101 Ways To Live Your Life To The Fullest

by Celes |
Self-Improvement

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“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs

How do you feel about your life today? Do you live every day in excitement? Do you look forward to tomorrow? Are you living your best life?

If your answer to any of the above is a no, not sure, or maybe, that means you’re not living your life to the fullest. Which really shouldn’t be the case as your life experience is yours to create! We all have good days and bad days, and the most important thing is to make the best out of each day, within the best of our ability.

Ultimately, we only have one life to live. While we can’t control all the bad things that happen, we can change our attitude toward them — and in the process, shape our future and create our best life yet.

In this post, I want to share 101 tips to live your best life. Don’t be overwhelmed by the tips here — use them as a guide and focus on applying just one or two tips a day! As you work on these tips, you’ll find yourself becoming more conscious and proactive in creating the life of your dreams. You’ll notice that the bad things start to faze you less and more good things seem to come your way — not because of luck, but because you took action to make them happen.

Be sure to bookmark or print out this page and refer to it daily!

I present to you, 101 ways to live your life to the fullest:

Live every day on a fresh new start. Don’t be held back by what happened yesterday, last week, last year, or even decades ago. Life is short, so live in the present moment.
Be true to who you are. Stop trying to please other people or be someone else. Be an original version of yourself rather than a duplicate of someone else.
Quit complaining. Don’t be a howling dog, always howling and never doing anything. Stop complaining about your problems and work on them instead.
Be proactive. Don’t wait for others around you to do something. Take action yourself instead.
Rather than think “what if,” think “next time.” Don’t think about the things you can’t change. Instead, focus on the things you can change. That’s the most constructive thing you can do in any situation. Read: How To Deal With Uncertainty
Focus on WHAT vs. How. Focus on WHAT you want first, then HOW to do it. Anything is possible if you set your mind, heart, and soul to it.
Create your opportunities. You can either wait for opportunities to come to you or get out there and create your own. The latter is definite and much more empowering!
Live consciously each day. Stop sleepwalking through life. Life is something to be experienced, not coasted through.
Be committed to your growth. Pick the path that will let you grow and learn. You have unlimited potential and you have the ability to evolve into someone greater than who you are right now.
Adopt a growth mindset. No matter what you think, your abilities aren’t fixed and can be improved through time and effort. This includes communication, analytical, time management, computer literacy, artistic, and even athletic skills. Expand yourself in breadth and depth:
- Breadth: Develop your skills. Learn different skills, pick up different hobbies, and study different things.
- Depth: Develop yourself further in skills you are interested in. While you can only reach level 99 in video games typically, in real life you can level up to infinity. Go for further studies if need be. Level up. Invest your >10,000 hours in each skill.
Know your inner self. Who are you? What do you represent? Be clear about your identity. Read: Finding Your Inner Self
Discover your life purpose. Set the mission statement for your life, which is your reason for being here. Read: How To Find Your Life Purpose (7-part series)
Live in alignment with your purpose. What can you do right away to live 100% in alignment with your purpose? How can you live true to your purpose within every situation you are in, every second of the day?
Discover your values. Values are the qualities that are the most important to you. Day 15 of Live a Better Life in 30 Days is on discovering your values.
Set your life commandments. Define your personal commandments to live your best life, such as “Do no harm” and “Be kind to others.” What adages and principles do you want to follow in your life? Read: 101 Life Principles To Live By Daily
Don’t put your life on hold. Are you putting any parts of your life on hold? What is an area of your life you have been putting off, avoiding, or denying? Uncover that and start working on it.
Create your life handbook. Your life handbook is your manual to live your best life. It contains your mission statement, values, goals, personal strengths, blind spots, and action plans. Start with a few basic pages, and then build on them. Read: Create Your Life Handbook
Envision your ideal life. What is your ideal life? Envision it. Firstly, assess your life via the life wheel. Then, ask yourself what it takes to live a 10/10 life. What is the life that will make you shout for joy? Then, work to achieve it! Day 2 of Live a Better Life in 30 Days is on envisioning your ideal life.
