Currently googling “How to be more joyful?”? Then this episode is for YOU! In today’s new episode, I am giving you five easy and actionable things you can do TODAY in order to feel more joyful on the daily. I truly believe that joy is something that we can actively pursue and my hope is that by listening to today’s new episode, you can do just that!
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| EPISODE TRANSCRIPT |
Welcome to the living in sunshine podcast if you don’t know who I am, my name is Maddie. And I am so excited to have you tuning in to our weekly podcast episodes, where we chat all the things from tips and tricks to funny stories from my life that have helped me to truly live in the sunshine. In this space, we are all about encouraging, inspiring and giving you the tough love that you need to hear sometimes to realize that you are totally made for more than what you currently have in life, and that you hold the power to make the changes that you need to level up and live your best self. So buckle up, grab some water and let’s get into it.
Good morning. Good morning, my friends and welcome to the living in sunshine podcast in case you are new here. Hello. Welcome to the show. My name is Maddy, and I am so excited that you are here. Over here in the living in sunshine podcast space. We talk about things like organization joyful living mindset, relationships, goal setting, vision, casting all of these really good things with the hope and the intention that you walk away with intentional steps, action items, punch lists, those those things that we all need to live and design a life that we are obsessed with a life of joy and a life of alignment one where we feel so good that when someone asks us, how are you doing, you literally can’t shut up because everything in your life is so dang good. So if you are new here, hello, I’m so happy we’re here. If you are a repeat listener, I’m so pumped that you are back. Thank you so much for giving the show a listen, we are seeing this like amazing growth spurt in the podcast week after a week, which makes me so so happy. And if you are new, or you’re not new, either way, if you could share the podcast today with a friend, your best friend, your bestie girl, your mom, sister, co worker, whoever I would be so internally grateful. So we are in a brand new month this month, we are diving in to the four personalities within the living in Sunshine Community. And if you’re like what the heck is living in sunshine, I’m new here. Living in sunshine is a community based brand company, it feels weird, call it a company, but brand in space, where women can come from all walks of life, and all backgrounds and religious and beliefs and colors, shapes, forms, whatever, and come to learn how to live and purposely pursue joy on the daily. And after you know growing and really talking to you guys in the community, I have come to sort of pinpoint four very distinct personalities that everyone in the living in Sunshine Community falls within, right. And this is not to put you in a box, this is not to tell you that this is your you know, identity, right? I know a lot of times when you do like the Enneagram test or take a personality quiz, we can sometimes like really start to live only in that box. The beautiful thing with the living in sunshine personalities is there is this allowance and this permission to float between them right to pass in between each one, depending on your current season of life, because our personalities inherently are very similar throughout our whole life. But there are times and seasons in life where they alter and they change and they pivot because they have to form to the current season of life that we’re in. And if you’re you know a long standing listener of the show, you know that I’m all about addressing and honoring and, and noticing the seasons of life that we’re in. And that’s what these living in sunshine personalities do. Right. They honor our current season. And this is what we’re talking about all month long in May. I’m super excited, there’s going to be an episode for each of the four personalities. Today, I’m speaking directly to my joy seekers. And in case you’re like I don’t even know what my personality is. I have linked the living in sunshine at personality quiz down in the show notes. It’s completely free, and will tell you not only what your personality is, but why it’s your secret superpower. And going forward, you will get intentional resources, trainings, ideas, tips supports from me to help you to really up level and grow into the highest version of yourself within that personality. So if you haven’t yet taken this survey, go do it right now. It’s not a survey it’s a quiz right surveys and quizzes are a little bit different. It this is a quiz. There are Gilmore Girl references Taylor Swift gifts, all those good things that like really make this space what it is, and it’s linked in the show notes right now. It’ll take you less than 60 seconds. If you’ve already clicked on it, you’re already you’re done. And when you take it send me a message over on Instagram and let me know what your results are because I love hearing what people get and if they think that it is a like fitting personality identity to how they see themselves.
