Let’s Talk About… Life

By Jeremy Godwin

What does ‘better living’ mean? What is ‘quality of life’ and what improves it? And can you learn how to live a more fulfilling life?

That’s what I’m talking about this week here on… Let’s Talk About Mental Health — the weekly podcast about looking after your wellbeing, with simple ideas you can put into practice immediately. So, get comfortable, and Let’s Talk About Mental Health…

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This podcast episode was originally released on 22 January, 2023.

Hello and welcome to Episode 163, and thanks so much for joining me as I talk about life and mental health!

I’m Jeremy Godwin and I help you improve your mental health, with  simple tips you can put into practice immediately. All of my episodes are based on both quality research and my own personal experience of learning how to live with anxiety and depression following a breakdown in late 2011. Each week I look at how to improve one specific aspect of your wellbeing. 

In this episode I’ll be talking about what life is, why the way that you approach life matters, and how to live a life that feels more fulfilling and meaningful. So, let’s talk about life!

Introduction

In 1998, the British singer Des’ree released her song Life, which contains quite possibly one of the wackiest lyrics of all time: “I don’t want to see a ghost, it’s a sight that I fear most, rather have a piece of toast and watch the evening news… Life, oh life, oh life, oh life, doo doo doo doo.”

Now, I’m not exactly sure what she was smoking at the time when writing that, and I mean no shade or disrespect when I also question how that song was nominated for song of the year at the BRIT Awards, but there you go… it just goes to prove that there’s something for everybody on this planet!

Anyway… back to life, back to reality (which just happens to be a line from the excellent song Back to Life released by Soul II Soul in 1989 — looks like I’m in a song-quoting mood today, so brace yourself!). 

Life is, without question, the most valuable thing you have, and yet so often we find ourselves complaining that we’re bored or that life doesn’t look exactly the way we want it to… and that’s when we can find ourselves feeling restless and uneasy, which can often do damage to our mental health. 

I’m going to go ahead and state upfront that the secret to a good life is to live every moment to its fullest; that doesn’t mean you need to climb a mountain every week or hurl yourself out of a plane with little more than a parachute and optimism (which is lucky, because there’s not enough money in the world to pay me to do either of those things), but the point is that you can consciously choose to live fully in each moment — even if that moment is as mundane as taking out the bins or travelling to work — and doing so is going to have an enormous impact on the way you feel about your life as well as how you view the world in general.

Before I get too far ahead of myself and start going off on tangents, let’s get ourselves onto the same page by going through some definitions; let’s talk about…

What life is

And I’m assuming that it’s fairly obvious that ‘life’ refers to being alive, but we also use the word to describe our “vitality, vigour or energy” (and that comes from the Oxford Dictionary). 

‘Being alive’ is one of those weird existential concepts that’s hard to explain without turning this into a deep and meaningful exploration of philosophy, so I’m just going to keep it simple and put it like this: if you’re listening to me now, you’re alive. Well done! 

The thing about ‘being alive’ is that it’s about simply existing. When we start to consider the idea of living, rather than just being alive, that’s where it’s about things like our quality of life and finding a sense of satisfaction, fulfilment and meaning… and it’s those deeper meanings I’m going to be focused on today.

Quality of life is defined as “the standard of health, comfort, and happiness experienced by an individual or group,” (and, again, that’s from the Oxford Dictionary), and it goes to the core of what it is to be human; do we just plod our way through life, on a never-ending march of duty and boredom towards old age and eventual death, or do we make the most of the time we have on this planet and find ways to feel good about the life we live.

Now, that doesn’t mean that ‘life’ could — or even should — be all rainbows and unicorns all the time, because happiness is not a permanent state and we all have challenges to deal with from time to time. But it does mean that, generally speaking, you’re able to build an existence for yourself that feels broadly satisfying and where you’re able to flourish. 

