4: Happy Habits: Simple Strategies for a More Joyful Life

Want to feel happier and more fulfilled? It starts with cultivating the right habits. In this episode of the Build Strong Women podcast, we explore the power of "Happy Habits" and how they can transform your life. 

Key Takeaways:

• Understand the connection between habits and happiness.
• Gain practical tips for creating a more joyful and fulfilling life.
• Discover the power of gratitude, mindfulness, and positive thinking.
• Learn how to cultivate habits that support your overall well-being.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hi, I'm Laura Orlando and welcome to the Build Strong Women podcast. I believe as women that we are the role models for the next generation of girls. So how do we become the best role models for these young girls? We work hard to become the best version of ourselves, whatever that means to you. It's not easy. It takes work. It takes learning, trying new things, falling down and getting back up again. But that's what we do on the show. We dive deep into how we can grow on the inside. We will learn from women that are on the same journey as us. Just trying to become the best version of themselves. Let's learn together, build our confidence, learn to love who we are so that we can teach the next generation of girls to grow up to be strong and confident women. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Build Strong Women podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode. Today we're going to be talking about something that I think is really important for women and it's all about finding your happy habits. And what I mean by that is like little bits of self-care that you can weave into your day, weave into your every day to help yourself feel better. So the past few years I've really been on a journey just to feel better inside myself and to honestly just tame the anxieties that I have inside myself. I have suffered from anxiety I think my whole entire life and honestly some insecurities as well which we all do. We all have insecurities and I just wanted a way to really tame those anxieties and really tame my insecurities and just find things in my everyday life that just bring me happiness and that just bring me joy and what What I've come to learn now that I'm in my mid-40s, which is crazy to say, that feeling good inside ourselves is not a luxury. It's something that we all should be striving to attain. And I've also learned how essential it is just for my overall well-being, my mental health, and my happiness. And what I've discovered on this journey is that when I do these little things, these happy habits that I incorporated into my life every day that make me feel good, I just feel calm. I feel less stressed. I feel happier. And I just feel so good inside. And isn't that the point of life is just to feel better inside ourselves? And I noticed that when I started making sure that I do these things every day, I make it a point to have these habits in my life, I just feel so much better inside. And it really has helped me move toward the person that I want to be. I feel like I'm always striving to be a better version of myself. I always want to try to improve and grow. And that's what this is all about. So I I want to share with you how to find your happy habits or your self-care tools, whatever you want to call it, that work for you to help you feel good inside yourself. And it's not what you think. I don't think about self-care the way everyone else does on social media, on everything. I don't think of it the same way. That random massage or that pedicure that you get once every month or every two months or whatever you do, that's not what life's about. I need to find things in my everyday life that fill me up and help me feel good inside myself. And with my whole entire life having anxieties and, you know, not always feeling my best, I want to feel happier, more confident and good inside myself. So I have to do these happy habits every single day. So I went on a journey to find these little things that make me happy. There was things that made no sense. And I was like, absolutely not. I'm not doing this and other things. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, this feels good. And it's simple, simple things. When you hear some of the things on my list, you're going to be like, what? That's part of your self-care or that's part of your happiness habits? Yes, it is. And you will laugh at it. It's that easy. So some things that are my happy habits are things that you can get at the store and things that you can't get at the store. So it's going to be both ways. And these little things that I found that I incorporate into my everyday life have really changed my life. And the way I think about self-care and the way I think about how I can incorporate more happiness into my life. So some things, I'm going to list a couple things and then I'm going to help you find your happy habits as well. So let me just share with you some of... the little things that I have incorporated into my life and maybe they'll be helpful for you and maybe spark some inspiration for you to find some happy habits as well. So one of the things is I like to get up early. I set my alarm sometimes on the weekend. A lot of the times on the weekend, I like to get up early. I like to start the day. I like when it's dark out when I'm getting up. I like when I just have a couple hours to myself to do what I want to do. Another habit I have is working out. If I don't work out, my mindset is completely whacked. So I have to work out at least five days a week. And I started incorporating some hot yoga into my routine and it has really helped me just calm and center and just feel better about myself. So working out is one