Feeling like your life is a little lack-luster? Sometimes the day to day routine gets old—wake up, go to work, come home, go to bed. Feels a little monotonous and slightly depressing. If you are ready to jump back into life full-throttle, though, buckle your seatbelts and try one of these 6 ways to reclaim your passion for life.
1. Volunteer
Reaching outside of yourself is one way to immediately feel more satisfaction in your life. Whether you join a group like Habitat for Humanity, help out at the animal shelter, or spend time reading to the folks at your local nursing home, helping others will help you. Part of the reason we sometimes lose passion is because we are so focused on ourselves—my schedule, my finances, my job.
After a while, there isn’t much to keep us interested. Service provides a constantly changing and evolving atmosphere that you can contribute to. What’s even better is that there are thousands of different service opportunities just outside your door, so you can find exactly what speaks to you.
2. Travel
Traveling opens your eyes to new worlds, new people, and new traditions. Reinvigorate your life with newness—a constant routine, while healthy, can be grating after a while. Being exposed to new ways of life can encourage you to make changes in your own routine or to be thankful for the comfort of your ways! You don’t need to travel around the world for this experience (although, who would mind that?)—hop over to a neighboring state for a weekend adventure. Just get out into the world and let yourself be inspired by other people’s passion.
3. Make Goals
You lose passion when you stop progressing, and you stop progressing when you stop making goals. Goal-making often gets a bad rap as being old fashioned and dated, but the idea has been around so long because it works. Setting goals give you purpose, something to work towards. Otherwise, you’re just living another day.
Make a list of things you want to accomplish—do you want to save up money for a new car? Do you want to start keeping a journal or blog? Do you want to become an avid reader? Sit down and figure out measurable steps to accomplish these desires. You can start moving closer to your dreams every day.
4. Fail
Yes, you read that correctly—FAIL. We get stuck in mediocre ruts when we are afraid to try something new, because trying something new could lead to failure. Unfortunately, this is a vicious cycle, because fear of failure will keep you from achievement, which will keep you apathetic about life. But here’s the great thing about failure—once you get over the hurdle and fail for the first time, you’re not so afraid of it anymore.
You’re not worried about people seeing you fail, because they already have. The bands of expectations (set by both yourself and others) are loosed, and you are free to make mistakes and take chances. Now, I’m not saying you should purposely invest all your money in a failing stock and lose everything—that’s stupid. But put yourself in a new situation and see what happens. It might be a failure…but it might be epic.
5. Learn
Chances are that once you graduated, all thoughts of formal schooling got thrown in the shredder with all those essays and assignments. Or maybe you never went to college, so you feel inadequate or unqualified to improve your knowledge. Just because you’re not in school, though, doesn’t mean learning should stop. The perpetual student is a contributor to society. Read a non-fiction book. Learn a new skill, whether work-related or not.
Go to workshops offered by a community center or business. Take a free online course on a topic you’ve always wanted to know more about. Maybe even enroll in school to gain the skillset to move ahead in work. Learning environments give you the opportunity to find a new hobby or passion. You can then use this to contribute to the community, to your family, or to your friends.
6. Be Grateful
Learning to be grateful is an act that happy people have made into a habit. Start keeping a list of at least one thing every day that you are thankful for. By keeping a visual list, you might be surprised by how many small things can make such a big difference in your life, adding happiness. As you become grateful, you become aware of the good things in life, and the troubles move to the back burner. You become motivated by the good.
If you are grateful for a healthy body, you are motivated to exercise more, go rock climbing, or learn to cook healthy meals. If you are grateful for family, you are motivated to spend more time with them, call more often, or write a quick note to a loved one. Just being grateful fills your life with meaningful activities that were missing before.
Whether you are now going to sign up for volunteer shifts at the nursing home or take a risk at that job interview, you are on your way to re-engaging and recommitting to a fulfilling life. Enjoy the ride.
