289: Simple Ways to Cultivate Joyful Moments in Your Daily Life: Fan Favorite Replay

Hi there. You’re listening to the Leading Lady podcast. I’m your host, AliceAnne Loftus, and I’m a certified professional coach specializing in leadership and work-life balance. I work with clients to shift their limiting beliefs, insecurities, and self-doubt. This podcast will be filled with tools and strategies to help high-achieving women like you feel connected, empowered, and in the lead of your life, both personally and professionally. Let’s transform your life starting now. Lead yourself, the rest will follow.

Hi there, leading ladies. For today’s episode, I want to share with you some thoughts that I have on finding and creating a joyful life.

A Client Who Struggled to Name Her Joy

Recently, I was coaching a client, and we were trying to determine how she could replenish her energy and how she could find more joy or enjoyment in her day-to-day. She has an incredibly high-pressure job that is going to get even harder and more high-pressure as we get closer to the election. And so I asked her how she was cultivating enjoyment and creating joyful moments within her day. She really struggled with that concept, and she had a hard time articulating what things in her life brought her joy.

Why I Choose the Word Joy

The reason why I use joy and not happiness is happiness can feel like a very vague word. What does it mean to have happiness or to be happy? I choose the word joy because it’s a more passionate word. It has a little more thought, I feel, to it, a little more oomph to it. And I have begun living my life with an intent of joy, of extreme happiness, fulfillment, savoring a moment of just bliss.

So as I’m working with this client, and we’re talking about that, I’m like, “What really lights your heart on fire? What are you passionate about? What gives you a deep belly laugh? What are moments that you wish you could just freeze and savor forever?”

And as we worked through that question, we really started to discover that she was great at cultivating joy for others. She was great at creating moments of joy for her children or her spouse or friends. But when it came to replenishing herself and giving herself a moment of joy, or a time when she could just enjoy a moment that she was in, she really struggled to identify what that would look like.

Joy Happens in the Ordinary

I found this really great quote by Marianne Williamson, and it says, “Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to realize how good things really are.” This deeply resonated with me, because I believe that you don’t have to have an extravagant, luxurious, or grandiose life to experience joy. Joy happens in the ordinary. Joy happens in the tiny moments of your life when you are completely present, and you’re just in your authenticity, doing something or being with someone that you love.

And so, back to this client, talking about what are the things that bring her joy. She started to list off, “Well, I love to travel, and I love to host large parties, and I love to do…” and she was listing all these grandiose things. And I said, “What if you had little moments of joy all around you every day? What would that look like?”

And so I invite you, as you’re listening, to also be thinking about what are the tiny, tiny moments in your day that bring you joy. For me, it’s a quiet cup of coffee all by myself before the sun is even up. There is nothing like that first warm sip in absolute silence. That brings me joy.

Joy is a happiness that is not reliant on a specific circumstance. It’s about being authentically at peace and in happiness, right where you are. The joy comes from within you.

Other moments of joy for me are watching the leaves fall in the middle of the autumn season, and they’re coming down like rain, and the colors are vibrant. I feel like there’s this overstimulation of all these beautiful fall colors and the wind, and just picturing it, I can smell the apple cider, I can think about what’s cooking on my stove. I mean, there’s just so much joy in that moment, in that season for me.

The Five Senses Exercise

So how can we find moments of pure joy throughout our day? I want to share with you an activity that I do. It’s more of a grounding exercise that brings me back to the moment. It allows me to be mindful and to kind of recenter myself, especially if I’m feeling overwhelmed or frazzled. This exercise pulls me back into the moment. And it’s a very purposeful and intentional mindfulness exercise that allows me to take inventory of the things around me that bring me joy.

So I use this exercise called the five senses exercise. I know, so complicated to remember that. But basically, it’s just going through your five senses. What I do is, I stop for a moment, and I just do a quick check-in.

So if I’m going to start with sight, what is something in my environment, or near me, that I can see that brings me joy? For me, it’s oftentimes a plant or a picture. Maybe it’s just a tidy desk. But I look for something that’s very close in proximity to me, that I really enjoy, that I chose to put in my environment.

Next is touch. I think about the fabric of the clothing that I’m wearing, or how the carpet feels under my feet, or the fur of my sweet dog, Millie, how it feels. So I just do a quick check-in: what is something around me that I really love the feel of, that I love to touch?

Smell. I am a little bit of a nut when it comes to my house. I love the smell of a clean house. I’m currently using Thieves. It’s an essential oil cleaner, and it smells heavenly, heavenly. And so I just love when my house smells really clean and fresh. I don’t do candles as much as I used to. I don’t like the way the flame smells when you put it out. But I do a lot of oil diffusers, or I love the smell of my perfume. Isn’t that funny? I love the smell of my laundry detergent. So I immediately just take a big inhale, and I’m like, “What do I smell that brings me comfort and joy?” And I’m like, “Oh, yeah, that’s really the good stuff.”

Mindful Tasting and Choosing Foods You Love

Taste. This was a huge shift for me. I’m a foodie. Everybody that knows me well knows that. I speak through food. Food is the love language of mine. I celebrate with food. I mourn with food. I socialize with food. Food is a huge part of my life.