of my habits that I have to do that helps me feel good inside myself. Another happy habit is just having my face wash routine. I know that's kind of weird, but I truly love the products that I use and that is part of my other habit that I have is just using clean products in my everyday life so I have really worked really hard to make my home a more clean home that doesn't have like fragrances and toxic chemicals and things like that with my cleaning products with everything that I use on my face and my body and everything that we do to do laundry I have really really worked really hard for a couple years this wasn't something that happened overnight was Incorporating more clean products into our life so that we can live a healthier life So my face wash routine and just using my clean products on my face just makes me feel so good I feel like i'm doing something really good for my body and for my health And I feel like i'm teaching my kids the same thing So it just feels really good and that's just a habit that i've incorporated into my life And i'm so happy every time that I do it. I use gua sha I just use products that just make me feel good and that is a habit that brings me joy Another habit that I try to do every single day is just having a really good morning routine. And it's going to be a quick morning routine because I'm a teacher full time. So after I'm done getting ready for the day after my workout shower, getting ready to go to school, I'll sit down for if I even have five to 10 minutes, and I'll just do gratitude practice. I'll pray. And I also review or write down some goals that I have for myself and some promises that I want to make sure that I'm keeping to myself because I know that if I'm not keeping some of the promises and being intentional about remembering what my promises are to myself, I won't feel my best. And it has become a really great routine for me to just do this in the morning and to just be really intentional when I start my day. This is the things that I wanna work on. These are the things I wanna think about. And then I'm done. And it's just a practice that I absolutely love doing. I have my coffee and it's just something that just makes me so happy. I just feel refreshed. I feel intentional and it's not just like I'm waking up getting ready and leaving for school like I have a plan I know the things that I want to be working on just inside myself it's not like something big that I want to be working on it's just those little things to remind myself of the person that I want to be and how I want to feel that's the most important thing I want to feel good I want to feel happy I want to feel fulfilled I want to feel like I am taking action on the person that I want to become and to be and like I always said before you don't actually get to that final destination it's just the journey it's the day every single day if you're working on yourself and just knowing okay I really want to feel good inside myself so I'm going to make sure that I'm doing these couple things and just being intentional about that and that's really why I talk about why it's so important for us as women to keep promises to ourselves so that we are feeling our absolute best at all times so I want to really help you and dive into how to find your own happy habits so we What you need to do first is you really need to recognize the needs that you have. I want you to like tap into how you're feeling. How are you feeling physically? How are you feeling emotionally and mentally? You need to ask yourself these questions. So what do you need to do to feel better inside? And what would help me recharge and to de-stress a little bit? What are those little things that you do in your everyday now that make you feel good? And you just need to add more of that in. And And it's all about adding things that fill you up. So what would bring you more joy in your life? So you really have to reflect and just take a moment. Check in with yourself. Take a quiet moment and do this. Think about how you could feel better. Do you want to feel better physically? Okay, maybe you need to move more. Do you want to feel better emotionally? Okay, maybe you need to work on your mindset. So you really have to dive deep into all the categories that are out there, like physical health and emotional, mental, social, and spiritual. and you really have to see what areas you're lacking in so that you can add some happiness into your everyday so for physical health like i just said maybe you need to incorporate some more exercise and moving your body a little bit more maybe you're just feeling blah and you just need to move maybe what's making you feel blah is just what you're eating maybe it's too much processed food maybe you're going out to eat too much or maybe you're not eating enough food and you need to add more protein into your everyday i know as a woman in your 40s we need to get so much protein. At least that's what they're telling us. We have to get so much protein in our life to help us feel good inside. So maybe you need to just assess all of those areas of your life and your physical health. So another thing that I want you to take a look at is your emotional self-care and the activities that have to do with your emotions. Sometimes journaling and meditating or spending some time outside or even like with a friend can help us feel so much better emotionally. Also, you have to take care of your mental health what are some ways that you can really stimulate your mind and just make you feel better inside yourself I know I love listening to podcasts that lift me up especially on personal development because that's my obsession and those things just help me feel good inside you know reading or learning something new even is really exciting