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Thirteen Ways to Improve Your Life

Positive thinking is something I had to re-learn as family tragedies befell one after the other. With 5 deaths in my immediate family (including my son), it might seem I am immune to pain. It never gets easier. Along the way, I learned to improve my life, change and reinvent myself. Allow me to share (rehash) some of my recovery principles which may or may not be useful to you but worked for me.

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1. Say Thank You everyday. Practice Gratitude. Everyday , I face interruptions, delays, changes and challenges. I have learned an important concept to get me through this stressful time and that is gratitude. I learn to say thank you, for all these problems and feelings. I don’t like this experience but Thank You anyway. I had to force gratitude until it became second nature to me. Gratitude helped me stop trying to control outcomes. Gratitude makes things right. It is the key that unlocked positive energy in my life.

2. Live life one day at a time which requires so much faith in us. Look ahead to make future plans. Don’t look back at the past unless healing from the past is part of today’s work. We focus on this day’s activity, living it to the best of our ability.

3. Love and Nurture Yourself. Nurturing is about how we show love for ourselves. I needed a loving relationship with myself that works so I can have a loving relationship with others that work.

4. Avoid Gossip. Direct , clean conversation clears the air and paves the way for good feelings about ourselves and our relationship with others. Gossiping about another for motives of diminishing him or her in order to build up themselves or to judge the person hurts friendships in the end. I resolved that I will resist and place boundaries when I am faced with another gossip.

5. Happiness is in your Hands. Healing comes when we are aware of how we attempt to use others to stop our pain and create our happiness. We will heal from our past. We will see that, all along, our happiness and our well-being have been in our hands.

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6. Practice healthy and loving tolerance. When I learned healthy and loving tolerance, I learned tolerance for others. I also learned that the humanness I tolerated is what makes myself and others beautiful. There are some things I do not tolerate. I do not tolerate abusive behaviors or destructive behaviors towards others or myself.

7. There is a time to feel anger and a time to let it go.. Anger is a part of life. We need not dwell in it or seek it out but we can’t afford to ignore it. In recovery, I have learned that I can shamelessly feel all my feelings including anger, and still take responsibility for what I do when I feel angry. I don’t have to let anger control me but it surely will if I prevent myself from feeling it.

8. Laughter is the best medicine. Even just the expectation of a mirthful laughter involved in watching your favorite funny movie has some very surprising and significant neuroendocrine/hormone effects. Earlier experiments showed that viewing a favorite funny video can offset symptoms of chronic stress, which can suppress various components of the immune responses, particularly those related to anti-viral and anti-tumor defenses.

9. Turn pain into something positive. Help others. Start an advocacy , a cause, a charity. Helping others can both help you and the person who is in pain.

10. Set boundaries. I can love my family or friends but refuse their efforts to manipulate, control or produce guilt in me. I can learn to be assertive with family members without being aggressive. I can set the boundaries I need with them without being disloyal to the family or the friend. I can learn to love my friends and family without forfeiting love and respect for myself.

11 Take Financial Responsibility for ourselves. Each of us today, has a financial future. There are few future aspects of my life I can control, but one part I can play to assist our family’s future is setting goals. I don’t have to obsess about my goals. I don’t have to constantly watch and mark our progress toward them.Taking responsibility for my finances enable me to take focus off money. It frees me to do my work and live the life I want. I deserve to have the self-esteem and peace that accompanies financial responsibility.

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12. Love God as you understand God. I learned that recovery is an intensely spiritual process that prods us to grow in our understanding of God . My understanding of God is based on my Catholic upbringing that God is real. Loving. God is Good. The more I turned my mind and heart to a positive understanding of God, the more God validates me. Whether one is a Christian, non-Christian or Atheists, I will respect their own understanding of God as well as my own. I will not allow others’ judgement of my beliefs to cause me anxiety or distress.

13. . Practice as IF. To practice the positive, I act as if. It’s a positive form of pretending. It’s a useful tool to use to get ourselves unstuck. Now, when a problem haunts me, acting as if can helps me get unstuck. I act as if the problem will be or already is solved so I can go on with my daily routine.

Do you have other ways that helped improve your life?

12 thoughts on “Thirteen Ways to Improve Your Life”

  1. Hi Noemi, I always tell my kids if they dont have nice things to say about other people, it’s better if they say nothing at all. And I bear in mind the Desiderata. That all of us have the right to be here. That we should always strive to be happy.

  2. I’d like to focus on one of the 13 — the one about gossip. You know I am not really a chismosa person … but when one is in a group and these juicy tidbits start being tossed about, sometimes one gets mesmerized and is often pressured to contribute her little bit — maybe one more stone to cast, one more nail to crucify. Ay naku, i have since learned that when you’re too busy, you have little time to gossip. And have also since learned to keep quiet when caught up in a gossip session. Not all the time ha. Still trying talaga.

  3. I go for no. 8! I usually a “laffer” I laff! wahahaha… Even I’m depressed, still manage to make fun of myself! I cracked jokes with my confidants! That’s why they liked me!

    Noemi, you’re tagged! Take a look at my site! I’m voting you as well as Best parenting blog!

  4. Thank you for sharing this wonderful entry.

    I found you through my cousin Mnel’s blog. Right now, I am trying my best to live my life positively. Sometimes anger gets the better of me. ^__^

    I’m so happy to see another Mommy blogger here in the web. I’m looking forward into reading more of your entries.

  5. Thanks for the list! Saying thank you is indeed positive – let me add – being polite and courteous can also be related to the item number one.

    I strongly agree with the “avoiding gossip” thing. It is just a waste of time.

    Financial responsibility is also another important aspect that we should also strive for. Being financially free relieves us from the troubles.

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