All right, so let’s go ahead and dive in to today’s show. So again, this episode is for my joy seekers. If you’re like, I know that I’m a happy hustler or a purpose pursuer, this episode will still be really supportive of you, because I am giving you my top five tips on how to be more joyful every single day, I oftentimes get questions and comments about my energy and my personality and how I’m still going and how I’m so happy. And I have all of this life to me. And this has been something that I have gotten since a very young age. And I remember being super, honestly kind of annoyed
by it when I was little, because when I was like in elementary school, and this is not to go off on a tangent, but when I was younger, I carry my even now I carry my emotions, I carry my energy, like, all of that is external. And growing up when I wasn’t super happy, or bubbly, or in your face, or whatever people would instantly know and be like, what’s wrong with you? What’s wrong, like what’s going on. And I was just like, you know, when you’re young, you’re just like, leave me alone. Like, I don’t talk about it. Right. But now as a as a pseudo adult, I do not identify as an adult, because life is hard, right? Being an adult, it is hard. But now as as a pseudo adults, I really kind of love this, this personality. And this this trait of mine. And there are things that I intentionally do every single day, in order to foster joy and welcome in more joy and feel more joyful. Every single day, I was listening to a podcast, and I don’t remember what the name of it is, but I I’ll link it in the show notes. Future Me editing this, you know which one I’m talking about put in the show notes.
Um, I was listening to this podcast and the woman on the show said
something about, you know, people think that fear is the most vulnerable emotion. And in reality, the most vulnerable emotion is joy, because it’s fleeting. And it’s it’s hard to live in joy for a long time, because it’s always easier to see the hard over the good. And I so deeply resonated with that. And I really got me thinking like, what are the things that I do in my life that helped me to feel joyful 99% of the time, right. And this is taking out external factors, such as mental health issues, or personal, you know, struggles, things, the hard things going on in life, right? Like we all have our heart. But there are still ways that we can honor those tough emotions, and still feel joyful, right? So let’s go ahead and let’s talk about it. Right, we have five things that I do almost daily that helped me to feel more joyful. And my hope is that you can walk away taking one of these things with you and use it and implement it in your own life, to feel more joyful on the daily as well. Have you ever felt like the people in your life just don’t understand the dream that you have on your heart? Or even the desire that you have to be more joyful or intentional or even just plain happy? Like Life is good enough? Why do you need more? Right? Well, my friend if this is you, I have something special just for you. The Sunshine squad community is your go to place for that validation that you’re searching for, to know that you aren’t crazy for wanting more and that you aren’t alone in that desire either. This online community has grown to be filled with amazing joy seekers purpose pursuers, happy hustlers, and dream chasers just like you. In the sunshine squad community, you get continued guidance from me that you need to make your dreams a reality, a community of women who get it and the steps that you need to make your life something that you’re totally obsessed with. If you are ready to say yes to those things, you need to jump into the sunshine squad ASAP. And you can do so right now via the link in the show notes. If you do have questions on what the sunshine squad community is, or if it’s right for you, feel free to send me a DM over on Instagram. I would love to chat with you more about it over there. And my friend, I can’t wait to see you inside of the sunshine squad.
Okay, so thing number one is something that I have talked about 15 million bajillion times before and now that I’ve said that, I hope that you already know if you’ve listened to the show before but I’m about to say, but practicing daily gratitude and I can just see those of you who have listened to like, any number of episodes.
