Lost Your Zest For Life? Try This

When you were a child, everything in life felt brand new and exuberant. You approached each day like it was an opportunity to be enjoyed, full of wonders and new things to explore.

Then something changed. For whatever reason, life became less enjoyable than in the past. You started groaning when you woke up in the morning, dreading emails from your boss, arguments with your partner, or conversations with your family.

Over time, this became a habit. Life stopped being an indulgence and became a burden.

Losing your zest for life is a common affliction in the modern world. However, you’re not powerless against it. Here are some of the things that you can do to totally change your experience.

Keep Things Simple

Perhaps the biggest reason that people lose their zest for life is that they forget to keep things simple. We imagine that our lives should be full of material possessions, travel, adventure, and intellectual pursuits because that is what the people around us enjoy.

However, that’s not how human beings lived for the vast majority of their history. For the longest time, all we did was gather food from the environment and then enjoy it around the campfire. There was little else for us to do. There were no accountants or skydivers.

Therefore, keeping things simple is a great way to release yourself from some of the burdens of life. Eliminating the need to keep up with the Joneses frees tremendous energy and fights back against the heaviness of life that many of us experience.

Rediscover the Joy Within

Practically all children go through life with a profound sense of joy. They’re excited about every little thing, and life is a whole lot of fun for them. As we get older, the way our minds perceive the world changes, and we pay more attention to problems and issues. Eventually, we get stuck in a rut and can no longer feel the same enjoyment as children at all.

The trick here, though, is to remember that joy or bliss within is always available. It’s just a matter of practice. The more we use it, the stronger the muscle becomes.

As many great spiritual teachers like to point out, all of the treasures of inner peace and calmness are always available. You’re free to live an exuberant life whenever the urge takes you, as long as you stop pretending that there is a barrier between how you feel now, and how you would like to feel in the future. Don’t let busyness, stress, and poor lifestyle choices get in the way of you and the way you’d like to feel.

Turn Your Body into a Platform for Joy

While many of us would like to have more zest for life, we are living inside bodies that make that somewhat difficult. Years of poor lifestyle choices mean that most days, we struggle to find energy.

The good news is that most people have the power to turn the situation around. Eating the right food and getting the right medicines, such as Wegovy, can return your body to how it was when you were in your early twenties, and perhaps your teen years.

Once you have a strong body, everything else soon follows. Thinking of your body as a platform for joy is a radically new perspective that most people don’t have. They focus on their weight or their looks, forgetting that a healthy body also feels better, making it easier to enjoy everything else.

Do More Things That You Love to Do

If you spend all day doing things you’d rather not be doing, it can be difficult to enjoy life to the full. Over time, you start to resent how you’re being forced to spend your time, sapping you of energy and leaving you feeling drained and incomplete.

The good news, though, is that it is ultimately a personal choice how you spend your time. Try getting rid of some of the things that deplete you and focusing on those that build you up.

Put Happiness First for a Change

Many people go through life believing that they have a cross to bear. Unless they are miserable, they feel guilty.

But life doesn’t have to be that way. Instead, you can make a decision to put happiness first and relegate everything else to second or third place. After all, the true quality of our lives relates to how we feel inside, not our jobs or how much power we have.

Kids, for instance, experience happiness without any of the trappings of adult life. Children seem to be able to extract positive emotions, even if they are unemployed, totally dependent on others, and have little to entertain themselves.

Don’t Get Stuck

Getting stuck in life in a particular situation is never enjoyable. In fact, it can bring you down tremendously. Settling is the enemy of joy.

If you’re in a dead-end job or something else in your life isn’t working, rethink how you picture yourself. Instead of describing yourself in a certain way, just live totally free. Avoid comfort and continue to explore the world. Fly the nest, so to speak, enmeshing yourself in different cultures and practices.

Learn to Embrace Discomfort

In the modern world, we do everything we can to avoid discomfort in every area of life. However, discomfort is actually essential for our well-being. We’re supposed to be challenging our limits and trying to figure out what we can do in the world.

Discomfort, for instance, could involve doing exercise or changing what we eat. It could also involve pushing ourselves at work or going inside and challenging our behaviors. Whatever it is, we need to have a sense of progress – that we’re moving forwards.

Avoid Living in Your Head

Lastly, avoid living in your head, thinking through every aspect of your life. Don’t be an observer, sitting on the outside. Instead, throw yourself into things and avoid thinking. You’ll notice that when thoughts cease, life becomes fun.