When most people think about how to live life to the fullest, they often think about skydiving, travelling, or doing volunteer work in a third world country. While those activities can enrich your life in new ways, living your life to the fullest is moreso about the little moments in life. After all, life’s big moments don’t come around that often. But the little moments are in the everyday. In this article, we’ll share 14 ways to live your life to the fullest in the little moments you experience every single day.
14 Ways to Live Your Life to The Fullest
1. Meditate
How can you live your life to the fullest if you don’t set aside time each day to meditate? After all, meditation can provide you with the mental clarity you need to make good decisions, reflect on your actions, and encourage you to practice compassion with others. A simple ten-minute meditation each day can help create a sense of inner peace in your life. In moments where you feel unfocused, anxious, angry, or some other overwhelming feeling, you can set aside a few minutes to practice some breathing exercises. This meditation practice will help you act appropriately, even if your emotions are overtaking your entire body. And if you want to live life to the fullest, you’ll want to be a master of your emotions and your life. Fortunately, meditation can help with that.
2. Do Good Deeds
Ask anyone who does good deeds each day, and they’ll tell you that doing acts of kindness changed their lives. You can live your life as a grouch, feeling miserable, and never knowing why. Or you can push yourself to plan one good deed each day. It can be as simple as wishing someone a happy birthday or as elaborate as organizing a charity event. By shifting your daily focus to doing good deeds, you’ll be living life to the fullest. After all, at the end of your life you’ll be thinking about your legacy. What better way to celebrate your life than by helping make life wonderful for others. But the best part, is that no matter how depressed, anxious, or miserable you are today, you’ll see sharp improvements in your own well-being within six to eight months of doing kind acts for others.
3. Learn Something New
Do you read for an hour each evening before going to bed? That might be a good way to create a good habit of learning something new. You can also learn new things by doing new things. Are there activities you’ve never done before that you can try learning? Are there people you’ve met that you’ve never hung out with before that you can get to know more about? Ultimately, use each day to learn something new about the world, others, or even yourself.
4. Deeply Get to Know People
If you want to live your life to the fullest, you’ll need to invest some time into getting to know others. You’d be shocked if you realized how much people talk about themselves when interacting with others. You’d think that people are curious to get to know details of others. Instead, we often look out for similarities in others to determine if we like them or not. However, you’ll find so much more fulfillment in life if you make your life about serving others and getting to know them deeply. When you get to know people’s deep-seated insecurities or what sparks joy in their life, you can’t help but wonder how you can help ease their pain and help make their day. And in the end, helping others is what living life to the fullest is all about.
5. Challenge Yourself
You can’t live your life without challenging yourself every now and then. Do you have any fears that paralyze you? Maybe it’s time for you to face them. Yup, even the big scary ones that you’d rather run away from. Set a challenge with yourself every day to do something new. Whether that’s facing your fear, pushing yourself to a higher level, increasing the pressure on yourself to handle a bigger obstacle. Maybe for you that’s increasing the weight of your dumbbells at the gym. Or maybe it’s forcing you to apologize to someone you really hurt a few years back. It could also be doing a 30-day meditation challenge. That’s what living life to the fullest is all about.
6. Celebrate Failure
When you live your life, do you often hide your failures. Pretend like the losses aren’t there staring you in the face? Yeah, failure can feel embarrassing or uncomfortable to say the least. However, there is a positive way to look at some of the biggest catastrophes of your life. For starters, it got you here. Look at you now reading articles about how to live life to the fullest. The amazing thing about failure or rock bottom is that all you need to do is tilt your head up and you’re already on the right track. Life has a funny way of working out, sometimes it’s the biggest failures and setbacks that bring us closer to the life we’ve always dreamed of.
7. Celebrate Wins
If you want to live your life to the fullest, you need to celebrate your wins like a champion. I always got a bag of balloons nearby in case I want to celebrate a special occasion or a win. It feels pretty good seeing a bunch of balloons decorated in your home. It’s like a little celebration. Most people celebrate their wins for too short of a period. You need to acknowledge those wins and make sure you savor the moment. Big promotion at work? Throw yourself a mini party to celebrate. Huge bucket list item crossed off your list? Add a bunch of pictures to a photo album. Won a sports championship? Host a big dinner with the whole team.
