Mindful Living

8 Ways to Make 2019 the Best Year Yet!

28/12/2018

How has another year come to an end already?!

They say the reason why life appears to speed by as you get older is due to the novelty of life’s experiences as a child. This makes sense, but I’m still baffled nonetheless… 😂

It’s quite easy to fall into habits and routine as we get older, so in order to make time “slow down”, we should try and make sure we’re experiencing and learning new things as often as possible!

Check out this blog I wrote a few months ago for more info…

My aim is to be able to look back on my life and revel at all the many adventures far and wide I hope to experience.

I know I can make anything happen if I set clear enough intentions.

How so?

This time last year, I carefully thought through and wrote down what I felt needed to happen for me in 2018. I’m happy to look back now and say I’ve just about achieved everything I set out to do. Some things were fulfilled in much more painful ways than I’d expected but it’s made me grow and become the wiser person I am today.

But how can I make these desires come true?

Our thoughts are everything. Our physical realities are a manifestation of our non-physical psyche. The world around us and the world inside our heads are interlinked and so, if we take the time to be really clear about what we want to get out of life, we have the power to make anything happen. More about this here!

I’m filled with motivation and excitement for what 2019 will bring, and after a year full of ups and downs, it’s important to reflect on why things have happened to us in order to appreciate everything we encounter – including the bad. 🙂

Here are my 8 resolutions I consider important to implement in order to live a more mindful and fulfilling 2019. 🌚

Dream big! Passion behind desire

Don’t be afraid to get carried away with your imagination. It IS entirely possible to fulfil even your craziest of dreams. What is important is to BELIEVE that you can get there.

The thing that holds man back the most in doing what he would love to do is the threat from fear. We find it hard to believe that something will come true if we can’t already see in front of us.

Plot twist, when we embrace uncertainty and assure ourselves 100% that we can make something happen, it will.

Less expectations, more acceptance

…of impermanence.
Don’t just focus on the good times and push away the bad. Everything is occurring to you as it should, and in fact, the times which make you feel most uncomfortable are the times which you’ll be most grateful for in the long run.

I intend to make better friends with the hard times which lie ahead.

I intend to better control my reactions to unpleasant situations and bask in the enlightening realisation that through these challenging times, I understand what it is to be happy and loving.

When I see this, I will instead focus on thinking more of these positive thoughts, consequently manifesting them in reality faster than they’d have done so otherwise.

Let go of toxic situations

Let go of anything and anyone that didn’t serve you this year. Holding onto the past only creates more misery for us in the present. Take a step back and look at all the beauty around you. Life has so much to give, it really just isn’t worth ruining our precious time on this earth getting upset about things not turning out the way we’d hoped.

I’ve always found it hard to let go of things, personally I tend to build expectations really quickly about situations and usually get carried away fantasising about their outcomes. So when things don’t work out, it really knocks me down hard.

I feel much more confident and accepting than I did last year as I learn slowly that life is a balancing act.

More time for self-care

Oh, this one is so important… 😩 It’s so easy to forget to take time for ourselves to recharge. Down time is so crucial for our everyday functioning if we want to feel our best.

Make a point of setting times in the week to indulge in activities that make you feel goooood. (Genuinely goooood.)

Some ideas: get more sleep if you’re always feeling tired, massage your skin with oils after showering such as jojoba or almond, spend more of your money on good quality skin care products because your body deserves it and it’ll help preserve youth in the long run.

I use a range of amazing facial care products which are cruelty free, natural and sustainable. If you’re interested in revolutionising your skin care routine, comment below or send me a direct message on Facebook or Instagram! 😃

Do more of what lights you up

This might sound a little obvious, but we get so caught up in the busyness of our everyday lives, tending to draining responsibilities.

What are the things you love doing? What fills you with incomparable joy? Make MORE time for these activities this year. We don’t have to work super super hard 100% of the time, life wasn’t meant to be about running ourselves into the ground. GO PLAY.

More realness on social media

Of course, we want to share our highlights, when we look back, we’ll always remember the good times before the bad. However, because of social media, the modern-day user is sure to have compared themselves negatively to whoever they’re stalking – even if it’s only been once.

This is a topic I’m passionate about as I’ve had countless conversations with people who’ve are affected by this. Myself included.

I’m hopeful that things are beginning to change as I’ve seen many posts from influential figures who are raising awareness on this problem by sharing more authentic, raw photos of themselves/their lives.

Whether that be less make up, exposing imperfections, honesty about having a bad day despite the drop dead unreal “candid” photo on that beach in Turks and Caicos, or heck even not shaving their legs for a few days and not being ashamed about it!

This is reality. We are perfectly imperfect. Embrace your unapologetic, authentic self and we can reverse the perfectionism and insecurity which has skyrocketed since the take-off of Instagram in 2013.

Always remember what you see is not what it seems, even when the profile in question is aiming to make you happy.

What makes me sad is when I get feedback from people about my Instagram saying how they admire my discipline to eat so healthily and be this radiating veil of positivity all the time.

Weeeell guess what, I’m definitely not. 🤣

I write this blog to inspire myself and I hope others too, but that doesn’t mean I don’t struggle sometimes.

Less labelling

When we first meet someone, we’re very quick to analyse and label them based on our first impression. The mind feels much more at ease when it can make sense of who its talking to by sorting them into a category. Whether this be judging the clothes they wear, the way they speak, particular interests etc… Sometimes these labels are positive, sometimes negative. The worst is when we label based off things we’ve heard about the person from other people which might not even be true…
By putting an individual into a box, we deny them of who they truly are.
Labels such as “basic” “nerd” or “hippie” are generalising stereotypes which imply many more qualities which might not be relevant to them.
It’s time to put our judgements aside and remember that every person is unique. So instead of spending our time drawing conclusions about people based on what we see on the surface, why not have a real-life conversation and get to know them instead?

Don’t make your happiness conditional

Similar to point 2, by becoming more accepting of everything that happens to us, we pave the way to break mankind’s worst habit and biggest cause of misery – attachment.
We very easily make our happiness dependent on obtaining material things or people for example.
We’ve all been victims of getting it and then realising that once we got there, the expectation was so much better than the reality.
What we need to awaken to is that true happiness cannot be found externally and it’s in fact already within us.

We have the capacity in any given moment to lift our own spirits and turn our attention away from dwelling on what’s not going our way.

There is so much to be happy about all the time, all around us. Just being alive is such a precious gift and something we all take for granted too often.