The Art Of Making It Count: 10 Simple Ways To Live A Meaningful Life
Bishesh Shrestha | Unsplash Time moves differently when you’re stuck. Days bleed into weeks, months disappear like smoke, and you look up one day, wondering where it all went. I learned that feeling isn’t actually about time. It’s when I’m disconnected. I’m disconnected from myself, from doing the things worth doing, and from the present moment.
The good news is that you can reconnect today to a life full of meaning. And you can do this by taking small, immediate steps that pull you back into the driver’s seat. Here are ten things you can do right now to make life count.
Here are 10 simple ways to live a meaningful life:
1. Instead of overhauling your life, make one meaningful change
Pick one area of your life that matters most right now. Health, creativity, relationships, money, adventure, wherever you feel the strongest pull. Then choose one tiny habit that would create momentum in that area. Note, this isn’t about setting a goal or vision. Just a habit.
This might be five minutes of writing fiction each day. Or doing thirty push-ups. or making one phone call to someone who matters. Do the habit today. Habits are how you reclaim agency, and they help you achieve great things, too, almost without trying.
When you commit to something and follow through, you’re anchored in the present, feeling the ripple of each day as it happens. Time stops being a blur when you’re deliberately shaping it with your choices, one small action at a time.
2. Book something — anything!
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A weekend away, a concert, a hiking trail you’ve never visited. And keep your calendar filled with things to look forward to, or things that might make you nervous, but that ultimately stretch you.
People say a good life is one with an empty calendar, but I believe a great life has an active and exciting calendar, even if you go long periods without anything booked. When you have something on the calendar that excites you, time stops feeling like a relentless march towards oblivion.
A 2010 study found that people with a vacation on the calendar were significantly happier than those without one. This is because anticipating positive events activates the brain's reward centers and releases dopamine before the experience even happens. You start noticing the days counting down, feeling the approach of something alive. Suddenly, you’re present because you have a reason to be.
3. Give your brain a mental sweep
Grab a notebook and set a timer for ten minutes. Write everything that comes to mind without stopping. You’re not in editing mode, just pure letting go mode. This is a brain flush. You’re clearing out the mental clutter that’s been keeping you foggy and stuck.
When you get the noise out of your head and onto paper, you drop into your body and the present moment. Time slows because you’re no longer drowning in unprocessed thought. You’re here, awake, feeling what’s actually real.
4. Do something that terrifies you a little
What’s something you’ve been considering that would make your stomach tighten a little? Do it today. Send the message. Post that thing. Ask for what you want.
Stop waiting for permission. I just gave it to you. And so did you. The fear is a compass pointing towards aliveness. When you lean into something that makes you nervous, your senses sharpen, and everything becomes vivid.
While 41 percent of participants in one study reported feeling fear during their "stretch" activities, 70 percent described an accompanying surge of courage. When you push through that initial discomfort, your brain rewards you with a hit of dopamine, reinforcing the sense that you're capable of more than you thought.
5. Connect with someone you’ve been putting off
You know who I’m talking about: That friend, family member, potential client, or colleague you’ve been meaning to reach out to but haven’t because it feels awkward or you don’t know what to say.
Stop being a goober, and do it. Message them today. It might make you feel exposed, but that’s because rewards follow vulnerability on the things that matter. When you’re genuinely connecting with someone, time feels rich and full again.
6. Go on a walk without your phone
Leave the dang device at home (or turn it off). This is just you, your body, and whatever surroundings you find yourself in. Long walks still the mind and reconnect you with the physical world. They help you solve problems you didn’t even know you had.
And it’s an adventure. You’re a swashbuckler in your own city. On walks, time stretches out because you’re experiencing reality directly instead of through a screen. And, if you can’t walk today, or you want an alternative, meditate. Full, aware mindfulness allows you to witness time passing in its most pure form. The practice will flood into all areas of your life, slowing time with it.
A Stanford University study found that walking boosts creative output by 60 percent compared to sitting, with the overwhelming majority of people generating more good ideas while moving their bodies. The researchers discovered that the act of walking itself was what unlocked this free flow of thinking.
7. Finish the thing you started
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What is it? And what’s the first step? Momentum doesn’t come from motivation. Motivation comes from momentum, which always starts with an easy step.
The moment you take that first action, you break the spell of passivity. You’re no longer a spectator watching life happen elsewhere, and that strength is contagious.
8. Delete one major distraction from your life
Instagram, News apps, Candy Crush. Get intimate with what these things are really costing you, and then be bold: get rid of them. Your attention is being stolen daily, and with it, your sense of time passing meaningfully. Reclaim it.
When University of Bath researchers asked participants to take just one week off social media, many reclaimed nine hours and reported feeling more present, less anxious, and more satisfied with their lives.
9. Write down three visions for your life
Write down three ‘I am someone who…’ statements written in the present tense. Write them in the morning and again at night. Read over them and feel the emotion of their meaning.
Let them sink in. Return to the statements the next day. Then, and you know what I’ll say: start taking action towards each vision. This is how you start living towards something rather than drifting.
10. Commit to one act of creation
Write something. Draw something. Build something. Invent your own appalling dance move. Cook something from scratch. Creation is the antidote to the feeling that life is happening to you. You’re either reacting or you’re creating.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who pioneered the science of "flow," first noticed this phenomenon while observing artists and discovered that the act of creating seemed more important than the finished work itself. During flow, people experience complete absorption in what they're doing, a merging of action and awareness, and a transformation in their sense of time.
When you make something, you become an active participant in existence again. The act of creating demands your full presence. You lose yourself in the work, and paradoxically, that’s when you find yourself most alive.
Alex Mathers is a writer and coach who helps you build a money-making personal brand with your knowledge and skills while staying mentally resilient. He's the author of the Mastery Den newsletter, which helps people triple their productivity.
