11 Ways To Create a Life You Love: Step by Step

When it comes down to it we all want to have purpose, happiness, good health, and love. I firmly believe that we have it in us to create a life you love. It’s about making choices every day that enable you to do so.

Most of it comes down to mindset.

In this modern world, a lot of people are living in reaction mode. We respond to people who need things from us and get sucked in by social media, continuously scrolling based on what an algorithm serves us. 

However, if we seek to be more intentional in our day-to-day we have the ability to create and live a life we love, always.

What Does Create A Life You Love Really Mean?

The answer is all in one important word – YOU. Create a life you love.

It’s also important to note that you can choose to do this, regardless of your current circumstances. 

We all have that power in us – to choose positivity, to choose the path we want to create for ourselves.

Creating a life you love is different for everyone and this is a good thing. We all have different things that make us thrive and this is what we need to focus on in this journey.

It’s about living a life of purpose so you can create peace and harmony.

Creating a life you love can mean so many things, such as:

• Reaching your career goals and being financially free
• Traveling around the world
• Creating a beautiful family
• Helping others through community and giving back
• Having positive relationships that have deep meaning
• Living a long and healthy life

A beautiful life can also encompass all of these life experiences and more!

I came across this amazing quote by Seth Godin…

“Instead of wondering where your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.”

As you read through these tips and ideas keep in mind what creating a life you love means for you.

Related: Happiness Is A Choice: 12 Ways To Choose Happiness Today

How to Create a Life You Love: 6 Important Steps To Get Started

1. Analyze Your Current Situation

Your first step is to take a look at your current life circumstances. 

Ask yourself the following questions:

• How are you financially managing?
• How is your health?
• How do you physically and emotionally feel on a daily basis?
• Do you make time to do things you love?
• Are you prioritizing your health and wellness?
• Do you live your life with intention and mindfulness?
• Are you currently working toward important goals?
• Do you have any bad habits you’d like to resolve?

These questions will give you some insight into how you’re feeling today and whether you’re doing more than just looking after your basic needs. This is important as creating the life you love and living it to the fullest is what we all want.

2. Dig Deep Into What You Truly Love

This whole process is about creating a life you love after all. So to live a successful life that encompasses what you love, think about and write down all things that give you happiness and meaning.

Here are some examples of some things I love (just to help you along with this process).

• Spending time in nature
• Learning new things (online courses are my go-to!)
• Having deep connections with people
• Simple pleasures – a good cup of tea, birds singing, the sound of water
• My family

3. Decide What You’d Like To Change

What are your hopes and dreams?

What are your values?

What are you passionate about?

What’s most important to you?

What could make a huge impact on your life?

If you had more free time what would you do?

Answering these questions will help you decide what you’d like to add to your life – or remove.

You may discover:

• You’d like to finally make a career change or find a new job that makes you feel more fulfilled
• That you focus on work way too much and it’s now time to focus on your loved ones
• You’re living your life on autopilot and time is flying by so fast and you aren’t doing anything that brings you joy
• That you don’t appreciate life’s everyday blessings and simple pleasures
• A relationship you have that is no longer serving you

Whatever comes out of this process, really think about changes that are important to you, but also be realistic.

For example, if it’s your lifelong goal to be an entrepreneur, but you still have a 9-5 job, think about obtainable things you can change today that will lead you to that larger goal. This might be starting a side hustle by building a website and taking some online classes.

In this step: You can create a couple of vision boards (for different areas of life) to record the changes you’d like to make or simply write it in a journal.

4. Set Goals

When setting goals, first look at your long-term goals and then create smaller goals that contribute to these long-term goals.

For example: If you have a goal to create passive income for your retirement so you can live a more financially free life, there are several small goals you can do to reach this big goal. 