From a psychology standpoint, ‘quality of life’ refers to ‘the extent to which a person obtains satisfaction from life’ (and that comes from the American Psychological Association, which is linked in the transcript at letstalkaboutmentalhealth.com.au/episodes — find it here: https://dictionary.apa.org/quality-of-life). So what makes for quality of life? Well, according to the same article, it’s: 

“…emotional, material, and physical well-being; engagement in interpersonal relations; opportunities for personal […] development; exercising [your] rights and making self-determining lifestyle choices; and participation in society…”

And, again, that article is linked in the transcript.

The challenge here is that we each have our own unique perspective on what’s important for quality of life, so we need to remember that there’s no single hard-and-fast definition.

And so let me just take a moment to talk about what life isn’t. First, it isn’t easy! Look, you know as well as I do that it doesn’t come with an instruction manual, and sometimes it feels like being on a rollercoaster immediately after eating a huge meal (apologies for the visual there, but you get my point). Sometimes you’ll be up, sometimes you’ll be down, and sometimes you’ll have no clue what the hell is going on because your head is spinning at all the change going on around you. But the other thing you need to remember is that life is not a competition and it’s not a race; you are exactly where you need to be at this point in time in order to learn the lessons you need to so that you can create a better tomorrow for yourself. 

Because the thing is that life is not set in stone, and that’s a good thing. You are the one in control of what you do or don’t do with your life, and you are in control of the journey you take, and so that means you get to steer your life in whatever direction feels right to you so that you can find fulfilment and meaning. 

So with that in mind, now let’s talk about… 

Why the way that you approach life matters

And it matters because your approach determines what you will experience. If you have a “life sucks!” mentality, then guess what? Life will suck. But, on the other hand, if you choose to see life as being a combination of good times, challenging times and all the times in between, and understand that satisfaction and happiness exist on a spectrum (rather than being some magical destination you can eventually reach and then live at forever), you will be far more pragmatic about life and allow yourself to see where your journey takes you.

There’s a very good reason why so many belief systems, and even more recent philosophies on life, talk about how your focus shapes your life… because it’s true! Here’s a simplistic example: the next time you’re out and about, I want you to spend an hour looking for yellow cars. Now, aside from maybe taxi cabs (depending on where you live), you probably don’t see that many yellow cars that you’re aware of on a regular basis… but when you start actively looking for them, you’ll be surprised by just how many there are on the road. The reason I suggest you do that is that it’s an example of how what you choose to focus on will directly influence what you pay attention to, thanks to a little thing called cognitive distortion which is a much more detailed subject that I’ll explore in a future episode one day. 

Here’s the quick explanation of it: if you look for dog crap then you’ll suddenly begin to see more and more dog crap everywhere, whereas if you consciously turn your attention to more positive things then you’ll see more and more to feel positively about. That doesn’t mean the dog crap isn’t still there — so watch where you step — but it does mean that you choose not to make it your primary focus, because you realise that giving it all or most of your attention is going to make you hyper-focused on the doo-doo. That’s why I say so often in this podcast (and in my posts on social media) that what you focus on is what you focus on, because it’s the secret to turning your life from ‘so-so’ to ‘satisfying’ and from ‘meh’ to ‘marvellous’.

So how do you do that? Well, let’s get into the how-to part of today’s episode and let’s talk about… 

How to live a life that feels more fulfilling and meaningful

And I’m just going to jump straight in the deep end here with a fairly-blunt piece of advice which is: take control. Do you want a better life? Well, then create a better life! Nobody is going to do it for you; not only are they probably focused on their own life, even if someone else wanted to create a better life for you they couldn’t because it’s your life and nobody else can live it for you. Even the people who love you the most in this world cannot do the things for you that are going to make your life better: they can’t make you genuinely successful in your chosen career field, they can’t build the skills for you that you need to do that thing you’ve always wanted to, and they can’t take over your personal and professional relationships for you and sort them out! Although I will say that some will try; when I was a manager I once had a team member in his early 20s who was underperforming and his mother rang up and yelled at me for performance managing him. Even interfering ‘helicopter parents’ can’t fight your battles for you; I mean, if you’re familiar with that song Fame from the 80s (by Irene Cara) then you’ll remember that she sang, “I’m gonna make it to heaven” not “My Mum is gonna make it to heaven for me”! (I know, I know, that was a long way to go for a joke involving an 80s song reference, but that’s just the kind of work I do here for you on this podcast… you are very welcome!). OK, next… 

