Pallavi Gupta What is Life Satisfaction and How Can You Improve It?
Life satisfaction is our assessment of life and how pleased we are with how it is going . While it’s completely unrealistic to expect oneself to be happy all the time, life satisfaction can be improved.
Unlike happiness, which is fleeting, life satisfaction can last much longer.
Here are 10 things you can do to improve your life satisfaction.
1. Open Yourself to New Experiences
People who are open to new experiences in life are excited about their future.
They are willing to explore new ideas. They want to meet new people, form a relationship with them. Learning new things and activities, trying out a new lifestyle come easy to them.
This openness helps them fulfil their physical and psychological needs and motivates them to lead a vital life. A life full of energy and personal development makes living satisfying.
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
2. Give Your 100%
Many of us start a new project and fizzle out in between.
More often than not, it’s because of our fear of not reaching that unrealistic goal or because we got distracted by another much more lucrative goal halfway.
Jumping from one target to another may give a rush of good feeling for the moment. However, not finishing what you started is a recipe for a dissatisfied life.
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” ― Confucius
Ergo, it’s imperative to set realistic goals which are just difficult enough to achieve but are not impossible. Even the speed with which you move to pursue your goal doesn’t matter as long as you make consistent progress. This attitude to give 100% in your task or goal makes you more engaged, focussed and absorbed in the process rather than worrying about the end-goal and its realisation. Being in the moment but moving forward in your life, at your own pace, could significantly increase your life satisfaction.
3. Have A Romantic Partner
A few human yearnings could only be quenched with an intimate partner who understands us and is there for us when we need them. It comes from the deepest place in our hearts. It’s only human to connect with another human being at all levels. When love and lust meet commitment, consistency, and consideration, we feel stable and calm, which, in turn, leads us to focus on other essential things in life.
Research over the years has suggested that being in a happy marriage or a long-term romantic relationship with a partner improves the longevity and the feeling of well-being of those involved in the relationship.
Choosing a partner who has similar values as yours and supporting each other on the course of life could improve life satisfaction.
4. Follow A Purpose
The purpose is a state of being. You can follow your purpose by being not by reaching it. People who wake up in the morning intending to fulfil a need beyond themselves are more satisfied in life.
Identify your values and make an effort to express them in the life you want to lead so that you can contribute to your well-being and the growth of others. A purpose as simple as “making someone’s life brighter each day” could be enough to guide you through your life. It is as big or small as you want it to be.
When you know what you have to be, you invest a directed effort in being that. That feeling of knowing yourself and why you exist can make you go on for long, on a life full of satisfaction.
5. Be Positive
Cultivating a positive outlook is crucial to lead a satisfying life. It’s almost ridiculous to think that you could lead a satisfying life with a negative view towards it. Pessimism hinders your vitality. It makes you stop and over-analyse things which paralyse you.
A satisfied life moves forward. Positive thoughts are the fuel that makes you walk the road ahead. With negativity, you become stagnant. With hope and positive visualisation, you get the willingness to try and see what lies ahead for you in the future.
6. Stay in Touch with Friends & Family
The craving for a sense of belongingness is universal to all human beings. With our lives getting busier, days may pass without connecting with our friends and family at a deeper level. We complain that no one cares about us; we don’t feel open enough to reveal our trials and tribulations to the people we want us to take care of and love us. As the gap widens, it becomes more and more challenging to open up and show our lives beyond Facebook posts, Whatsapp Display photos and superficial greetings and messages.
The willingness to show your authentic self to your friends and family can only come when we spend enough time with them. By being genuinely interested in their lives and letting them enter ours, we open up a door in one another’s hearts through which we come together. That’s when we get the sense of belongingness and live a life full of satisfaction.
7. Maintain Good Health
As long as we live, we are bound to face physical and mental health challenges. That’s a given. To expect that we would go through life unhurt or unfazed is unrealistic. That said, taking care of our health and maintaining it should be our priority. All that could be done to feel energetic enough to pursue daily chores, hobbies and work, should be sought. All that could be done to feel less anxious, more open and positive, should be aimed for.
Moderation is the key here. Eat good food, drink that wine, but in moderation. Watch your weight. Work but don’t burn out. Exercise, even thirty minutes a day, is acceptable. Walk where you can. Choose not to smoke or indulge in recreational drugs. Try stress-reducing exercises. Learn to meditate and give yourself a break. These things would be under our control if we wanted to.
You don’t need to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger to enjoy physical health. You don’t have to become a Buddhist monk to enjoy mental health. Aim for what is good enough for you, not what is perfect or ideal.
Good health helps you explore and engage with this life more, thus, promoting your life satisfaction.
8. Save More, Spend Less
We would like to believe that earning or having more money would make us satisfied. While this may be true to some extent, chasing wealth to one-up our colleagues, friends and family, is a sure shot way to spiral deep down in a pit of restlessness, emptiness and misery.
Being aware of your needs and desires is the first way to set the right expectations for money management. Taking care of needs fully, which make you feel secure, a good financial situation can improve your well-being by leaps and bound.
Saving extra money for future needs would make you feel safe. It would also give you a buffer against the uncertainties of life, such as getting fired from the job, an unexpected health concern or losing the family’s breadwinner.
This feeling that you are better prepared, financially, to take care of your needs and your loved ones gives immense satisfaction to lead a life with lesser concerns and more excitement.
“He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.” — Socrates
9. Believe in Oneness
Our beliefs can have a massive impact on our well-being. An idea of oneness has come to the forefront in one of the major components of the lives of those who experience greater life satisfaction.
Believing that we all are a part of this universe and are interconnected with one another is the mainstay of the idea of oneness.
Isolating ourselves, looking for ways to differ from one another and not how we are similar, erects a wall around us that separate us from others, thus leaving us feeling unsafe, alone and anxious.
When we believe that all the inhabitants of this universe — living or non-living — are connected, we work together for the common welfare and develop more empathy for one another.
“If we can cultivate a concern for others, keeping in mind the oneness of humanity, we can build a more compassionate world.” — Dalai Lama
This feeling of being there for one another, even when life gets tough, can increase your life satisfaction.
10. Find A Work You Love
Our job is an indispensable part of our lives. It’s the job that helps us build our identity, earn some money to take care of needs, meet new people and interact with the world beyond our home; it also covers the significant hours of life.
Finding a job that you love could be challenging. It doesn’t come that easy to all of us. That leads to many unfulfilled dreams, longing for passions unlived, stress and identity that we don’t want to associate with. Job dissatisfaction can very easily spill over other aspects of our life and leave us dissatisfied.
When we find a job opportunity that fits with our personality, provides an environment where we flourish and exposes us to challenges that utilise our strengths, we feel satisfied. Contentment with a job can improve our life satisfaction.
“Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness.” — Bertrand Russel