being like oh my god, here she goes again. Yes, here I go again, I will die on this hill. Gratitude, my friends is the number one for ever number one thing I will never stop talking about it. thing that I do to welcome more joy into my life every single day and here’s why. Okay, gratitude is the seed to joy because what gratitude does is it reminds us of what we have
I’ve over what we don’t have, right. And just like I said, similar to fear and the hard things in life, it’s always easier I have found in life and I have heard from talking to you guys, that it’s easier to see the hard, the ugly, the bad, and see that more consistently than the good, the joyful and the beautiful. And what gratitude does is it helps us to identify and see the good, the joyful, and the beautiful, over the hard, the bad and the ugly. And if you’re like, I’ve tried gratitude, I don’t know what to write down. I don’t know what even to be grateful for. I have come up with four guiding questions that always help whenever, you know, I say these are I tell someone these are like, Oh my gosh, it makes it so much easier. Okay, so write these down. Okay, these are your four questions, you’re going to ask yourself if you’re stuck on what to be grateful for, right? So within the last 24 hours, or the last, you know, day and a half, two days, whatever, what has made me smile, what has made me happy? What has made me laugh? Or what has made me proud. Okay, so I’m gonna say it again, what’s made me happy? What’s made me smile, what’s made me laugh, or what’s made me proud. And usually, when you ask yourself those questions, and you get quiet, and you sit with yourself, and you ask these questions, and you really start to think back on your last 24 hours, or even the last week, right, you can pinpoint things that have happened, that will make you grateful, and that will help you to answer those questions. But the key to practicing gratitude I have found is to make those and answer those questions, and make them applicable within like a 48 hour or less timeline. Because sometimes if we say that we’re grateful for
getting a new job, let’s say, but you got that new job like six months ago, it’s not going to feel super relevant today. And if you’re going through something really tough right now, and you’re practicing gratitude for something that happened six months ago, it’s not gonna feel super relevant, and it’s not going to be as impactful. And I promise you, no matter how hard or how ugly, or how, like disgusting life looks or feels right now for you, you will be able to find one or two, hopefully three things, that you can answer those questions and be grateful for those things, you know what I mean? And sometimes you can say, I’m grateful for my family, right? I write very, very often, I’m grateful for Lucas, my husband, my husband, Lucas. And usually the reason I write that is because within the last 24 hours or 48 hours, you know, he’s done things like he’s come and visited me in the middle of the day, and given me a kiss in the middle of the workday, or he has cooked really good dinner, or he has, you know, taking care of the house in some way. Right. He’s done something within the last few days. That has made me grateful. And so I’ll write down Lucas, when really he’s been in my life for 10 years now. Actually, exactly. Today, it’s our 10 year anniversary fun fact for this episode.
So right him, so that’s not necessarily relevant to right now. Right, I started, you know, we got together 10 years ago, but he’s done something in the last 24 or 48 hours, that has made me grateful and feel that sense of gratitude within the last couple of days. Does that make sense? So if you haven’t yet started to practice, gratitude or gratitude is something that you struggle with, this is a really easy way to kind of fill in those blanks. And I personally, if you need like a guideline as to when to practice gratitude, or how I have done tons of episodes on gratitude before, I also have a gratitude journal, I have two of them at this point. One of them is a 30, day gratitude tracker. And then I also have like a full on gratitude journal that you can grab over on podia. I’ll link those down below for you guys, as well. And those will really help you to sort of get into that group as well. If gratitude is something that’s tricky for you. Okay, so thing number two that I do to hopefully insight and instill and welcome and more joy into my daily life, is to work on being in tune with your thoughts, okay. And this is something that definitely takes practice, and it takes time to quote unquote, get good at, but really what this is, is being self aware. So often, we go throughout our daily lives, passively allowing our thoughts to come in and come out of our brain. And I think that’s because we live in a society in a day and age where we have the TV on our computers or open our phone is playing something on tick tock, or iPad is open, we’re doing something there. Like we have all of this, you know, endless fluctuating amount of information and media and in stimuli in our life, that we actually lose the ability to be present and be aware of our thoughts. And so we go through
