“It feels ridiculous to say this, but I’m bored.” My friend, a busy professionally accomplished married mother of three, tearfully confessed.
She’s one of the busiest people I know. She works full time, chauffeurs her three kids to their extra curriculars, cooks homemade meals, keeps a clean house and somehow keeps all the balls in the air all the time.
I knew exactly what she meant when she confessed to her boredom. Because I’ve experienced the same thing. We, women especially, get so busy doing all the things — usually fulfilling our roles to others — that we forget to consider ourselves.
Think about it. My friend is busy. She’s an excellent employee (to her job). She’s a doting mother (to her kids). She’s a wonderful homemaker (to her husband and family).
Who is she to herself?
Sound familiar?
We’re taught that paying attention to ourselves is selfish. And most of us subscribe so wholeheartedly to that notion that we lose ourselves entirely.
Growing up, you traditionally have people who have known you for years in your orbit. So when you forget who you are, they’re there to gently (or sometimes not so gently…) remind you. But in adulthood, that changes. Those who have been around for a while are just as busy trying to keep their boats afloat to pay all that much attention to yours. And the rest…well. They’re new faces who just don’t know you the same way.
Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.
Surviving. Not thriving. But if nothing changes, nothing changes. Do you want to wake up in 20 years and regret not living more intentionally? That question really got to me when I was in the height of my survival spiral.
Don’t get me wrong. There are definitely seasons where surviving is the only goal. Where things go sideways, though, is when we identify it as our new way of life instead a season to survive.
Surviving becomes the habit. The standard. But surviving is exhausting. Think about it — you get thrown overboard a ship, and survival looks like swimming with all your might. Your only goal is to keep your head above water and make it to safety — whether that’s a life boat coming for rescue or finally reaching shore.
But when we adopt survival as our new way of life, we’re perpetually awaiting a rescue that never comes.
Friend, it’s time to rescue yourself. Here. Let me throw you a life raft.
If you’re bored with your life, do these 9 things.
Reflect | Remember who you are
Journaling is really our only opportunity to have conversations with ourselves. But as we get older (and busier) even the most dedicated journaler falls off the wagon. Our pasts don’t define us, but they do help to inform us.
Define your core values
We often rob ourselves of our own joy by agreeing to things that are incongruent with our core values. We do this without even realizing it because we’ve never sat down to truly identify what our core values actually are. We know what feels good and what doesn’t, but we never take the time to dig deeper and understand why. When we get clear on what our core values are, we’re able to make better informed decisions and implement purposeful boundaries.
Implement joyful habits
We are what we repeatedly do. But so many of us repeatedly do only what is necessary to survive. Therefore, we survive. If just barely. Habits are what we repeatedly do. So it just makes good sense to intentionally introduce a habit (or two or three) into your day-to-day that bring you joy.
Honor yourself
Much like our core values, we’re all so busy that we don’t take the time to remind ourselves who we are and what we want. It’s time to get reaquainted with the person you are so you can respect that person in all that you do.
Consider your daily choices
Ask yourself if the choices you’re making on a daily basis honor who you are, what you want and the vision you have for your life. If the answer is anything but “heck yes,” it’s time to re-evaluate. We all have obligations that can’t be avoided, but choices we can willingly make should align with who we are. But like our core values, we’re all so busy that we don’t even take the time to remind ourselves who we are in the first place.
Recalibrate priorities
I like to call these my non-negotiables. Girl, you busy. If you keep waiting for things to slow down before you prioritize yourself and the things that make you feel like yourself, you’re going to continue to be miserable. You’re allowed to prioritize anything you deem to be necessary for your well-being. If your only prioritize revolve around how everyone else needs you to show up in their lives, you’re neglecting yourself.
Figure out what makes you feel good
Make note of the things, big and small, that bring you joy. Many of us struggle to incorporate the things we like into the small pockets of time that we have because we haven’t shown ourselves enough respect to notice them. I know that reading, walking and listening to good music bring me joy. When I’m having a tough time, I know if I make space for even just one of those things, I’ll feel better.
Know what you want
How can you expect to live the life you want if you don’t even know what it could look like? If all you know is what you don’t want, that doesn’t offer you any true guidance toward what you do what.
Create the life you want
Once you have the road map to your joyful life, go and live it! Our life is made up of tiny moments — often mundane and repetitive. But if you intentionally choose what those tiny, mundane moments look and feel like — well, that my friend is a joyful life.
If all of this sounds good to you but you need things broken down step-by-step, taking all the guess work out of it; I’ve created a guide that allows you to build your very own joyful life blueprint.
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