Set your goals. After you design your ideal life, set your 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year goals — your trajectory for the next 5 years of your life. Day 3 of Live a Better Life in 30 Days is on creating your life map, where you set your 1-, 3-, and 5-year goals.
Take action on your goals and dreams. Create an action plan for your goals, starting with your number one goal right now, and work on it!
Create your bucket list, which is a list of things you want to do before you die. Then, get out there to achieve them! Read: 101 Things To Do Before You Die
Don’t do things for the sake of doing them. Evaluate what you’re doing and only do it if there is meaning behind them. Don’t be afraid to quit the tasks that aren’t a match with your goals or life.
Do the things you love because life is too precious to be doing anything else. If you don’t enjoy something, then don’t do it. Spend your time and energy on things that bring you fulfillment and happiness.
Discover your passion in life. What sets you on fire? Go out there to discover what you love to do. Read: How To Know What You Want To Do In Life
Turn your passion into your career. Then, pursue it. Stop working in a job you feel passionless about. Quit your job when you are ready to pursue your passion full-time. Read: How To Pursue Your Passion (series)
Turn your passion into a huge success. Turn your passion into a thriving success. Figure out how to pursue your passion and achieve financial abundance with it. Read: Is It Realistic to Believe ‘Chase Your Passion and Money Will Follow’?
Be positive. Is the glass half empty or half full? What if I say it’s neither? It’s actually all full — the bottom half is water and the top half is air. It’s about how we perceive things. Take on perceptions that empower you, not those that bind you. If you can see the positive side of everything, you’ll be able to live a much richer life than others. Watch: How To Stay Positive All the Time [Video]
Don’t badmouth others. If there’s something you don’t like about someone, tell it to them, otherwise don’t say it at all. It’s not nice to badmouth others, and it also reflects a small mind.
Be empathetic. If everyone only sees life from their perspective, all of us will be close-minded and insular. Learn to see things from others’ perspective and understand how they feel and where they are coming from. Read: How To Be Empathetic
Be compassionate. Show compassion and kindness to everyone around you. Someone may be going through a hard day, and your compassion can make a difference to them.
Develop 100% self-belief. Believe in yourself and your abilities. Remove your limiting beliefs and replace them with empowering ones. Read: How To Be The Most Confident Person In The World (On Day 22 of Live a Better Life in 30 Days, you examine your limiting beliefs and replace them with empowering ones).
Let go of unhappy past. Are there unhappy memories that you are hanging on to? This includes past grievances, heartbreak, sadness, disappointment, and anger. It’s time to let go of them so that you can move on to a better place.
Forgive those who have done you wrong in the past. This includes backstabbers, people who took credit for your achievements, and people who have done you wrong. “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and realize it was you.” — Lewis B. Smedes
Let go of attachments. Don’t get fixated on achieving a certain status, fame, wealth, or material possessions. These are impermanent and will ultimately disappear one day when you die. Focus on growing and living life to the fullest instead.
Let go of relationships that do not serve you. That means negative people, dishonest people, people who don’t respect you, people who are overly critical, and relationships that prevent you from growing.
Spend more time with people who enable you. Hang out with people you are compatible with and people who are positive and enables your growth. You are after all the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. Day 18 of Live a Better Life in 30 Days is about evaluating your relationships and identify whether they are elevating you or pulling you down.
Build genuine, authentic connections with the people around you, including your friends, family, colleagues, business partners, customers/clients, and acquaintances. Spend time to know them better and foster stronger connections.
Connect with an old friend. Is there anyone you miss, a good friend whom you used to have good times with? Reach out to the people from your past.
Do a kind deed a day. Look around you. What is something you can do that will make the world a better place? Go and do it. Look at what your friends and family are going through, and see if there’s something you can do to help them. Look for ways to help people you don’t know, whether through volunteering, donations, or random acts of kindness.
Review your life. Set a weekly review to assess how you are doing for your goals. Review your purpose once every 6 months to know if you’re on the right path.
Stop procrastination. Procrastination is a huge waste of your time and life. Get rid of it once and for all. Read: How To Overcome Procrastination (5-part series)
30 minutes a day. Set aside at least 30 minutes a day to work on a Quadrant 2 goal that, when you achieve it, will bring about the biggest fulfillment and happiness in your life. Read: Is Your Goal Worth 30 Minutes of Your Time Every Day?
