Feeling like you have a fulfilling life is something we all strive for on a day-to-day basis. By feeling fulfilled, you’ll find your mental health benefits, you’ll perform better at work and your overall health will benefit – you’ll be getting ill a lot less when you are feeling your best.
Achieving fulfilment varies from person to person. Some people feel their best when their career is doing well. Some people are more family-focused and enjoy family time and for a lot of people, their overall health can make a big difference. In most instances, not one thing will help you feel completely complete, it could be that a combination of things helps you have a more fulfilling life.
Below we have put together our guide on 10 things you can concentrate on to help towards a more fulfilling life.
Focus on your health
To start with, your overall health is so important and is a key ingredient when it comes to working towards a more fulfilling life. It can be broken down into a variety of areas, some of which include:
Sleep
Getting enough sleep contributes a lot to your overall health. The suggested amount of sleep varies depending on age groups, with the overall sensuous being 7-9 hours of sleep a day. By achieving this, you’ll feel more alert, you’ll perform better in different situations, such as work or spending time with friends and you’ll reduce the chances of you getting ill. Start by tracking how much sleep you currently get daily and then set yourself a target moving forward. There are plenty of apps you can use to track your sleep, or you can use a smartwatch if you own one. You may think you are getting enough sleep, but when you start tracking, you realise you don’t.
Exercise
Exercise is another component that helps with your overall health as well as feeling more fulfilled in life. Exercise can improve your cardiovascular system, and support your mental health as well as your physical health. Aim for 150 minutes of exercise a week and this can be achieved through sports or solo activities such as running, cycling, swimming, etc. If you struggle for motivation to exercise, our top tip is to work out with a friend. If you go from no exercise to reaching the recommended amount, you’ll quickly find yourself benefitting from it.
Food & Drink
Do you eat five pieces of fruit and vegetables a day? Do you drink two to three litres of water a day? Both are very important and you should try to get as close (or achieve) the recommended number. To drink more water, we recommend filling up a two-litre water bottle each day and aiming to finish it before you go to bed. To eat more vegetables, try to mix them into the sauces you make with your dinners. A good example is a spaghetti bolognese – add peas and sweetcorn into it, you won’t notice you are eating them this way. Once you get into the habit of drinking more water and eating more fruit and vegetables, you’ll find it a lot easier to hit your daily targets. Making changes to your habits is always difficult at first as you aren’t used to it.
Reduce alcohol consumption
Alcohol can and should be enjoyed in moderation. If you overindulge in alcohol, there are many negative impacts it can have, which include damaging your mental health, and reducing how fulfilled you feel in life. As with everything that isn’t 100% good for you, we wouldn’t say not to enjoy it, as that’s unrealistic. Instead, try to enjoy it in moderation instead of overindulging a lot. The recommended amount of alcohol that men and women can consume, is advised to be no more than 14 units a week on a regular basis.
Focus on your career
We touched on it above, a lot of people find fulfilment through their career. The better they are doing at work, the more complete they feel as a person. In a lot of ways, this makes sense. If you aren’t doing well at work, often you’ll find yourself bringing this back into the house when you get home. A few things to help with your career can include:
Consider going self-employed
So many people have benefited from going self-employed or starting up their own company. There are a lot of pros to being your own boss, including getting to choose your own hours as well as having an uncapped salary potential – money is something that can affect how fulfilled you feel! Running your own business can be achieved in many ways, you could become a personal trainer, run your own marketing agency, sell lesson plans online, and more. As long as you are passionate, you’ll have a good chance of success.
Signing up for training session
Learning new skills or improving your current ones not only helps your career but can also help you as a person. Signing up for training sessions will help you improve your knowledge in your area of expertise, which will help you perform better at work, the knock-on effect may be that you get a promotion at work. A lot of courses are available online so you can do them in the comfort of your own home at your own pace. Alternatively, there are plenty of face-to-face courses you can do at your local education centre.
Set yourself goals
Setting yourself goals is a powerful way to help focus at work and improve, helping you feel like you are achieving more with your career. Your goal setting can be based on anything related to your job, from getting more sign-ups if you work under marketing or better reviews if you are a salesperson. When setting goals, aim for them to be achievable. As if they are not achievable, you are setting yourself up to fail, which can lead to you feeling unmotivated and less fulfilled.
Focus on you
Often people forget to look after themselves, even though looking after themselves can lead to great rewards and benefits. There are many ways to look after yourself, from making sure you stay connected to enjoying a hobby. Below are three ways to focus on you that will lead to a more fulfilling life.
Stay connected
Your friends and family members make up an important support network that you should not be afraid to reach out to if you are struggling or if you simply want to enjoy spending time with them. Socialising with your friends and family members helps with your emotional health – It gets you out of the house, laughing & smiling. If you have friends or family members who live away from you that you struggle to travel to, social media may be a great way to stay connected. You could schedule a weekly Facetime for you to connect and stay in touch.
Enjoy a hobby
Having a hobby is very valuable. It helps focus your mind as well as get you to socialise with others – helping you make new friends. A hobby can be anything, it can be playing chess, knitting clothes, learning about cocktail-making, cooking new recipes, etc. You could start up a new hobby that you have never tried before, or you could pick up a hobby you used to do that you haven’t done in a long time. Just like exercising, you could convince a friend or family member to start a hobby with you, that way you can motivate each other to keep doing it. Sometimes it’s a lot more fun when you do something with someone you know.
Be curious and open-minded to new experiences
Try new things, be curious, and be open-minded to new adventures and things you can try. Travel to a place you have never been before, try something completely different that you may be scared to do – bungee jump, skydive, diving! Work on a side hustle. Life can be so much more exciting when you step out of your comfort zone.
Above is a whole range of things that you can do to help towards a more fulfilling life. Try to implement a few of the steps and see how they benefit your life. Don’t overdo it, as the last thing you want to do is overwhelm yourself. Often people take on too much which can lead to failure, due to unrealistic expectations. You can always try to implement a few changes now and then in a month or two’s time make a couple of other changes.
A lot of self-care changes can take time, so don’t expect results to happen instantly. Some things will benefit you and make you feel differently quicker than others.
What tips would you like to share that can help you towards a more fulfilling life? Which of the above tips did you think was most useful? Are there any tips that you think we should include in our above guide? Let us know in the comment box below, we would love to hear from you.
