7 Simple Steps to Living the Life YOU Love: Article
In today’s article, I want to share some simple steps to get you closer to living the life you love to live. I believe that these 7 Simple Steps to Living the Life You Love will surely push you closer to your desire to love your life. I have no reference for these steps; they are not anything that I have heard from a seminar or conference. They are simply steps that I personally live by, in order to help me in my journey to creating the life that I love to live, and I know they can help you too.
April and I originally formed what we called the 8 Simple Steps, which we talked about in episode # 50, but as I have worked hard to make this podcast my own, I have realized a few changes that could be made to this list, and the end results are now 7 Simple Steps to Living the Life You Love, as I was able to simplify it even more.
Whether you feel that you need to love your life more from a personal level, family level, or professionally, if you need help setting personal goals, family goals, business goals, religious goals, financial goals, health goals, and well, you get the picture, these steps can help you. The possibilities for these simple steps being a positive, helpful influence in every area of your life, are endless.
So, here are the 7 goals at a glance; then I break them down further in this article.
- Stop!
- Step Back or Separate Yourself
- Search Your Heart
- State Your Why
- Say NO!
- Step Forward
- Start Your Journey
As stated above, the very first step in my 7 Simple Steps is:
- Stop! Stop procrastinating. This is a chance for you to recognize the problem at hand. This is a chance for you to take a moment to just stop the madness; stop and recognize what may be contributing to what you may be experiencing. Stop lying to yourself! Stop telling yourself that you don’t need help. Stand Still and recognize the situation for what it is. If necessary Seek Silence for yourself. Take time to pray and meditate. Identify what it is that is holding you back from loving your life. What is it that is hurting you and keeping you from moving toward the life you love? Stop moving forward in the direction of destruction. Stop moving toward that thing that keeps holding you back.
You may not be able to immediately identify or know what needs to change or what’s holding you back, and that’s ok. You just sense that there’s something not quite right, and you need to figure out what that is. In order to do this, you need to STOP where you are, reflect and then begin to calculate your next move.
After you STOP and assess the situation, you need to;
- Step Back or Separate Yourself and your emotions from the situation. This is a chance for us to take a look at and recognize from a distance what’s going on around us. This allows us to see things more clearly. It’s usually the ones who are on the outside of our situation who have the best view. What would we see if we were having an out-of-body experience? This allows us to see things more clearly and to think more logically. Sometimes we have to move backward in order to move forward. I’ve heard people say that to move forward, you need to step back in order to get better traction. Take a few deep breaths while you step back. Stepping back also gets us away from the situation or madness and allows us time to ourselves – time to breathe. It allows us to gather our thoughts. And, if you are you an overthinker like me, stepping back allows us to see or put things into perspective.
After you Stop and Step Back, you need to:
- Search your heart: What is it that you feel, and why do you think you are feeling what you feel? What is it that YOU want? What is YOUR biggest heart’s desire? What breaks YOUR heart? What do YOU want to do? If something needs to change, what is it? Is there something that you can’t stop thinking about that keeps you up at night? Be completely honest with yourself. What do you hope to gain out of these steps? What is your ultimate goal here? Like I asked before, what is your heart’s ultimate desire from the change, or what outcome do you desire from this?
Our answer to steps # 3 can easily lead us to this next step.
- State Your “Why” – Why do you want this? Why do you feel that change is needed? Is the outcome going to be for you or for someone/something else? You need to state and always remember your why. When you start to get off course or feel like you’re not making progress, this will help center you back to your goal. Your why will allow you to get back on track and stay focused.
And my personal favorite…
- Say NO! (to the things that do not line up with your why) In episode 56, Brandon and I talked about the benefits of saying no. We said that saying no actually allows you to say yes. Say no to the things that do not line up with your why. Doing this allows you to say yes to everything that does line up with your why. Whether we say yes or we say no, there’s always an opportunity cost involved. What we need to figure out is which opportunity cost we’re most willing to give up or live without. Are we willing to give up loving our life just so we can say yes to the things that are not beneficial to us or that do not push us in the right direction?
Here’s a great article on 49 Ways to Say No to Anyone (When You Don’t Want to be a Jerk).
- Step Forward (into the things that DO line up with your why) We have to seek and say yes to opportunities that allow us to move forward toward our goal. We will need to keep our why at the forefront of our minds at all times. We will also need to keep the word no at the forefront of our tongues at all times. Every little step we make is progress toward our goal. Progress cannot be measured. We don’t have to meet a certain milestone or criteria in order for us to progress. Progress is anything better than where we are now and anything that gets us closer to our goal. Any progress is progress no matter how small or insignificant it may feel.
Failure can also be considered progress. Winston Churchill said, “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”
And, last but certainly not least…
- Start Your Journey to living the life you love; to creating the life YOU love to live. Ephesians 5:15-16, “Be careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but wise, making the most of every opportunity…”
I said it before, and I will say it again and again. My desire here is for you to love your life! I believe wholeheartedly that we were not meant to live a life of anguish or misery. I believe that God desires for us to live our life in full: full of love, hope, grace, intention, laughter, and freedom – freedom like we’ve never known or experienced before, and I hope that I am able to push you in that direction in every episode and Life Article that I release.
And, one more thing, if you have enjoyed what you have read here and have found value in it, please consider sharing it on social media and with someone you know who would also find it useful and beneficial. Also, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to leave me a comment below and let me know how this article or podcast has helped you create the life you love to live.