Get out there and make new friends, whether at your workplace, from meetup groups, or from friends’ friends. Read: 10 Tips To Make New Friends and Cooped Up Indoors? Get a Life with These 7 Tips
Make deeper connections. Beyond making new friends, aim to make deeper connections. How can you be a better friend to your current friends? Read: How To Have More Best Friends in Life
Be your advisor. Imagine you’re the future you from 5 years later. How would you advise yourself? Write this advice down. Now, apply them.
Write a letter to your future self. Envision what you’ll be like a year from now. What would you be doing? Where would you be? Write as much as you like. Now, seal it and put it in a safe place! Set a calendar appointment a year from now, so you’ll know to open it when it’s time. Watch: Write a Letter to Your Future Self [Video]
Declutter. Start from your computer, then proceed to your work desk, bedroom, and home. When you throw unwanted stuff away, you make room for new things and new energy to enter your life.
Create your inspirational haven. Turn your room into a place you love. Do the same for your work desk. Get rid of things that make you unproductive. Surround it with things that inspire you and trigger you into action. Read: Create Your Inspirational Room
Keep learning. There is something to learn from everything. With everything you encounter, ask yourself, “What can I learn from it?” When faced with different options, pick the path that will let you grow the most, where possible. Allow yourself to take on new challenges and grow from them.
Learn from criticism. Be receptive to criticism but don’t be affected by it. Learning from criticism will help us be a better person. Read 9 Reasons Why Criticism Is Good and Watch: 5 Tips To Deal With Negative Criticism [Video]
Learn from your mistakes. We all make mistakes — what’s most important is how we deal with them. Don’t beat yourself up. What has happened, has happened. Focus on learning from your mistakes anad apply the lessons moving forward.
Try new things. What is something you normally don’t do? Get out of your comfort zone to try something different. It can be something simple like taking a new bus route, trying a new food item, picking up a new hobby, or something bigger like studying in a different field, learning a new skill, and traveling to a new country. There are no limits (except whatever is illegal and morally wrong of course)! Day 24 of Live a Better Life in 30 Days is about expanding your comfort zone.
Get yourself out there. (a) Get out there geographically. Go out, travel, and explore the world. Set sail into the sea. Go backpacking and visit as many countries as possible. Get on a road trip and visit all the places you see during your trip. (B) Get out there situationally. Stop sticking to routines and comfort zones. Try something different. (c) Get out there in life. Stop watching TV and living vicariously through the TV characters. Go and live the life of your dreams.
Build on your strengths. Know your strengths. What are you good at? How can you build on them to become even better at what you do? How can you leverage on your strengths to perform at work and in life? Your strength can be in a specific skill or the result of having a unique stack of skills. Read: How To Build an Edge: Develop Your Talent Stack
Understand your weaknesses. It’s important to know your weaknesses so that they don’t hold you back in life. Identify your weaknesses and find ways to address them so that they doesn’t negatively impact you. Get help, have a plan, and get feedback.
Be the absolute best at what you do. Aim for number one in what you do. If you want to spend your time doing something, you might as well be the best at it!
Don’t settle. In the same vein as #56, don’t settle for less. Don’t settle for someone you don’t like as your partner. Don’t settle for a job you don’t like. Don’t settle for friends who make you feel like a lesser person. Don’t settle for a weight you are unhappy with. Go for what you really want.
Stretch yourself. What are you doing now? How can you achieve more? Set bigger goals. Explore your limits and break them.
Embrace new ideas. Don’t mentally limit yourself. Let your mind be a cultivating ground for new ideas. Read: 25 Brainstorming Techniques
Quit bad habits. Do you have any bad habits? Such as stress eating, eating junk food, nail biting, being late, or doing things last minute? Work on removing these bad habits.
Build good habits. “First we make our habits, then our habits make us.” — John Dryden. What good habits can you build that can improve your productivity, happiness, and well-being? Some examples are meditating, eating healthy, journaling, and reading positive material. Day 23 of Live a Better Life in 30 Days is about cultivating a good habit (or quitting a bad habit).
Behave as your ideal self will. All of us have an ideal vision of who we want to be. What is your ideal self like? How can you start to be your ideal self now?
