Love Your Life: The Best Ways to Drag Yourself Out of That Rut

It’s so easy to fall into a rut in life, and it can sometimes feel like all we do is work, sleep and repeat. While our jobs are important, we should work to live, not live to work. To be happy and satisfied in life, we need to find meaning. Do things we enjoy and that we personally find worthwhile. If you’re feeling down on yourself and want to change things in life but don’t know how, here are a few ideas to get you started.

Think About Your Health

Health really is everything. We only get one body, and need to look after it to allow us to thrive and live a long and healthy life. If you’re feeling tired, sluggish and unwell, it could be a result of poor lifestyle choices. Be honest with yourself, how often do you really get your five a day? Do you drink enough water, get enough sleep or exercise regularly? Do you have dangerous vices like drugs, alcohol and smoking? Life might let you get away with these kinds of things for a while, but they will always catch up on you and can have severe consequences. Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, many types of cancers and much more can all be avoided in many cases just by looking after your body. You don’t have to give up everything that you love, it’s all about moderation. A good trick for most people is to follow an 80/20 plan where you eat healthily eighty percent of the time, and then the remaining twenty you could have something that you fancy. Whether it be a takeaway or meal at a restaurant or a dessert after dinner. Rethink your weekly recipes and modify them to include more fruits and vegetables. For example, fresh and dried fruit with nuts on your cereal with a glass of orange juice is an easy way to get two of your five a day in. Switch regular potatoes with sweet potatoes, and you have another portion in. Add finely chopped veggies like mushrooms, onion, carrot, courgette and peppers to ground meat dishes such as bolognese, and chili. Once it’s all mixed together you’ll barely tell the difference but it hugely bumps up the nutritional value of the meal. Over time your nourished body will feel healthier and you’ll regain your natural energy levels back. You’ll also look your best too which will do wonders for your self esteem.

Improve Your Career Prospects

Are you happy in your job? If you’re not, this will drastically affect how happy you are in the rest of your life. Maybe you’re over or under work, or perhaps there’s no progression in the job you have. You might just feel like a change after working in the same industry for many years, or want to do a job that’s more rewarding. If so, don’t let it just be a pipedream. It’s not a simple as quitting your job and hoping for the best, instead you need to plan and prepare. How about doing a part time college or university course online in the field you want to work in, that way when you come to apply for jobs you’re in the best position possible. You could attend training days. If you want to take the leap from employee to boss, there’s plenty you can do to prepare for establishing your own business. This online course for example would teach you the skills you needed to get started, you could also start to save money and do your research. Market research, finding out what your competitors are doing and where to source things like materials and equipment will all come in useful. Preparing a change of career around a full time job can be tricky, but if you put in the work now you set yourself up for success and a much happier future.

Make Better Financial Decisions

Managing money is something that we all need to master in our adult lives. Regardless of whether you earn a little or a lot, a budget is essential for everyone. Whether it’s to make sure your limited funds get you through the month or whether it’s to stop you wasting money so you can save it or spend it more wisely, it’s a worthwhile thing to do. Money can cause a significant amount of stress, particularly if you’re struggling constantly with it. But making cutbacks and being frugal in certain areas can quickly become habit if you stick with it. It can actually be fun, and having more income leftover each month is a fantastic reward. If your income is larger, perhaps you could start looking at ways to save and invest your money to make the most of it. If you’re in debt, you could come up with a plan to get it paid off and give yourself financial freedom. You could even kill two birds with one stone with health and finance. For example if you quit smoking or drinking you could save this money and treat yourself to a vacation, home improvement, new car or whatever else it is you want or need. Whatever your situation is, chances are there are changes you can make to your spending habits that can make your life better.

Socialise More

As humans, we’re social creatures. Even the most introverted or seemingly antisocial person ever craves human interaction, it’s in our nature. Life is better with the people we love in it, but busy lifestyles can mean we don’t see people as much as we’d like. If you want to improve your life, make the time to see your loved ones more. Having other people around can encourage us to do or try new things that we wouldn’t have thought to do (or had the confidence to do) by ourselves. It can give a new perspective on our problems when we talk it through with those we care about, and helps us to feel happier and more secure in life.