Think about your choices — do you want a better life? Well, then it starts with the choices you make! Actually, it’s all about your choices… because what you choose to do and say (or not do or say) determines what happens next; think of it like a Choose Your Own Adventure book without the silly storylines (although I guess that’s just a matter of perspective really). Make choices that are thoughtful and considered, instead of rushing into everything like a bull in a china shop; you do that by taking the time to weigh up both emotions and logic so that you can make a balanced decision (and I talked about how to do that in Episode 135 about choices). OK, next…  

Clearly define what ‘truly living’ means to you — because if you don’t know then how will you know what it looks like when it’s happening? This is a really personal one because there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach to what ‘a good life’ looks and feels like; what feels satisfying to me would probably horrify some of you (especially since one thing it involves for me is making sure that I rewatch Spice World the movie at least twice a year!). I think the best way to do that is to think about what your needs are (which I covered in Episode 137) and to think about what you want for the future (which I talked about in Episode 100). OK, next… 

Make an honest assessment of where you’re at now — ask yourself this: are you truly living? Or are you just going through the motions? Because the answer to that question is going to have a huge impact on what you may need to focus on in order to feel like you’re living a life that feels satisfying and fulfilling. For example, are you making the most of every moment, even if it’s just you on the couch binge-watching another Drag Race marathon? I mean, you don’t need to be out volunteering for Doctors Without Borders to find meaning and fulfilment in your life; maybe your way of bringing joy to yourself and to others is to become super-knowledgeable about something you’re passionate about and then to share that joy with others… or maybe it’s to rescue lost mittens and scarves so they can find a new home. I don’t know! It doesn’t matter because it’s nobody’s business but yours; like Sheryl Crow told us in 1996, if it makes you happy it can’t be that bad! I’d suggest you check out Episode 110 about satisfaction and Episode 114 about fulfilment to explore those topics in more detail. OK, next… 

Build more positive self-talk — and this is about the way that you talk about yourself to others as well as how you talk to yourself (in terms of your inner critic and your inner monologue, assuming you have one) as well as how you talk to yourself about the world and life in general. To paraphrase what I said earlier, whether you look for the negative or look for the positive you will find whatever it is you seek… so be conscious of whether you’re more biased towards a negative self-image or a negative world-view (or both). Some of the tell-tale signs are using terms like ‘if only’ or ‘what if’ on a regular basis; ‘if only’ is a waste of time — either make it happen or let it go — and ‘what if’ is the most useless and frustrating sentence in the world, because life isn’t about ‘what if’ but what is! Instead of focusing on regret or wishing your time away, or being too negative about yourself or the world around you, choose to redirect your focus towards positivity and possibility, and create opportunities for yourself along the way to grow and flourish (and I covered opportunity in Episode 119). OK, leading on from that, my next point is… 

Make your peace with the way things are — I talk about acceptance a lot in my work and I do so because it’s when we resist against the reality of our situation in life that we can become frustrated, disheartened, bitter, and even discouraged… and those are not words you ever want to use to describe how you feel about life, trust me! Life is what it is and you are wherever you are today; rather than dwelling on that and allowing yourself to become disillusioned, use it as a starting point to create a better future for yourself. When I was a teenager and stuck in a physically and emotionally abusive home environment, I never once allowed myself to become disheartened; don’t get me wrong, I had terrible days, and what I now know was depression and anxiety, but I never allowed the situation to make me feel bad about myself because I knew that the cruelty was about the other person and not evidence of there being something wrong with me. That became the fuel I needed to spend every day taking small steps towards finding my strength and finally getting myself out of there, and I never looked back. My point is that even though I hated every second of it, I never allowed myself to resist the truth of the situation because I needed to be completely focused on creating something better for myself instead of wishing things were different than they were. And so that leads to my next point… 