for me and it's not something that I can do every single day but listening to a podcast I can do that every single day when I'm driving to school or if I'm doing laundry or something like that, I can incorporate that into my everyday. Another thing is just social self-care. Sometimes we just need to be around people. Some people get energized by being around other people and you have to know that about yourself. Maybe it's just calling a friend really quick for five minutes every day to check in or maybe it's going somewhere a couple times a week with friends or even out with your husband or whatever it is that makes you feel better and fills you up. You need to go and do those kinds of things, if that is something that makes you feel good inside. The last thing is just kind of like a spiritual self-care. Even if you're not religious, it doesn't matter. Just doing things that make you connected to yourself again and to just calm your mind. And you can do things like praying or meditation. And even just going outside in nature can help you feel better spiritually as well. So just taking a look at all of those areas of your life and really seeing, okay, how could I add some happiness into my life in this category. Okay, I'm going to exercise 20 minutes every day because or move my body because I know it's going to make me feel better inside. My mindset is going to be clear. I know I'm going to do that and I know it's going to make me feel good. So the most important thing is just really looking at where you are right now and paying attention and noticing how when you do these different activities, I'm going to add this new skin skincare routine into my every day. How is it going to help your mood? How is it going to help your overall well-being. It's going to make you feel better. I want you to kind of just create a list of little things like having warm lemon water at the end of the day makes me feel so good. I absolutely love it. I look forward to it. It's my way of self-care inside myself and it just makes me happy. So that is something that I have added to my list and I just want you to find little things every day that just make you feel good and just keep it simple. That is my number one tip. You have to keep it simple this simpler the better we all have to wash our face at the end of the day absolutely before we go to bed so why not incorporate some products that you love that you know you're doing good things for your body and just taking those five minutes to wash your face and help you feel good is simple it's something we do anyway so you might as well make it enjoyable and I don't think that getting a massage once every six months is going to help you feel better inside. Yeah, it will help you feel better that day, but we need these little things that we can do every day that fill our cup and that are so, so simple. Just like pouring a glass of lemon water, warming it up. That is so simple for me. And you have to do what's best for you. That's what this is all about. And I really want you to explore some new ways of just bringing more joy and happiness into your everyday life. and having these happy habits, as I call them, to really make you feel good inside because we deserve to feel good inside. I know we're busy. I know most of us are moms and we have kids and we're running around crazy or some of us don't. We have so many things on our to-do list constantly, but if we can weave these happy habits into our everyday life, It's going to change your mental health. I promise you. It's going to just make you feel good inside. It's going to be a way for you to escape even if it's just for two minutes when you're washing your face or two minutes when you're having that glass of lemon water or two minutes when you are journaling in the morning before you're ready to start your day. You're setting your intention. So I hope this episode was helpful. This isn't a long episode. I just really wanted to share with you something that I do in my every day and adding these little happy times into my life that are a really great way to incorporate self-care into your life. Self-care should not be hard. It should be easy. It should be little things that you can do every single day that make you happy, that bring you joy, that help you on your journey to becoming the best version of you because that's all that we want. We want to feel our best. We want to feel happy. We want to feel joy in our life. And I hope this episode was helpful to give you some ideas for adding some more happiness into your life and I hope that it's helpful so let me know you can message me over at gracious adventures I would absolutely love that I want to know if this was helpful and I really want to help you as much as I can just feel better inside yourself because that's all I want for myself and I know I can't be the only woman out there that just wants to feel good inside so I want to help you do the same so if this episode was helpful or any other episode that you have listened to was helpful I would love for you to share it with a friend or another woman in your life that could use some uplifting and some more confidence building things just to feel happier in her every day I would be so appreciative and if you would go over to rate and review this podcast I would absolutely love it it means everything to podcast so that I can grow and I can reach as many women as I can and I just so thank you for being here and listening to this episode so I'm going to end this with an affirmation that is all about self-care and I hope I hope that affirmation was helpful. Take it with you as you try to find your happy habits throughout your day. So as always, I will see you next week and I hope that you have a wonderful day. See you on the next episode.