I was recently working with a dietitian and nutritionist, Elizabeth Harris. She’s based out of Annapolis. And she really helped me to identify how to be more aware of foods and whether I was truly enjoying them. And I was like, “Of course I’m enjoying the food. I wouldn’t eat it if I didn’t enjoy it.” And she pointed out that sometimes we eat just out of habit or boredom or because it’s there, and we need to get back to the mindfulness of really enjoying the things that we are tasting. And if you don’t like it, don’t eat it. Choose something else.

And I love that she also got me thinking less about the foods I couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t have and more about choosing foods that I really craved, enjoyed, loved, and that nourished me, and that I felt good eating. So doing this five senses exercise with that new mindset really allowed me to actually enjoy my foods more. And she’s going to be a guest in a couple of weeks, and I’m really going to dive into that with her, about choosing foods that bring you joy.

So for the sake of this exercise, when you’re needing to recenter yourself, ground yourself, or find a moment of joy in your day, it’s a great practice to have a mindful, joyful moment in what you taste.

So what senses did I go through? I went through sight, touch, smell. Oh, hearing. So oftentimes, I listen to jazz standards while I’m cooking, or cleaning in my home, or while I’m just working on accounting or my admin stuff back in my business. And the jazz music, it’s just so lighthearted. I love the melodies. I love all the jazz standards and the singers, and I’m a huge fan of that genre of music. And that always brings me peace and calm, and just really makes me feel a little more focused, just a little more in the moment, listening to that music.

So I had sight, sound, touch, feel, taste. Yeah, so I think I’ve covered them all. So that’s a really great exercise for you.

Bringing Joy Into Your Environment on Purpose

And if you’re thinking through your five senses, and you’re like, “I don’t have anything that I can look at immediately that brings me joy,” well, you can remedy that. You can find something, you can create something within your environment that you enjoy looking at. If that’s a picture of your family on your desk, if it’s a plant, if it’s a pretty computer cover or mousepad, or just find some new pillows for your living room. Whatever brings you joy to look at, make an intentional action of bringing that joy to your sight and to your environment.

If you’re not enjoying the foods that you’re eating, stop, put it down. Don’t eat something just because it’s there, because that’s what’s available. You have to make a purposeful and intentional action and decision to eat foods that you are actually going to enjoy. And that goes for all of your senses. That’s a very quick way to take inventory of how you’re receiving joy in your life, or what areas of your life you’re not having joy, or joy is missing.

So going through that, you’re going to become more intentional about how things affect your senses, and how you can cultivate these tiny moments or sensations of joy around you.

Creating Joyful Moments With Family and Friends

I also invite you to be thinking about how you can implement joyful moments throughout your day and throughout your week. If your family brings you joy, set aside time, prioritize some time for you to have a connection. Maybe that’s sharing a meal.

I know during COVID, during the pandemic, we’ve all been cooped up at home. You might feel like that’s all you ever do is spend time with your family. But what if you switched it up a little bit? What if you set the table in a really beautiful way and cooked a delicious meal together and put away all electronics and had a lovely conversation, and then ended the evening with a family game night? Just because we’re in something that feels like it’s never-ending doesn’t mean you can’t create joyful moments within that.

If your friends bring you joy, and we haven’t really been super social lately, it’s hard to get together. Nothing’s really open. It’s not like you can go out for happy hour or head to the movies. But how can you create a meaningful connection with one another? How can you check in with each other? How can you brighten their day?

Oftentimes by giving joy, we end up receiving the joy of giving, if that makes sense. So when we share joy, when we share happiness, it’s a gift that we give ourselves as well.

Prioritize Joy Every Day

So be thinking about how you can create time for the tiny moments of joy throughout your day. Prioritize joy. Again, go back to your five senses and see where joy is missing, or how you can purposefully and intentionally add joy to your senses.

And if you have any ideas or suggestions that you’d love to share with our community on how you cultivate joy in your life, please feel free to join the Leading Ladies Facebook group and share those ideas.

Set aside some time to do some daily check-ins with yourself to say, “Where’s my joy meter today? How am I feeling?” Just with the awareness of how to bring joy into your life, and by being deliberate in choosing joy, you’re going to feel an increase in your energy, in your overall life satisfaction, in your resilience.

I mean, let’s face it, everyone’s kind of going through a hard time right now. And it’s so easy to focus on all the things that are hard. But joy is about being in the moment and seeing all that is good. And we can’t forget that no matter what is happening in our life, there are always things to be grateful for, and things that we can celebrate within ourselves, and really cultivate a joyful life.

So I hope this was helpful. I would love to hear from you. And again, having a joyful life does not have to be grandiose or extravagant. Joy happens in the tiny moments, in your five senses. And it’s just bringing you back to a mindful moment where you are aware of all that is well.

So until next time, ladies, take the lead.

Thanks for tuning in for another episode of the Leading Lady podcast. You can find all of the links and information mentioned in this episode at www.leadinglady-coaching.com. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe to the show so you don’t miss any future episodes. While you’re there, it would mean the world to me if you would take a few seconds and leave me an honest review. This will allow me to be able to help other high-achieving women find inspiration, connection, and develop strategies to live and lead with purpose and intention. See you here next week.