Focus on yourself — and by that I mean to create a life for yourself that’s about what you feel drawn to and passionate about, instead of trying to live your life based on what other people think you should be doing… it’s not their life to live but yours! That means choosing to be 100% yourself and remembering that it doesn’t matter how you live your life providing that you do no harm, are kind, and give more than you take. And, while I’m at it, ‘focus on yourself’ also means ‘no comparisons with other people’ because there is no comparison; there are 8 billion of us on this little blue-and-green rock and not a single person in this world is exactly the same as you, and so that makes you both unique and invaluable! So don’t worry about what Joe Bloggs is doing or why you don’t have X amount of money in your bank account like that person you went to school with; just be your authentic and wonderful self, and remember that the only true comparison is whether or not you’re growing bit by bit, day by day. OK, next… 

Build and maintain healthy relationships — because you might be a unique individual but you’re also a human being with feelings and a desire to connect with others, but what matters most is that those connections are healthy ones (because, funnily enough, unhealthy relationships do a lot of harm and that’s something you want to actively avoid). Choose the people in your life carefully and remove negative energy from your life; remember that you get to decide who has access to you as well as what that access looks and feels like. The thing is that you can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you! OK, so my next point is…  

Move your body — to quote the 90’s Belgian band Technotronic, “you’ve got to move that body” (actually, here’s a fun fact: Technotronic were the first band I ever saw in concert when they came to Sydney and performed at Australia’s Wonderland, which was a giant theme park that sadly closed many years ago and where I once threw up off the side of a rollercoaster, which is probably why I used that as an example earlier in the episode!). Actually, now that I think about it, Technotronic were quite obsessed with moving the body; as well as the song Move That Body there was their other song Get Up (Before the Night Is Over) where they declared that you should, “Get up, get up, get busy do it, Get up and move that body, Get up people now get down to it before the night is over…” and aside from the fact that I am clearly delirious at this point with all of the 80s and 90s song references I’m cramming into this episode, my point is a valid one (at least I think I have a point!) and it’s that physical movement — even if it’s just dancing around your living room to random songs from your childhood — makes you feel better about yourself and exercise releases endorphins, which reduce stress and improve your wellbeing… so, go dig out all those old-school songs you grew up with and move that body! OK, next… 

Have fun — and honestly, what’s the point of life if you’re not having fun? I mean, life is ridiculous and yet we think we have to be so serious and professional all the time. Why do you think I bust out my obscure pop culture knowledge and terrible rapping skills from time to time in this show? Have fun! You know, this goes out in late January and some of you may have seen that I did daily “life is short” posts over on my @itsjeremygodwin account on Instagram, and most of them were variations of pointing out that life is short so you should have as much fun as possible and one way to do that is to spend time doing the stuff you feel passionate about or that brings you joy… or, at the very least, just the stuff that makes you laugh! At no point has it ever been written in stone that we need to spend our lives being serious and bored out of our minds, so make it a point to incorporate at least a little bit of fun into every day (whatever that looks and feels like for you); my general thing here is that if it does no harm (to others or yourself) then you do you! OK, my next point is… 

Be present — because when you learn how to be in the moment, instead of ruminating over the past or worrying about the future, you get to enjoy life in the one moment where it is actually lived: here and now! The past has passed and cannot be changed, only learned from, and the future is both unknown and unknowable, so it’s created by what you choose to do and say here in the present moment. Learning how to bring your focus and attention fully to the present takes time, effort and perseverance, however I find it’s something you can learn to do by beginning with just five minutes of conscious practice a day. I talked more about being present in Episode 83 so check that out. OK, next… 