8. Find Freedom
To live your life to the fullest you’ll need to find and experience freedom. Freedom means a lot of different things depending on the person. For some freedom may involve quitting your job to start your own business. For others freedom can be as powerful as going for a run and being one with nature. Whatever freedom means to you, be sure to experience it throughout your life. Don’t allow yourself to be tied down to what you think life expects of you. You don’t need to have a 9 to 5 job. You don’t need to be married with children. You don’t need to be a doctor, lawyer, or CEO to be successful or happy. Live your life on your terms. Whatever they may be.
9. Be Happy Now
Do you allow yourself to be happy each day? The kind of happiness where you wake up in the morning excited for whatever life throws your way. A happiness that doesn’t scare you into hiding it. Do you wear a smile on your face when life is good or do you usually frown to avoid those laugh lines? It’s okay to be a happy person. You don’t have to run and hide from joyous emotions. The worst case scenario your brain likes to cycle in your head isn’t going to happen because people see you smile. In fact, your happiness can become contagious enough to make others happy too. Imagine yourself having a great day and throwing around some positivity in all directions. Wow. What a great day that would be. So live your life with a smile on your face and that’ll be a great way to live life to the fullest.
10. Talk to Friends and Family
Have you ever noticed that the best days are when you’re with other people? All the introverts reading this are thinking to themselves, ‘NO!” But admit it, while being by yourself can be super relaxing every now and then, your best memories aren’t you hanging out alone staring mindlessly at your phone. No, your best memories are hanging out with friends playing video games, dancing in front of a mirror, kicking balls around, or having just some good old fashioned conversation. It feels great to spend time with friends or family. Can you schedule a daily call to check in on random family members or friends each day to keep in touch? It’s important to know how to be a friend. Life is meant to be spent with others, so don’t allow time to drift you apart.
11. Change When You Need To
People will always tell you “I hope you stay the same, never change.” However, in life growth is essential. Those who don’t change have a fixed mindset. We can always grow and improve ourselves. Investing in yourself is a great way to live your life. What weaknesses can you improve upon. Which big goal can you align yourself to. What do you hope your future self looks like. These are all important parts of optimizing your life. You and your loved ones will all change over time. You’ll get better with time (well, that’s the hope). Aim to figure out what you would love your future self to look like and strive to become that person. You can become any person you want to, don’t let your current traits or false beliefs set you back.
12. Take the Plunge
What have you always wanted to do? Do it. No, seriously do it. Think about it. Here you are, alive. Do you know how many people would kill for this opportunity you have. To breathe, experience, and live. You could live the life of your dreams. Take the big risks that’ll make your life more worthwhile. Tell someone you love them. Ask for that pay raise. Or quit your job. Start your own business. Learn a new skill (no matter how old or untalented you think you are). Publish your memoir. Dance in the kitchen for no good reason. Throw a household house party with your immediate family. Because why not? You can craft your life anyway you want. As long as you don’t hurt or harm people in the process, take the plunge and make your dreams come true.
13. Head Outside
Have you ever noticed that when you head out in nature, life always feels wonderful. You go for a run in the sunshine and you feel a sense of inner peace and freedom that keeps you uplifted the whole day. You can walk along a nature trail in the autumn when the leaves change and feel a sense of bliss. Sometimes all you need is to take a big deep breath of fresh air and you feel one with nature. To live life to the fullest, spend time where you belong – in nature.
14. Make Someone’s Day
When you awake each morning, ask yourself, “What can I do to make someone’s day today?” Then, throughout the day, you’ll find dozens of opportunities to make someone’s life easier, better, or even wow them. Spend your day looking for windows to praise someone. Maybe someone on your team did a good job on the project, send them a kind message about their efforts. Did someone let you in at the drive thru, surprise them by paying for their order. Trust me, people get really excited about that. Did someone just hit a huge life milestone, surprise them with a gift basket to celebrate their special moment. Every now and then, mail people cards wishing them well, include a few jokes, maybe mention what you love most about them. People love thoughtful gestures. The ultimate way to live life to the fullest is to love every single person we meet – especially the most difficult ones.
Conclusion
You can live your life in anyway you want. So, why not live life to the fullest every day? You don’t need to do anything extraordinary. Simply seek out new experiences, get fresh air, make someone a happy person, take the risks you’ve always daydreamed about, challenge yourself, and just experience as much life as possible. You’ve only got one life to live but you can shape it anyway you desire. Make each moment count and explore the world.
