Three Essentials to Reevaluate for a Wholehearted Existence
Practical ways to build self-confidence.
It doesn’t matter if you have all the money in the world. If you’re not content in mind, body, and what you pursue daily, you are not rich. You’re poor.
Each year I try to add to my habits to enhance three critical areas of my life. I aim to refine. Happiness isn’t something you find. It’s a choice you make and a skill you develop. We can increase contentedness through minding our thoughts and making choices that make us feel good in body and spirit. One chooses to be happy and works on those habits through repetition. Until they’re so ingrained in our lifestyle, they form our identity. It’s like building a writing muscle or a strong bicep.
You decide what is important, prioritize it, and repeat it until it’s a habit.
What you do all day makes you who you are; you’re giving value to certain decisions when you choose to exercise or when you choose to binge on a bag of Doritos.
When we reach and follow through on a promise we make to ourselves, like, I’m going to run every day this week, it adds to the belief in our abilities to achieve what we set out to accomplish — the goals we make.
When we follow through on goals, it builds our self-confidence and identity.
There are three essentials to living a whole-hearted existence that I reevaluate each year to make sure I’m pursuing what I want and devoting my resources — energy — to the things that matter most. Honoring goals I want to further gives me the confidence to reach for objectives outside my comfort zone.
- Body
- Career
- Mind
When you write, it increases your confidence in your ability to write.
When you exercise, it increases your confidence in your ability to stay healthy and strong.
When you practice mindful thinking, it increases your confidence in your ability to not overreact and stay calm.
When I devote time and energy to those important things, like writing for an hour each day, exercising for an hour each day, staying off social media, these activities boost self-confidence because they align with my values.
- I wake up smiling when my fitness is up to par, and I feel good in my clothes.
- I wake up smiling when I’m making money from my freelance writing business and blog.
- I wake up smiling when my mind is positive and not depressed from viewing news, negative images, and social media scrolling, leading to the comparison trap. I want to compare my life now to my life a year ago and measure it by that standard alone.
Body
It’s hard to feel good about yourself if you’re abusing your body, not getting the nutrition you need, and sitting at the computer all day typing (or scrolling). We all need to move our bodies. Studies consistently show that exercise boosts confidence. Allowing us to strive for more extraordinary things we think out of our reach.
According to Albert Bandura, a psychologist, “self-confidence is a general view of how likely you are to accomplish a goal, especially based on your past experience.”
Career
Making an income from what you love to do is the greatest gift of all. Even if it’s in the form of a side hustle. But remember, even your passions require work.
This past year I’ve been making money from writing and blogging. Had I given into fear, judgment, and criticism and not shared my writing publicly, I wouldn’t be earning the money I’m making now, nor would I have the confidence to try other business opportunities resulting from the last year’s efforts.
Change can take years before it happens all at once. But if you don’t start, you won’t know what you’re capable of.
Even though I love writing and some days can’t wait to hit the keyboard, there are parts of writing and the online business world I don’t like — marketing and the technical aspect of working for yourself. Technical problems are inevitable. I have to deal with that part whether I want to or not to monetize writing.
Mind
This past year has brought many challenges for everyone. Being stuck inside because we are dodging a pandemic is tough on the mind and soul. That experience allowed me to change my inner critic from negative to a more loving, compassionate one.
Sometimes, just giving yourself a break can work wonders on your mind. No one is perfect. No one can go, go, go 24/7, seven days a week.
Instead of saying, “I can’t handle this.” Or this sucks,” I told myself, “I can handle this,” and “what can I take away from this difficult time that I need to learn.”
Here are some other positive perspectives to douse a negative internal dialogue, “what a great opportunity to spend this time inside writing,” and “all the money I’m not spending this year on travel, I’ll add to my savings account for the next emergency.”
When we cut down on noise by scheduling in planned breaks from social media, TV, and Netflix, it gives more mental bandwidth to positive chatter, and more time for the things we want to do, like writing, exercising, meditating, or reading. Activities that add, instead of subtract from our energy.
If you’re starting from a place where the habits necessary to get where you want to go aren’t internalized and cemented into practice, take steps to get there.
How do you create a daily exercise routine, a writing habit, and a mindful practice of non-reaction from nothing?
Create a system.
Identity with what you want.
- To be healthier.
- To quiet the mind.
- To work on something that feeds your soul, maybe something creative like writing, painting, drawing, teaching.
If you’re having trouble establishing a habit, it may be because you don’t think of yourself as that thing yet.
Tell yourself first, “I’m a healthy eater who likes to exercise.” This may sound silly if you don’t eat vegetables and don’t exercise. That doesn’t matter; if you start today, you’re being true to your values. Go do something that breaks a sweat, and you are on your way to being healthy. Do it again tomorrow and the day after that. What you do informs who you are; it informs your habits.
If you do it for 30 days, you are well on your way to a healthy habit. Take each day as it comes. If you miss one day, don’t beat yourself up. Just get back out there the day after the missed day.
Step one
Identify with a goal first. Maybe you haven’t exercised in years and really want to but are having trouble starting the habit. Identity with wanting to be the most in-shape version of yourself that you can be. Make this the year you make your health a priority.
If you’re glued to Facebook, news, TV, streaming, identity with being a person who is in the moment and not reactive.
When we identify with a value we see in ourselves — or we want to see in ourselves — it gives our habits a more significant impact.
Your habits shape your identity, and your identity shapes your habits. — James Clear, Atomic Habits
Step two
State your goals and write them down.
Here is my list of goals.
- Write daily and make an income from my writing.
- Increase and build on my existing health and fitness. Sign up for a 5K by the end of next month.
- Schedule in another hour away from my iPhone. Replace watching the news for an hour each night with reading a book.
Step three
Develop your system or create your habit, exercise habit, mindfulness habit, and the creative habit. Your system is how often you write or exercise or meditate, when and where you write, exercise or meditate, what time of day you write, exercise or meditate, whether you take a class to get better at writing, exercising, or meditating.
These are systems. Systems are what drive your life toward what you want. For success, focus more on the system and not the goal. This is what I did for one year to establish my writing business. I worked on the system, and the results were pretty amazing. I went from making nothing to making money each month from writing from home.
You have to implement a system to win at anything, even writing, health or mindfulness.
If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead. — James Clear, Atomic Habits
Mr. Houpert in The New York Times,
Internally, true self-confidence will lead to more positivity, happiness, and resilience. Externally, high self-confidence will lead to taking more risks, which directly correlates with reaping more rewards.
When we do activities we love and accomplish the tasks that undergird those essentials, it leads to more positivity, happiness, and resilience and taking more risks, directly correlating with reaping more rewards — increasing your chances of waking with a smile.
Isn’t that the life we all want?
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering type-A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.