Choose a career that you feel good about — because the majority of us need to do something with our time and to pay the bills, and so instead of just settling on a job that you can tolerate (or not tolerate, depending on how you really feel about it!) I’m going to push you to think about finding a career — within the scope of the skills and experience you already have — which you feel genuinely interested in. And if you don’t have the skills yet? Learn! And let me say that it’s never too late to learn new skills, and just because you’re in one career field now that doesn’t mean you need to stay there for the rest of your life, so give yourself permission to grow and evolve professionally. Next… 

Make regular time to rest, reset and recharge — because all work and no play not only makes you dull, it also makes your head explode because we just aren’t built to spend our entire lives working day in, day out. There is so much more to life than your work; I love what I do, but it’s not my entire identity and I make sure that outside of my core working hours I don’t look at emails or touch any of my work, because it’s just a small part of my life and it’s not as important as making time for me as well as my loved ones so I can actually enjoy my life to the fullest… so, make regular time to rest and to enjoy your life to the fullest as well! 

Summary and Close-Out

Because when it comes to life and mental health, what it all boils down to is this: What you do with your life is completely up to you… but I’m going to challenge you to spend every day, starting with today, going out of your way to create a life for yourself that feels satisfying, meaningful and fulfilling. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be tough times because there will be — that’s just part of being a human being — and that doesn’t mean that you’ll get it right all the time… but it’s your life, nobody else’s, so truly live it. And if you ever find yourself feeling sad and low, remember what the Spice Girls told us: smilin’, dancin’, everything is free, all you need is positivity — so choose to spice up your life and say Hai! Si! Ja! Hold tight! [So stupid!!!]

The choice is yours, as it is with all things related to your wellbeing… so, what choice will YOU make today? 

Each week I like to finish up by sharing a quote about the week’s topic, and I encourage you to take a few moments to really reflect on it and consider what it means to you. This week’s quote is by the ancient Roman writer Cicero, and it is:

“To live long, live slowly.”

Cicero

Alright… that’s nearly it for this week.

Next time I’ll be talking about rules. We are surrounded by rules every day — whether they’re written, unwritten, or unspoken — and yet who gets to decide the rules that govern what we do or don’t do with our lives… and what happens if the rules don’t align with what you feel drawn to? Well, next time I’ll be quoting more random songs from the last thirty-odd years of pop culture and I’ll be talking about what rules are (and what they are not), why the way you look at rules matters, and how to take a balanced approach to rules for the sake of your mental health.

I hope you’ll join me for that episode which will be released on Sunday the 29th of January, 2023. 

You can find many more practical tips to help you improve your mental health in my new book Life Advice That Doesn’t Suck! and in my recent book, Let’s Talk About Mental Health (Volume One) which are both available from Amazon and Apple Books, and visit my website at letstalkaboutmentalhealth.com.au to sign up for my free newsletter Thursday Thoughts for a weekly dose of inspiration.

Support me on Patreon for exclusive extra benefits, including early access to episodes and a weekly worksheet, and follow my podcast on Instagram @ltamentalhealth for bonus content. Plus, check out my other account, @itsjeremygodwin, where I post daily tips for better mental health — and those are all linked in the episode description on your podcast service.

Thank you very much for joining me today — look after yourself and make a conscious effort to share positivity and kindness in the world, because you get back what you put out. Take care and talk to you next time!

Jeremy 🙂

Let’s Talk About Mental Health is an independent program proudly produced by Reconnaissance Media, helping you find gratitude and meaning. For more information visit reconnaissancemedia.com

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Let’s Talk About Mental Health.
Simple ideas for better mental health.

Let’s Talk About Mental Health. © 2023 Jeremy Godwin.

The information provided in this episode is for general awareness on the topic and does not constitute advice. You should consult a doctor and/or a mental health professional if you are struggling with your mental health and wellbeing. You’ll find additional information on the Resources page of this website.