Set your role models in life. With role models, you become much better than you can be by yourself. I am inspired by Oprah Winfrey (for how she has impacted millions of lives), Lady Gaga (for her talent and not being afraid to be different), Leonardo Dicaprio (for his dedication to his craft and his commitment to environmentalism), and many more. Seeing them and what they do reminds me of what I can be and what I can do, so they drive me to greater heights. Day 21 of Be a Better Me in 30 Days is on identifying your role model.
Get a mentor/coach. One of the fastest way to improve is to engage an expert to work with you on your goals. Not only will they drive you to achieve more, but they’ll also share important advice which you can use to create more success for yourself. Many of my clients approach me to coach them and they achieve significantly more progress and results than if they had worked alone. It is however important to engage the right mentor/coach — take time to understand the person’s values, philosophy, and skillsets before engaging them.
Uncover your blind spots. All of us have blind spots — the best way to uncover them is to get feedback from others (see #66). Another way to uncover them is to self-reflect and identify patterns in your life. When you work on your blind spots, you can understand yourself better and how your actions affect yourself and others. Read: Blind Spots In Personal Growth
Ask for feedback. As much as we can try to uncover our blind spots (#65), there will be blind spots that we cannot identify. Asking for feedback gives us an added perspective about ourselves. Some people to approach are our friends, family, colleagues, boss, and even acquaintances. Day 14 of the Be a Better Me in 30 Days is about getting feedback from others to uncover our blind spots.
Increase your consciousness. “Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.” — Rene Descartes. Having a high consciousness level means being able to transcend beyond fear-based reactions and make wise choices that positively impact everyone.
Earn passive income. Find ways to create passive income streams so that your income is not tied to the time you spend on work. Of course, you’ll continue to work, but because you want to and not because you have to.
Help others grow. A great way to grow is to help others grow. Support others to live their best lives. Ultimately, the world is one. We are all on this journey of life together.
Give value to others. While the capitalistic world tends to focus on how to earn the most profit and money from others, the important part is to work on giving value to others first and foremost. Think about how you can improve and uplift others’ lives, after which receiving value (earning money) will fall into place. Read: The Difference Between Profit and Value
Improve the world. Many things in the world need your help and attention. Poverty. Disaster recovery. Illiteracy. Children in need. Depleting rainforests. Animal rescue. Endangered species. Animal cruelty. How can you help to improve the world?
Spearhead a cause you are passionate about.
Be effective, then efficient. Work on doing the right things, then get better at doing them. Read Put First Things First and Get Your Big Rocks In First
Learn time management. In today’s time-starved world, it is essential to have time management skills to make the best out of your time. Find better ways of doing things, cut out the unimportant, batch tasks, and learn to use time pockets. Read: Become the Master of Your Time and 8 Habits of Highly Productive People
Learn to see the big picture. It’s important to be able to zoom out to see the big picture. Having a broad perspective of things and being able to see the link between current actions and their impact in the long-term will help you make smart decisions that will improve your life.
Be clear about your end objective. What is your end goal? Is the task you’re working on bringing you there? If not, put it aside. As long as you keep working on tasks that match your end goal, you’ll eventually reach there. Read: Keep Your End Objective In Mind
Go for the 80/20. For every goal you have, there are different paths to achieve it. Pick the strategic 80/20 path, i.e., the most effective path that will bring you to your goal with the least effort. As you embark on the 80/20 path, focus on the 80/20 actions, which are the 20% of actions that will give you the maximum results in your goal. Read: The 80/20 Rule: How To Achieve More With Less In Life (3-part series)
Live in the moment. Do you have a busy mind? Calm your mind down. Be present. The only time you’re living is in this moment. Meditation helps remove mental clutter. Read: How To Meditate in 5 Simple Steps
Relish in the little moments. Snuggling under warm covers on a rainy day. A walk by the park. The breeze on your face. A kiss with your loved one. Being with your best friend. Quiet, alone time. Watching the sun rise or set. Soak in all these little moments of life. They are what make up your life.
Take care of your health. Living your best life means taking care of your body and health. Eat healthy, be active, and have enough rest. Don’t eat junk food, don’t participate in vices, and damage your body. As Jim Rohn said, “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” Read: 45 Tips To Live a Healthier Life
Take a break. In the same vein, take breaks when needed. Resting lets you recharge and walk the longer road ahead. Read: Why We Have Slumps And How To Get Out Of Them