Things such as:

• Deciding on 3 passive income strategies you’d like to learn about
• Choose one of these strategies to focus on (Example, having an Etsy store selling digital products)
• Learning how to set up an Etsy store for success
• Creating/making products
• Launching your store
• Continual learning and optimizing to make it a success

To help with your goal-setting download this SMART goals worksheet to help you along the way.

So, whatever your goal is, look at ways you can break it down into smaller goals. This will help make it feel more attainable, increasing your chances of success.

5. Make a Plan

Small changes are the focus here, as each small step leads to larger returns over time.

When making a plan to create a life you love your first step is to choose ONE thing you’ll focus on. Just one. 

This can be applied to each small goal you set (mentioned above).

Using the Etsy example above, you might start by doing research on digital products, then deciding on a niche, then learning how to set up a product page, etc. The idea here is to take each step/goal and break it down as small as possible to make it into actionable steps.

6. Pace Yourself

Let’s face it, just because you now know what you want and you have a plan, you must give yourself enough time to get there. These things don’t happen overnight. 

So give yourself grace – slow and steady wins the race. 

11 Ways To Create a Life You Love

Here are some powerful examples of things you can do to create a life you truly love, and not only create it but live it every day.

1. Be Grateful For What You Have Today

One of my favourite quotes by Oprah explains the importance of gratitude so clearly…

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” – Oprah Winfrey

Simply put, if you can’t be grateful for what you have in life today, you’ll never be grateful for anything that comes into your life.

Gratitude is a practice. It’s about training your brain to actively seek out things to be grateful for – such as a beautiful sunrise, a good cup of tea, or having a great relationship with your child.

Starting today…

• Write down the most important things in your life that you are grateful for.
• Next, write a list of simple pleasures you appreciate.

This is your go-to list to give you a feel-good boost when you need it most.

2. Cherish Your Relationships

The results of the longest-ever study on happiness shares that the key to true happiness is having close, meaningful relationships in life. 

These can be relationships with a spouse, a friend, parents, or siblings. 

Prioritize these relationships by creating time for the people who are most important to you. You’ll both get a lot out of it.

4. Have a Positive Mindset

Not only does optimism lengthen life (optimistic people are more likely to live to 85 and beyond), Harvard study finds, it also leads to a healthier life.

“Optimistic people tend to have lower levels of inflammation and healthier cholesterol levels compared with less optimistic people. But they also are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors like staying active, eating right, not smoking, and not abusing alcohol.” (Source)

So, the key to creating a more positive outlook on life is to practice thinking more positively – if you don’t already do this.

When you find yourself in a potentially negative situation, ask yourself:

• What’s the worst that can happen?
• Can I think of a better outcome?
• Why is this bothering me? Can I instead think about the positives of this situation?

Of course, this won’t always be possible – as human tragedy and upset come and go – however, I bet you’ll find that you can apply a positive mindset to many situations.

5. Surround Yourself With Positive, Like-Minded People

This quote by Jim Rohn says it all, “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.”

He is also known for saying … “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

Basically, whoever you spend the most time with – you become. So, by spending the most time with positive individuals, just by association you’ll be more positive too.

This not only applies to people in the real world but also to those you follow on social media. 

Next step: Do an audit of the social media accounts you follow and unfollow any that don’t bring you joy, or that you’re not passionate about. Also, do this with the people in your life and spend more time with those who are positive and you feel rejuvenated from.

6. Let Go of Toxic Relationships

If you have people in life who are taking advantage of you, putting you down, hurting you, and making you feel insignificant and unhappy, it’s time to let go.

Letting go can be completely removing a person from your life. However, if you aren’t able to do this (at the moment), look for ways to spend less time with them and more with positive people (tip 5).

Also, seek out support from a therapist who can help you through this process.

7. Don’t Hide Your True Self

Every part of you is unique, beautiful, and special. Don’t ever be afraid to follow your heart and be your true self, always.

By representing your true self in all that you do you will also be at peace with the day-to-day life you have. It also means you can go after what makes you happy.

