The Art Of Being Unbothered: 7 Easy Ways To Be A Joyful Person
Oksana Krasiuk | Canva Finding what will give you control over your life can be a challenge. However tough it is to gain control, it is always a good time to start living an unbothered life.
Most of the time, we occupy ourselves doing what we think is the best idea. But our hearts know we are only following someone else's script. We’ve been told how we’re supposed to live, so we don’t stop to think about what we really want. Following everyone else's path is such a bother. There has to be a better way to find joy.
Here are 7 easy ways to be a joyful person:
1. Transform your inner chaos into calm
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Your first step involves overcoming overwhelm, zapping stress, and creating a calm mind so you can stop the unceasing chatter going on in your head that's cluttering up your thinking. To do this, you must learn to prioritize simple self-care.
Get started by utilizing mindfulness techniques to retrain your brain to think more positively and create space for you to think. A study of mindfulness-based stress reduction showed physical and mental health benefits across a broad spectrum of people. This is the best way to jump off the hamster wheel you've been on (and stay off). Here are a few mindfulness exercises to get you started:
- Practice gratitude every day by writing down at least 3 things that you're grateful for (no repeats!). This will change your thinking over time because you'll be actively looking for things to be grateful for.
- Use affirmations to help change your thoughts and overcome your fears. For these to work best, be sure you're specific and realistic.
- Meditate for 10-12 minutes at least 5 times per week.
The best part about this step is how simple it is. Self-care and mindfulness can be easily integrated into your daily routine without taking up a lot of time. Yet, they will start to transform your high-stress, soul-sucking lifestyle into one that's calm and relaxed.
2. Clarify what you want and why you want it
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Now that your mind isn't so chaotic and you've got space to think, you'll be amazed at how much easier it is to get clarity around what you want and how you want to get there. Much of your problem revolves around not giving your mind enough space to think through problems and issues. When you're overwhelmed and stressed, so is your mind (and it's not able to function properly).
"Step back in time and recall the instances when you felt happy, proud of yourself, or confident," suggested life coach María Tomás-Keegan. "Be as specific as you can when remembering dates, places, people, and circumstances. Think about what you cared about most at that time, and write about that."
3. Stay true to your core personal values
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Your core personal values are your guide to making decisions for yourself, your career, and your family that you'll feel good about. Honoring your values in how you live your life (through your choices and behavior) is the foundation of trusting yourself, building self-confidence, and no longer second-guessing your decisions. This is why you must identify your core personal values and define exactly what they mean to you.
Once you define them, you must live them. That means using them as a compass for how you make decisions for your life, setting values-based goals, and living your life in a way that honors your values and doesn't conflict with them.
Tomás-Keegan continued, "Remember, you're thinking about what you care about most today and moving forward — not what might have been influential in the past. If trust is one of your overriding values. Ask yourself why each value is essential."
4. Identify your strengths and the ways you enjoy putting them to work
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Once you've discovered your core values, take time to define your inherent strengths and identify how they give you joy. Please note I'm not talking about skills here but about the unique gifts and strengths that make you who you are. For example:
- Are you a natural leader (like my son, Noah)?
- Do you readily see patterns no one else does or devise simple solutions out of what seems complex to everyone else (as I do)?
- What are your inherent strengths, and how do you like to use them?
For clues, look at what others say about you. What internal strengths are you naturally good at that people come to you for? Trust me, you have them.
Be sure to keep in mind how you enjoy using your strengths and gifts. You want to use them in a way that has you jumping out of bed in the morning, ready to go, instead of hitting snooze five times before dragging yourself out of bed.
5. Create a vision for the life you want
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Once you know your values and your strengths, create your vision for your life and how you want to live. This is your road map forward for where you want to go, what you want to achieve, and how you want to live your life. And it's what helps you to determine what success means to you, from the inside out.
When creating your vision, think about how you can leverage your values and your strengths to make a bigger impact on the work you do and in people's lives. Also, consider what will help you feel passionate about and energized by your life. Finally, think about what you want people to remember you for. What legacy do you want to leave, and how would you like to achieve that in how you live your life, even in the small and simple things?
6. Develop a success mindset
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A success mindset is willing to fail, prioritizes learning and growth, and is rooted in mental resilience and self-confidence. This is what allows you to start living your life according to your vision. It gives you the courage to move forward despite your fears.
That doesn't make you fearless — that's not truly possible. But it is possible to develop enough faith and self-confidence in yourself so that you're willing to take calculated risks and move forward despite being afraid. The question becomes, how do you do this? You do it by:
- Implementing mindfulness techniques aimed at boosting self-confidence (which you've already started to do in the first above).
- Honoring your core values in your decision-making (this gives you more self-confidence and courage).
- Accepting that you're not always going to feel comfortable and that failure is okay, so you can adopt a growth-oriented mindset. You can utilize self-affirmations that are oriented toward this to help you.
- Uncovering and challenging hidden beliefs and assumptions that fuel your fears and create self-doubt. This takes time, and a willingness to be vulnerable, and often is best done with a partner such as a coach (and sometimes even a therapist).
Cultivating the right mindset will help you to powerfully stand up for yourself, say “no” without guilt, and achieve your full potential by embracing your strengths, your values, and your voice.
Couples counselor Miki Anderson recommended establishing routines: "Routines promote consistency in your actions and behaviors to make good habits and break bad ones easier. Knowing what to expect in your day can reduce anxiety and stress because it provides a sense of control and predictability."
7. Make a long-term commitment to yourself
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This step is about utilizing effective strategies to maintain focus, be as productive as possible, and power up your mental presence so that your mind doesn't wander. This is where you choose to take your first (and then next) step. And it's where you choose to go even deeper into utilizing mindfulness for stronger communication, relationship, and leadership skills. Research on mindfulness and leadership found a correlation between mindfulness, shifting your perspective, and better life/work satisfaction.
Finally, it's where you decide what productivity strategies truly work for you (not all will) and how you want to incorporate them into your life now that you've simplified it greatly. This step is about making a commitment to yourself for the long term by doing what's necessary to continue along the path you've chosen.
Heather Moulder is a career and life coach and the founder of Course Correction Coaching. She specializes in helping professional women have both a successful career and a happy home life with real work-life balance.
