Do you feel like you are just floating along? Do you want to find direction in your life? Have you found that you are not enjoying the day to day? If so, here are some ways to help improve the moment through accumulating positive emotions!
One way to improve your satisfaction with life, is to use the Dialectical Behavioral (DBT) skill of "Accumulating Positive Emotions". You can work on activities for short term enjoyment, as well as creating a life worth living in the long term.
Short Term
For short term changes, you want to find things that you enjoy in the moment!! These activities can be done along with activities that you do not find enjoyable; like listening to an interesting book while you are running. They can take a few minutes; like sitting down to enjoy your coffee without any distractions before the day starts. Or they can take hours or even days! You can go for a nice hike on the weekend or go for a weekend get away. The more enjoyable activities you do, the more you will enjoy your day! There are a few key thoughts when you are doing these activities.
1. Be present in the activity! Try and only focus on what you are doing in the moment, not what you will have to do after the activity is over.
2. Focus on the enjoyment of the activity, not how much time it is taking up and what you could be doing instead, or already grieving its ending while you are still enjoying it!
Below is a list of ideas for short term activities to help create a life worth living!
Long Term
When you are looking to work on accumulating positive emotions for the long term, you have to talk about values and priorities, and making goals that align with them. Sometimes, our values and priorities get lost as we get older. Now is the perfect time to examine what your values are, and start trying to realign your life with them! For example, some people might have the value of family, but over the years have spent less and less quality time with their family. Your goal would be to spend more quality time with them! Break that goal into small, achievable goals and then work your way up.
A great goal to start off with might be eating dinner together in the dining room with the TV off. Then you can work up to bigger goals like getting home earlier, going on family vacations, and so on.
Another thing that could be stopping you from aligning with your values is avoiding getting started for whatever reason. Maybe you are afraid that you will not meet your goals and so you shouldn't even try. If you find yourself avoiding, maybe it's time to look into and work on why you are avoiding!
Bellow is a list of common values and priorities to look at to get some ideas of what yours might be!
Hi, I’m Kristina Anzell, I am a Clinical Social Worker dedicated to providing compassionate and tailored mental health support for moms at all stages of motherhood. My mission is to empower you to thrive in your role as a mother while nurturing your own well-being. If you enjoyed this blog post, check out my blog here! If you want more information or are seeking treatment, feel free to reach out!
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