Can you feel good every day? The awesome news is — it’s totally possible! It will require some work, on your part…but…the coolest thing is that as you do this very personal and self-focused work, the benefits expand into all areas of your life. The more you do to actively care for yourself – the more you feel good – the more you relate to others in positive ways – the more they feel good, which leads back to you feeling good. See how that works?!
The thing to remember is that feeling good every day doesn’t mean feeling good all day every day, because that’s just not possible (sorry!). As humans and we all have our moments or minutes or hours that just don’t feel good. That said, there are plenty of easy ways to institute feel-good actions every day which lead to feel-good results.
1) Make feeling good and treating yourself well a priority. Every day, when you wake up, you need to pledge to make this priority and clear a moment or a few minutes to ensure that you have time to do just one thing that honors this commitment. The rest is a snap!
2) Self-care, self-care, self-care. I absolutely love this list of 30 ways your life will change by making a conscious effort to care for yourself. If numbers 13, 19 and 29 aren’t enough for you, find your favorite reasons. Self-care isn’t selfish (at least not in that “bad” kind of selfish way) – it’s a necessity if you want to feel good every day.
3) Set clear boundaries. Feeling good requires sometimes having to say “no” so that you can say “yes” to doing what you need to do to in order achieve your goals. This may be difficult at first, but it’s important that you’re clear about what you want (see #2 above) and stay the course. At first, the people in your life may not understand but over time, as they see you shifting, they may come to understand. If they don’t, it’s worth a look-see to notice the nature of your relationships and how they are (or are not) supporting your “feel good” goals.
4) Create your toolkit. Consider what you enjoy and when you are happiest. Make a list that has a mix of activities including some movement, some stillness, some creativity, some solitude and some connection. This list is your feel-good self-care essentials toolkit so you don’t have to come up with ideas on the spot. I found that making my list was almost as feel-good as the items on it! Here are a few of my favorite self-care, feel-good tools in my kit:
-cooking and a healthy, delicious meal
-practicing yoga
-taking a mindful walk (leaving technology shut off)
-drinking a fresh ginger tea
-taking a bath with a scented bath fizzy
-making body care products from scratch
-meditating (even if only for a few minutes)
-calling a friend who I haven’t spoken to in a while
-playing music and dancing around like no one is watching
5) Get back to basics. For those feeling-not-so-good days (and there will be some of those), when nothing in your self-care toolkit seems like what you want or need – try this list. It gets you back to the basics of self-care and it just might do the trick.
My sister-in-law recently said to me: “Being a human is hard work!”
She’s right! It’s a simple insight that’s easily forgotten. Self-care and feeling good every day is a process that takes work and care and commitment.
Love yourself enough to give yourself the gift of feeling good every day.