Love yourself. You are the one constant in your life. Remember to always treasure and love yourself. ♥ You deserve nothing less. Read: How I Began to Love My Body
Stop wanting things a certain way. While it’s important to have goals and ideals, let go of the obsession to have things done a certain way. Know when to persist to get what you want and when to let go. This will help you live a happier life. Read: How To Overcome Perfectionism (3-part series)
Create. Think about what you can bring to the world and create that.
Be open to people of different backgrounds. Don’t keep to just people in your community, or who share the same race or culture. Get to know people of different nationalities, race, culture, and religion. Open your mind and heart — you never know what you may find.
The only person you can change is yourself. Stop expecting others to behave in a certain way. Rather than demand that others around you change, focus on changing yourself. You’ll be happier and live a more fulfilling life this way. Read: What Can I Do If I Want To Change Someone?
Practice gratitude. Be grateful for everything you have today. Day 14 of Live a Better Life in 30 Days is on practicing gratitude.
Express gratitude. Let the people who have touched you know about your gratitude toward them. You’ll be surprised what a little act like this can do. If you don’t tell them, they’ll never know.
Let loose and have fun. Sing at the top of your lungs. Dance in the rain. :D Run barefoot and feel the ground underneath your feet. Hug everyone you know. Release yourself of your self-imposed shackles and be free! :D
Get into nature. Many of us live in concrete jungles. Get out of the urban city environment and soak in the beauty of nature.
You have a choice. Recognize you have a choice in how to live your life. If you are facing limitations now, identify how you can break out of them, and work toward making it happen.
Laugh more. :D Are you reading this with a straight face? Smile and have fun. :D
Embrace change. The only thing that’s constant is change. Change means growth. Rather than resist change, learn to be versatile so you can make the best out of the changes that come. In fact, become an agent of change. Read: How To Deal With Uncertainty
Be more risk inclined. Don’t be afraid to take risks. The bigger your risks, the bigger your return. Of course, this doesn’t apply to things that may result in physical or personal danger, or heavy negative downsides.
Embrace mistakes. The more mistakes you make, the more knowledgeable and experienced you become, and the higher your chance of success as you work on your goal. Make sure to identify lessons from each experience so that you apply them. (See #52)
Embrace disappointments. Many people try to avoid feeling disappointed. They develop a negative relationship with disappointment. However, disappointment is part and parcel of being human — it reflects your real emotions. Don’t resist it — instead, embrace it. Learn to channel your disappointment and turn it into positive energy. Read: How To Overcome Disappointment (4-part series)
Challenge your fears. All of us have fears. Fear of uncertainty, fear of public speaking, fear of risk… all these fears keep us in the same position and prevent us from growing. Rather than avoid your fears, recognize that they are a compass for growth. Address them and overcome them. Read: 4 Reasons We Should Overcome Fear
Improve your character. When we work on being a better person, we live a richer life. Read: 101 Ways To Be a Better Person
Maximize your mind, body, heart, and soul. Living your best life means maximizing yourself mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Mentally, keep learning. Emotionally, open your heart to different people and form positive relationships. Physically, work on being in your peak of health. Spiritually, raise your consciousness and be connected with the world. If you are great in three of the categories but neglect one area, that’s not living your life to the fullest. Maximize all four aspects of you.
Love others. Be grateful to all the people around you because they help you grow. They enrich your life experience. Without them, your life would not be the same.
Finally, Love life. I find living to be a fascinating experience. How we’re all on earth with millions of species and over 7 billion people, and everyone is thriving in their own way, existing, co-existing, and co-creating. There’s so much we don’t know out there and so much to be experienced that it’s just wonderful. As you live on earth, remember to love life. It’s the only way to live.

Introducing: Live a Better Life in 30 Days Course

If you love this post, check out Live a Better Life in 30 Days (30DLBL)! Dubbed by a past participant as “personal growth on steroids,“ 30DLBL is my intensive life transformation course to live a better life in just 30 days. It is packed with 30 high-impact tasks to be done one task per day. Read more: Live a Better Life in 30 Days

This is part of the Inspiration & Motivation series. Check out the other articles in the series:

(Images: Man on mountain, Daisies, Set goals, Person meditating, 3 Glasses, Five people, Couple, Letter, Brainstorming, Save the world, White flower, Freedom)