How to

LIVE YOUR BEST LIFE

WITHOUT EVEN
TRYING

6 steps to living your best life

with what you already have

BY JESSI NICHOLSON
Step one

Acceptance and living for today

After Thanksgiving 2023 , I started a journey of simple living and

started to watch Vera, from simple happy zen . She made a good
point , we are so busy trying to “ work on ourselves “ “, fix
ourselves” , “ better ourselves “ that we lose sight of the real
picture - who we really are now .
What if we accepted ourselves for who we are today ? Flaws and
all. I know it’s hard , I get it . I have a horrible temper and people
have tried to make me attend therapy to fix it . Needless to say, it
only helped a little. I have improved a little but that’s from being
aware of my triggers and what makes me snap and learning to
deal with it better .

We save the clothes for when we get fit , I have done it . It’s not
likely to happen and we work ourselves up into anxiety and panic
by expecting to fit those clothes but the reality is it’s probably not
going to happen .

I was in martial arts and I learned how to live in the here and now .
The instructor would ask us 3 questions
Where are we ?
What day is it ?
What time is it ?

The correct answers are

Here
Today
Now

We weren’t supposed to think about what our favorite show was

going to be about when we got home or what was for dinner . It’s a
distraction from your primary purpose and in the class it was to
learn self defense . If you were in a situation where you had to
 I think it's a matter of survival .

So How do we accept ourselves ? We also have to love ourselves.

Step 2

Self love

What is self love ? It can defined it as: Self-love, defined as "love of self" or "regard for one's own happiness
or advantage", has been conceptualized both as a basic human necessity and as a moral flaw, akin to vanity
and selfishness, synonymous with amour-propre, conceitedness, egotism, narcissism,

Whoa , That some rich stuff there ! But if you go out self love the right way you’ll go far . Have a ever heard
someone tell you that you can’t love someone else if you don’t love yourself ? It’s so true , my explanation is
we get so caught up in negativity of disliking ourselves that there is no room to love another .

Yes, people can have pretty big heads and be egotistical or arrogant . Those people are hard to be around ,
but it’s likely they have their own issues to work out . Just like a bully . I have been a bully and I have been
bullied , I tell you first hand that I didn’t love myself . It was around the time I had to repeat the first grade . It
did for attention and to confirm my identity . But it’s wrong to bully someone. I could have gone about things
much differently . I thought I was not worthy of love because I was struggling in school and repeated a grade.

Life is way too short not to love yourself and accept yourself . Self love and self care ( which is what the next
chapter is about is so important in life .

You are worthy of love no matter what you do .

When we a mistake even if it ends us up in jail . We are not worthless . We just made a bad decision . We
learn from our mistakes and we move on.

You deserve to live a happy life and I hope I can help you through what I do with my blog . I may not be able
to help you as much as a therapist would because I am not licensed as any professional . I just write from
experience . But experiencing something or reading people’s work who have been through things in life can
be a very useful tool .
 Step3
Practicing gratitude

It’s time to stop and smell the roses , slow down a little and focus on what you are grateful for all
year round .

We get so caught up in negativity , what’s going on in the news , what other people think of us
etc , we seldom think of what we are grateful for .

So here’s your assignment folks . Get a gratitude journal or a notebook ( there are even apps
for that and they are good) and every morning write down what you are grateful for .

Are you excited about something happening in your life ? Did you meet a friend who you really
like ? Only think of the positive things when you are doing this . No negativity is allowed in your
gratitude journal !

Another good practice is journaling in the morning or morning pages . Either one is fine but it’s
really good to get your thoughts and feelings out on paper but keep them private . I use an app
called daybook . I like it a lot .

Also consider journaling before you go to bed . I sometimes do a worry log . I write things I am
worried about and it is better to go to bed with that out of your head .

I suggest listening to some uplifting podcasts , my favorite is EmpowerHER . It’s a good way to
start your day.

The more motivated and uplifted you are the happier you’ll be .
 Step 4
Try to get in a routine

You have probably seen the youtube video of morning and night routines . Believe or not,
routines serve a purpose: they add structure to your morning and it’s also a good way to
incorporate healthy habits . You don’t have to have a routine for the whole day if you don’t
want but stick with me on the morning routine.

What if you tried incorporating little healthy habits when you wake up ? Here are some
ideas :

Drink some water when you first get up

Make a cup of tea
Don’t scroll social media right away

All of these little habits can help you get into a routine and live a happier life . They also set
the tone for your day.

It takes some doing to get in the habit of things , I try to develop a habit and it doesn’t last
long . There were about 2-3 weeks I had a nice routine and then it fell apart .

Being motivated to stick to a routine is hard , I get it . I don’t really have the answer to that
one . I am looking for it myself .

Your best option is to try to stick to a routine with healthy habits and see how long it lasts .
It seems to have an impact on peoples’ lives anyways , no matter how long it lasts .
 Step 5

Be gentle with yourself

This goes along with self love and self care . It’s good self care to be gentle with yourself
. Cut yourself some slack , loosen up the reigns a little , don’t be to uptight . I had to learn
this myself . That fact is

We are own harshest critics

We tell ourselves after we do something wrong or embarrassing - You're a failure , you're

never going to make it or you should have ___________ . Saying you should do
something is very self defeating and not nice to yourself . I said earlier we make poor
decisions sometimes and we learn from them and try to move on . That’s life .

I am guilty of saying this person should have done this in a really destructive manner .
When you apply it to other people , it’s almost like telling them how to act. We are human
, not robots .

The sooner you learn that other people are not perfect or robots the better . No one is
perfect . I don’t even like that word . No one has their life all together . We come with
baggage sometimes like hurt or trauma . People make assumptions before they know
your story . The fact is they don’t know your story until you tell them .

You also need to stop being a perfectionist . No one likes them . They are phonies who put too
much pressure on themselves to appear like the ideal person . You see this a lot on social
media .

Remember that I said in a previous chapter , It’s important to accept yourself for who you
are .
You're not a copy , you can’t be replaced.
 Step 6
Letting go

You know how that bully on the playground more than 15 years ago told you that you
wouldn’t amount to anything ?

I think it’s time to let go of that . It’s in the past . There’s nothing you can do about now . It
ties into the first chapter about staying in the present , in the here and now.

What is forgiveness to you ? I just googled it and part of the true meaning is an intentional
decision to let go of resentment and anger .

Thank you , Google !

It doesn’t mean to forget about what the person did to hurt you and act like it never
happened . To me , it means ;

Move on with life !

The more you sit there and ruminate about the issue the less happier you’ll be . And the title
of this e book is Living your best life without trying .

Conclusion

That my friend are the things I had to realize in order to get through this year and this life . I
was tired of being unhappy . It’s not good for you to be walking around with a cloud over
your head because you are stressed out about something . There’s science proving that
stress is bad for your body in so many ways .

I want to live a long , happy , prosperous life , and I had to change my mindset about life .
But it didn’t take me hours of endless therapy or a self help book . I am not knocking either
one . I had to be willing to make the change myself and because of that I am living a calmer
life.
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