“There are some values that you should never compromise on to stay true to yourself; you should be brave to stand up for what you truly believe in even if you stand alone.”

― Roy T. Bennett

8. Focus on Experiences, Not Things

When you think of the end of your life and what you look back on, what do you think will stand out? The things you purchased, or the memories you made?

This can be applied to how you live your life in every way, from how you spend your money, to the gifts you give, to the way you spend your weekends.

Think about what you’d like to experience in life and don’t leave it to tomorrow. Start today.

9. Look After Your Physical & Mental Health

When we aren’t looking after ourselves, both physically and mentally it can be tough (and near impossible) to create the life you love.

You see –  when your health isn’t where you’d like it, it affects so many other areas of your life. So prioritize looking after yourself. You deserve it.

Think about something little you can implement that can lead to big changes over time.

For example:

• Writing 3 things you’re grateful for every morning
• Eating one salad a day
• Going for a walk after dinner
• Booking a checkup at your doctor
• Seeing a therapist (you can choose an online option to make things easier)
• Stretch in the morning
• Call a loved one every day or a couple of times a week

10. Embrace Your Passions (& Seek Out New Ones)

Allowing ourselves to get curious, play, have fun and experience our passions is one of the big pieces to a well-lived life.

This can come in the form of hobbies, routines, fun experiences and a way of thinking.

Have you lately thought about things you are passionate about? Or things you were passionate about when you were younger?

Take a moment to write a list of these things…

I’ll start by writing two lists.

Things I was passionate about when younger:

• Traveling
• Music
• Trying new cuisines
• Reading
• Dancing
• Meeting new people
• Spending time in nature

Things I’m passionate about now:

• Making the world a better place
• Family
• Career
• Learning new things
• Tea
• Good wine
• Meeting new people
• Spending time in nature
• Veganism

Once you’ve made these two lists, see if you can find any overlap. If yes – this is a passion you can choose to focus on.

If you don’t have overlap, choose one thing from either list and prioritize that passion as something you will explore more moving forward.

The key here is to start small by choosing just ONE thing.

11. Be Smart with Your Money

This can mean a variety of things depending on your financial situation. Saying that, here are some things to keep in mind…

• Know where your money is going every month (i.e. home expenses, entertainment, food, savings, debt repayment, etc)
• Create a budget
• Save for a rainy day (emergency fund)
• Eliminate bad debt (credit card debt and loans)
• Financially invest in yourself (education & personal growth)

When you have money worries it can feel exceptionally hard to be at peace. So, by working towards these financial goals you’ll free yourself of financial stress which directly impacts your overall wellbeing in life.

Related: 15 Financial Self-Care Tips To Master Your Money

Final Thoughts & Next Steps

Creating a life you love is something I’m deeply passionate about. In fact, it’s the theme (and tagline) of this website.

My theory is that most of us can intentionally choose to build a life we want. It’s about having the right mindset.

As you can see, creating a life you truly love encompasses many things. Let’s recap:

1. Be grateful for what you have today (this means focusing on the little things)
2. Cherish your relationships
3. Prioritize yourself
4. Have a positive mindset
5. Surround yourself with positive people
6. Let go of toxic relationships
7. Don’t hide your true self
8. Focus on experiences, not things
9. Look after your physical and mental health
10. Embrace your passions and find new ones
11. Be smart with your money

Next step: 

Refer to the 6 steps to create a life you love at the beginning of this post. Then follow the steps to decide what areas(s) you’d like to focus on.

Then, BEGIN!

Here’s to start living the life you truly deserve.

Resources To Help You Create a Life You Love

• How to Do a Life Audit: 5-Step Guide for Success
• 30 Ways To Invest in Yourself (In Different Areas of Life)
• Happiness is a Choice: 12 Ways To Choose Happiness
• 15 Ways To Find Joy In Life Again
• 50 Things To Let Go Of To Be Happier This Year