It’s Time For Something New
Let’s get excited.
Yes, we are creatures of habit. Yes, good habits can lead to incremental wins on the way to achieving your big goals. There’s a place for habits, but, our habits aren’t always helpful in determining how we behave, they can easily get boring and redundant. As much as I love a good morning routine, what helps me get out of bed to actually get going with my day is the anticipation of experiencing someone exciting in that day. Contrary to popular belief, it is actually possible to create the right conditions that help us act how we want to.
Excitement has been defined as physiological arousal. Think about how you feel when you see good eye candy or that somebody that you’ve been eyeing. Your entire body experiences an awakening that’s not typical. When you get a new job, you aren't dragging your feet on the first day, dreading your entire existence. Even if it's not a job that's exciting for you, the anticipation of experiencing a new role and being a different environment is what your mind is fixated on. When you got that new car, your first thought wasn’t worrying about the bills, most likely you were thinking about who you would show first, whipping around the streets, what music you'll play, and all the places you would go.
Even though everything else is the same, exciting life events suddenly inject a fresh zeal to do what you were doing before, and once that experience no longer feels fresh or new it becomes an ordinary part of our life (read: habit).
Make things happen.
Your life is what you make of it. Life doesn't just happen to us, we make life happen. If you live everyday with the expectation to feel exactly the same, then I'm not speaking to you. But if you are anything like me, you want to wake up everyday feeling excited about what’s to come.
There’s something new in everyday. You just need to find it or create it. In fact, on the topic of habits, it’s the newness we experience that sparks the creativity and motivation we need to create healthy habits and engage in them consistently. That creativity enables you to shift your focus from the boredom of mundane tasks to creating a sense novelty to everyday life activities.
Romanticize your life.
Music
Evoke emotions and memories that you can connect to different experiences.
Curating unique playlists for different moods and activities is a great life hack. It allows you to evoke certain emotions that may not naturally flow while in silence. It also makes you feel like the main character cuz it'll feel like you have a literal soundtrack to your life, like it's a movie.
Food
Nothing beats that first bite feeling.
I recently did a three-day fast, and tbh, the fasting part wasn’t all that bad after the first day. But, by the second day I realized how boring life is without food. I’m so sorry, but eating really is an experience. It’s something to look forward to. I usually wind down after a long day with a good plate of food and some YT videos or at least some scrolling, but the night of the first day of my fast I literally plugged my phone in across the room. What’s the point when there’s nothing to munch on?
Pleasurable Things
Money can't buy you happiness, but it sure can buy a little excitement!
Who are we kidding, we all love nice things. Nice things elevate our experience of life. They give us something to fixate on and appreciate, even if for a short-while. It's called retail therapy because it literally shifts our focus from sad things to happy things. It's as simple as that!
Challenges
They make your life more colourful!
Problem solving keeps us on our toes. Problems present us with an opportunity to overcome something unexpected and the end result of that is a feeling of accomplishment. Even though the experience in itself is not pleasurable, it sure is different and gets our blood pumping. Challenges, when met with a strong willed spirit, strengthen our resolve to keep pushing beyond the present moment. They thicken the plot and give you a story to tell!
Learning
Open up a new dimension of possibilities.
Learning can be so exciting! You get to know about things you never knew before and you gain a new perspective on life and on what is possible. This is why I love learning about Jesus, there's so much to Him that I can find in myself which opens up my mind beyond the limitations I may have placed on myself. It gives me hope that my present (when not ideal) won't last forever if I don't want it to. New knowledge empowers us to keep striving for a better future because there is more to life than the now!
Love
Experience a new depth of relationship.
Something about love, especially with the people we feel it the deepest with, makes it feel like you are experiencing a new part of them. Love changes everything! The way you feel, the way you think. Love is literally so energizing, like electricity running through your veins. It infuses a longing for more out of life. Love feels brand new every time. That’s why you need to romanticize your life!
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