How to enjoy life

 I'm always posting extreme-excited, heavenly-happy and life-loving Facebook updates, because that's just a reflection of how I am feeling and how much I love my life. People who are not that happy get annoyed by it, and the ones who are loving life too get inspired by it. Someone asked me how I can live life without holding back. He was jealously inspired by how I am living. That's an amazing compliment and a great question.

So I came up with 12 tips how to enjoy life. :)

How to live life like you really mean it: 

1. Explore Gods love

Without this first step, all the other ones are just fake counterfeits. Experiencing how much God loves you gives you a whole different way of living. He can also heal every pain and fear inside of you, which can hinder you to enjoy life. Take lots and lots of time to spend with God, not because you have to, but because you will feel the most complete, happy and yourself in His presence. Just rest in His presence, listen to His voice, pray your heart out, read the Bible, worship etc.

2. Make other people happy

“Happiness is like a perfume. You cannot pour it on others without getting a few drops on yourself.” Invest in friendships, make the people around you feel loved. Discover their love language so you can love them on purpose. Loving them in our own love language is great, but it’s even better to love them in THEIR love language! Look for people who are in need, physically or emotionally, and help them, listen to them and love them.

3. Surround yourself with happy, positive, Spirit-filled friends who know who they are.

Nothing more inspiring than community!

4. Create a me-time-list

What makes you happy? If you could do anything, what would it be? What makes you feel alive? Every week, make a list of the things that you really want to do. Note that you can't have anything on this list which you HAVE to do, or what OTHERS want to do. This list is about what you want to do. Keep it simple, keep it small. And important: make sure you do everything on the list that week, so make time for me-time!

5. Learn something new

What have you always wanted to do, but you feel you're not able to do? Perhaps learn a new language, play an instrument, start sporting or doing something creative. There are a lot of people around you with amazing talents, ask them to teach you some of that! Great bonding time with them and you get to grow in your talents!

6. Be aware of the beauty around you

There are so many beautiful things around you, which we don't see because we're so often in a hurry. Stop, slow down and take time to enjoy all these little beautiful things. My tip: never be in a hurry. Hurrying is not a sign of productivity, but a sign of a bad planning or being too busy. When you have to hurry, you don't have the time to look around and notice beautiful nature/people.

7. Journal everyday

Every evening take at least 10 minutes to journal. If you don't like writing, you can also just take a guitar and sing it out, or talk to your phone while recording it. Journaling is great, because you can process your day, save your memories, learn to appreciate daily life better by writing it down and it stimulates your emotional awareness. Don't only journal what you did, but also why and how it made you feel. Don't write like someone can read it, spit everything out, put your heart in words.

8. Emotional awareness

 End (or begin) your daily journal with: How am I doing? (or pray: Jesus, how am I doing?) Try to put your feelings in words and try to find the cause of your feelings. Feelings always have a cause. They either come from someone else (if you're a feeler or a burden bearer you can adopt a feeling of someone else as your own) or from yourself. If you have a bad feeling, you can trace it back to: when did it start? What were my thoughts in that moment? What am I really longing for right now? (shows the need/void in your heart that needs to be filled).

9. Break out of your box once in a while.

Do something crazy. Something you would never do, something which you’re afraid of (taking risks makes you feel alive) or something you haven’t done in a while but you love to do. Get out of your normal daily life and go out! There are a lot of fun stuff you can do, just take a day or a weekend to have fun! Go out of your house, out of your town, meet some friends, treat yourself on something etc.

10.  Don’t worry, be childlike

Worrying is a joy-killer. You can’t enjoy while worrying. Kids don’t worry, that’s why they can enjoy life so easily. Kids don’t care what others think about them, are not worried about their reputation. Kids are not thinking about tomorrow, because they live today. They can enjoy, play and laugh genuinely because they trusting their parents to take care of them. If we’re trusting our Daddy-God that He takes care of us, we can be childlike! Whatever you do, wherever you are: do it 100% and be there fully. Don’t think about your next appointment, don’t let your mind wonder of to the things you still need to do when you get home. Be 100% present in every moment, and I assure you, you will get things done 100 times more effective AND you will not have the feeling to live on the auto-pilot.

11. Have mini-vacations:

Through the day, take some 5-minute breaks. When you get home after school/work, don’t immediately start cooking or rushing to your next appointment. Slow down, lay down on your bed or on the couch and just do nothing but just staring at the ceiling. Set your alarm on 5 minutes, so you don’t have to look on the clock all the time and you won’t fall asleep and miss your next appointment. This helps you to calm down, realize how your heart is doing, connect with God again and process the things that just happened. You will not notice the 5 minutes in your time, but you will notice the difference those 5 minutes of rest made. You can also do this when going to the restroom: just take a minute to calm down and connect with God.

12. Dream and make them come true

Dream (together with God)! Dream big! Write down what you want to achieve in your life, what you want to do, where you want to go, who you want to become. And take steps in making them come true. Pray about the dream, let others speak into your dreams, take practical steps to do them, start planning things. Seeing dreams come true makes your heart beat stronger.