5 Simple Ways to Bring Joy Into Your Life Today
I used to live next to the small children’s playground. There were swings. I could see the playground from above without people on the playground seeing me.
I was curious to see who’d be next on that swing. Of course, many kids, big and small, and babies, who laughed with joy because they could not believe how cool this thing was.
But I also saw teenage boys coming to the swing and men. Not in a group. By themselves. I saw a woman in her thirties, and once, I saw a woman in her seventies sitting on a swing and slowly swinging.
This is something that brings memories — and often joy. I sat on that swing a few times.
We live our lives day by day, month by month and year after year. How much do you remember from the year before? From five years before? Twenty?
What defines those moments that we remember? Those usually were great things or bad things, right?
No matter where you come from and what you do, you want to feel good. It’s in human nature to want to feel good. We try all different ways to feel good. We want to feel good about ourselves and about our lives and just feel good.
What if joy can be more intentional than an accidental event? It’s possible.
Here is how
Let’s start with a few questions.
How do you know that you feel good?
Where in your body do you feel this feeling?
How would you describe this feeling other than “good”?
My literature teacher said, “Good is not a good way to describe something.”
Does it make you feel at home no matter where you are? Do you feel calm and relaxed? What is it? Maybe a good feeling for you is excitement and anticipation that something magical may just happen.
Try to pinpoint the feeling even if you can’t name it. We’ll call it JOY for now.
Camera roll
If you think that you don’t know what makes you feel good or joyful, think again. Look through your camera roll and find 5–10 photos that feel joyful to you. What happened then?
Did you stop and look at the gorgeous magnolia tree? Was it an intense blue sky or a sunset? Did you snap a photo of a band that played music you liked? Were you walking with your best friend or in the company of your friends enjoying a delicious dinner? Was it a photo from your recent trip to Santorini, Cuba or Bali? What did you feel when you took that photo, who were you with, and why did you take that particular shot? Why did it make you so joyful?
Make notes about all the events, people, and activities that brought you joy.
Trip to Dreamland
Now, we’ll take a trip back in time to when you were small, before you had any responsibilities. What did you enjoy doing? Did you like your Lego? Did you enjoy painting or drawing? Making things up? Maybe you enjoyed looking at the sky and observing how the clouds were passing by. Or the stars mesmerised you, and you wondered what was there far, far away, and you wondered that maybe someone was also looking at the sky so far away that you couldn’t see.
Take more notes. What did you like doing? How did you spend your time? You may already do what you enjoy doing now. If not, add these activities to your list.
Envy is good
Next, you’ll look at what else stirs your interest and curiosity and… triggers you.
If you search online, browse social media or pin to your Pinterest, what images attract you, and what do you look for? What do you feel a bit (or a lot) envy about what other people feel? Feeling envy is actually a good thing.
This feeling means you want it but don’t allow it to happen. Yet. Next time you feel envy, ask yourself, what do you want that another person has? Why do you think you feel envy? You may say she has this mansion in Costa Rica and lives the life of a queen. Ok, great. So you want a bigger space? Or is it that you want to take a holiday to Costa Rica?
Side note: if you want to move to another place, go live there for a month, or better, at least 3 months to decide if you want that before you start packing and selling everything and minimising to two suitcases.
You also mentioned that you envied her because she lived a life of a queen. What do you imply by that? What must happen for you to live this way, and how can you bring a bit of that into your life now? Does someone clean the place for her? You can hire a cleaner for a couple of hours, even if it’s only once a month. Or you clean and make your place so neat, tidy and organised that it becomes closer to the vision you want to live.
Or maybe you want to be surrounded by beauty. What can you change now without spending a lot of money and making your place beautiful?
All senses
The next exercise will be about all your senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.
Write down anything and everything that brings you joy when you look at it or in some way you use your sight. Then, the same goes for your hearing. What music do you like? What sounds do you like, and what do you dislike? Removing what you don’t enjoy will add to your joy.
You will also take notes of smells, taste and touch. Do you like walking barefoot on the sand and feeling the water coming towards your feet, hugging you for a moment and going back, but you know it will return for another hug?
Do you love to touch the fresh snow or feel how a ladybug strolls across your hand? The feeling when you blow off a dandelion puffball and look at how? Add all these things to your list.
A perfect regular day
Now, you’ll imagine your perfect regular day, not on a holiday but on a typical day. Say, it’s Wednesday. Where are you? What would you want to be doing on your ideal typical Wednesday? How would your day start? What would you do during the day, and where or who would that lunch be with? When do you finish work and what do you do in the evening?
How much of that ideal day do you have today? What parts of that day can you introduce? Maybe, on your ideal day, you do yoga for an hour. Start with a ten-minute morning yoga. It can be in the morning or evening — whatever you see in your typical day. Never tried yoga? Search YouTube for 10-minute morning yoga videos, and you can try a session today.
Bring the elements of your typical ideal Wednesday into your life now. You’ll feel more joy and, gradually, you’ll be living your ideal day.
So here is an overview:
Learn what joy means to you, where you feel it, and what sensations you feel.
Find 5–10 images from your camera roll that bring you joy. Note what these images are, where you are, what you did and who you were with. How did you feel when you took the photo?
Write down what you enjoyed doing when you were a kid, a teenager, at college/university, before you had your children, or when you were single.
List what triggers envy in you. What exactly? Note what you can add into your life (or remove) to bring what you want in your life — now.
Next, go through the “all senses” exercise: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. List what brings you joy when you use each of these senses.
Then look at your ideal typical Wednesday and note what you can do now to bring that into your life.
You just came up with a very comprehensive Joy List. Something that I love talking about and wrote about in my book A Tiny Book of Joy can help you with more ways to bring joy into your life.
Moving your body is a must to feel better in any way that is available to you. If it’s not on your list, please add it.
Then pick one thing you’ll do now or today before you go to bed. It must be today. It can be something very very small. Enjoy.
“The way we experience the world around us is a direct reflection of the world within us”
~ Gabrielle Bernstein
