Learning how to keep your eyes on the prize makes it easier to say no to things that donât support you.
11. frame your experience as an adventure
The moment that you realize that this entire life is like one big video game, the more freedom you will have to shape it how you like.
Look at rough patches as a challenge, as a training session to help you develop into the person you want to be
Look at the unknown as an opportunity to really test what youâre made of
When you approach life as an adventure, you give yourself permission to de-prioritize the judgements of others and focus on enjoying the journey.
12. Keep moving toward Your Goals
Even when you donât feel like it and youâre feeling especially uninspired, keep taking the steps necessary to reach your goals. Youâre going to pass the time, anyway. So donât waste a single second of it.
13. start Now
If there is something that you can do right now to align your actions with your values, then do it. Donât put off any chores, work or research that can get you on track toward the life you want to live. And if it canât be done right now, then do it soon.
Developing this habit will help you avoid those awful âShoulda Coulda Wouldaâ regrets that so many people live by.
14. Let The Goal Posts move
When I was 18, it was important to me to choose a major in college that would let me get married and have kids young.
When I was 24, it was important to me that I got full-time employment with benefits after graduating with my Masterâs degree.
When I was 28, it was important to me to learn a new skill that would allow me to be more transient.
When I was 30, it was important to me to learn how to be content with each moment, no matter what it entails.
My goals have changed constantly, each one becoming more beautiful and complex than the last. But in order to achieve these goals, I had to let go of my previous goals.
Some of them I achieved and others I didnât. And thatâs okay.
Iâm living life exactly as I want to, trusting that Iâm exactly where I need to be right now. And when thatâs no longer the case, then I can shift my goals once again.
Life is messy and complex, so donât get in the habit of living a life full of rigidity and oppression. Youâll crack under the pressure and your true self will bubble to the surface, anyway.
Final Thoughts on How to Live for Yourself
Whether it be finding more happiness and contentment in your life or manifesting more success and wealth.
Establish a practice that allows you to live for yourself. It is one of the most powerful tools you'll learn in your life and a great way to start living for yourself and not others around you.