Choose joy

Does your life kind of feel the same every day? In this post you can read about great ways to bring more joy into your life.

I am not sure how the weather in your part of the world has been lately, but during winter time in Austria cloudy skies are just normal. When the sun comes out for a quick moment, you can witness people enjoying the sunshine outside for as long as it lasts.

My mood gets affected by the weather easily, so when the sky is overcast, I am often tired and unmotivated to get out of bed. 

I am a person who wants to see the sense in everything I do and staying in bed for a whole day does not come natural to me. My intention is to enjoy life and make it extraordinary. My goal is to live a life I am striving for and to share that feeling with the people around me.

As a student at university the assignments never seem to end, so my life mostly consists of going to uni, doing the most essential duties around the house, studying and keeping myself alive of course. By now you might have noticed that I don’t want to turn into a person who gets up in the morning, goes to a unfulfilling workplace, gets home late, goes to bed and do it all over again. That does not feel like a happy life to me! These are methods I used to bring more joy into my life.

Change of mindset

Often a tiny shift of your mindset can move your whole world around. If you always look at the world in a negative way, no wonder you don´t feel good about life.

How can you change your mindset when you are going through a tough time? In some situations it helps to tell myself: “This too shall pass!”

There are some phases in life, like an exam period, you can’t change so you just have to get through it. You not enjoying stressful times does not equal you not loving your course or job, it is okay to not jump at tough situation with full excitement. It may help to find something to look forward to when this time is over though.

Another exercise I tried was, to take a few minutes after waking up each and be grateful for all the positive things already happening in my life. After a few days, I realised that I had redirected my energy from a negative to a more positive energy.

 

Do fun things

I cousciously make time for fun moments even during tough times. For some people out there this may sound impossible, but you may have 30 minutes every now and then you can spend doing something you love. If this is still not possible, get creative. 

It doesn’t have to be super fancy, you could use the time while you are making dinner to listen to an audiobook or read while you commute with public transport. The goal is to do things you enjoy even amongst the chaos and hurry.

Try out new things

I also started trying out new things, like joining a Pilates class or a choir, because I realised that often we just have to bring a little more joy into our lives or to simply change some things around little bit.

When I was in the final period of school I didn’t make time for hobbies and I also didn’t enjoy them as much as I used to. I wrote a whole list of possible activities which came into my mind. Now I am gradually trying them out to find out what I enjoy doing.

Maybe there is a community centre in your town which offers classes, like cooking, sewing or other crafts. Many courses offer a free trial class to just try it out and see how you go. I also like to talk to my friends about their leisure activities and ask if I can come along some time.

I really hope that you like it!

Feel free to check out the Instagram profile of The Shining Self as well.