are you self-sabotaging your own joy? steps to live a truly fulfilled life
What if the blocker stopping you from leading a joyful life wasn’t your bank balance or career frustrations, but just you? What would a joyful life look like to you? Maybe the list might include securing your dream job, having an idyllic holiday somewhere far - Santorini, Mykonos, Malvides or Bora Bora, or even owning a pack of impossibly cute puppies that magically clear up after themselves. Ideally all these, correct?
Of course, while many of us enjoy indulging such fantasies, in reality we know that for the most part, such dreams are just that. And so rather than working towards a joyful life, we end up dismissing the concept entirely as an unrealistic goal.
Actually many of us have the definition of ‘joy’ wrong. The famous psychologist Plutchik discovered eight basic emotions that we are born with and have hard-wired into our brain, one of which is joy. Understanding it’s already inside us redefines it as something that is not beyond our reach. The key factor with joy, compared to happiness, is a sense of peace, contentment, and bliss but it has to come from within. Joy doesn’t travel towards us, we have to travel towards joy.
Realising that joy isn’t about material things is a game-changer. By knowing that joy is a state of mind that happens when you are connected with yourself and the people and world around you really does put you in control.
Joy is tied to purpose.
Giving yourself the permission to feel joy is also essential because we all can be our own worst enemies with self-criticism and self-doubt. And these traits can actively stand in the way of our own joy whether we realise we’re doing it or not. This boils down to a brutal realisation: “lots of people believe they don’t deserve joy,” explains psychologist S. Reading. “Our minds can be so stuck on the to-do list or a plethora of other worries that we easily fritter joy away and berate ourselves for pausing from productivity.”
Joy is within our control - we just need to stop self-sabotaging. Steps to open yourself up to joy.
FIND JOY IN SMALL THINGS
DIARISE JOY
TREAT YOURSELF LIKE YOUR BFF
AWAKEN THE SENSES
CREATE A SELF-CARE CHART
EMBRACE GRATITUDE