Our days, so often having hundreds of 1000s of thoughts in a day, and not really processing what those thoughts are. And so what I have started to do is to really work on being in tune with the thoughts that I have. And so this might look like if I feel anxious, or I have a thought that I’m behind, I will ask myself and kind of have that internal conversation of okay, why do I feel behind? Why do I feel like I need to rush? Is there something on my calendar today that I need to be at, you know, at a certain time, right? Or if I am feeling really happy, I’ll ask myself, okay, what is causing this emotion of happiness? And how can I duplicate it in the future, because this feels really good, right? So being aware, and being in tune with your thoughts, will help you to do one of two things, right? One, it will help you to filter out the thoughts that are really not serving you. And if you are someone who struggles with self deprecation, or low self esteem, or lack of self confidence, or whatever it might be, right, really negative intrusive thoughts. This will help you to be more aware of them, recognize them, honor them, and let them go. And also really start to, you know, quickly filter them out when they come in the future. And the second thing that this will do when we work on being in tune with our thoughts, is we start to be aware as to how we can duplicate the good ones, right? Yesterday is a really great example. I am personally working on getting a certain amount of protein in my day, right? I’m really working on my health, I really want to optimize my health and my overall life. By the time I turned 30, I just recently turned 28. And protein intake is a really good, big goal of mine on the daily. Yesterday, I hit my protein goal for the first time, I felt really good, right? I went to bed, I was like, I’m satisfied. I’m satiated, I have enough food in my belly. And I feel really good. I’m really proud that I managed to hit that goal, right? So because I’m in tune with my thoughts, and I recognized that I felt really good because I had hit that daily goal, I can now reflect on that and ask myself, okay, what can I do every day to duplicate those good feelings, right? And good leads to more good. So when I recognized and I acknowledged and I noticed that I felt really proud because I had hit that goal, I felt more joyful about my day, because I did something that made myself feel good. So this is the second thing that I do every day that you can do and start to work on as well is being in tune with your thoughts, right, starting to recognize and learn how to filter out the bad and let those things go. And also learn how to duplicate the good and replicate them going forward. All right, thing number three, let’s talk about it. Number three is something that I just kind of touched on, but we’re gonna dig into this a little bit deeper, is to genuinely take care of yourself. And this is going to look different for every single human who listens to this show. What genuinely taking care of yourself looks like. So for some this might look like really focusing on getting enough sleep. For others, this might look like trying to hit 10,000 steps in a day. For me, this looks like following my workout program and eating the kinds of foods that I know feel good, and make me feel good on the inside. Right? So genuinely taking care of yourself the reason we need to prioritize doing this. And I feel like we’re like currently in this era of like self care and like actually doing good for yourself which I am living for. But the reason this leads to more joy is exactly what I just said, more good, welcomes and more good. And when you feel good, those those emotions, those good emotions that we want, joy, intention, alignment, purpose, all of these things are direction, right? They will start to manifest all because we’re taking care of ourselves. So whatever this means to you, whatever this looks like for your life, I encourage you to dig into it. What can you do to genuinely take care of yourself? Right? For me right now, in this season, the first quarter of the year, I was really working on getting in the gym, the second quarter of the year, I’m really working on eating well and maximizing how I eat so I can feel better internally and also look better and feel better about how I look externally. Right? q3. It might be starting to get in more steps and q4 it might be getting better at sleep, whatever it might be right? But genuinely taking care of yourself will lead to more joy. Because when you feel good because you’re taking care of yourself, you will start to feel good emotionally every single day as a result thing number four, tip number four thing number four that you can do to feel more joyful on the daily and this one might seem counterintuitive, but there’s a reason I put it in for a reason. Okay. And that is to acknowledge the unhappiness or the hard seasons, hard emotions that you’re
currently dealing with in life, okay, here’s the truth. Here’s the truth bomb. No one is happy. No one is joyful. No one has it together 100% 100% of the time, and I’m 100% one of those people, right? Like, there will be days that I walk away from the day and I’m like, I felt so good. I felt so happy. I felt so aligned today was such a great day. But at 11am That same day, I was like having a nervous breakdown, like, my anxiety was really high, I was really stressed out, I was really overwhelmed, right. And the reason why you can have a joyful, really good day, while also experiencing things like anxiety, or overwhelm or stress is because you learn to acknowledge those feelings and why they’re happening, right? Or you acknowledge the fact that you’re going through a divorce with your high school sweetheart, and you’re like having to move out of your house within 30 days. And you’ve got to decide who keeps the dog, right? You when you acknowledge those hardships, those hard seasons in life, you really start to be more aware of why you have those emotions, you become more aware of what you can do to support yourself when you’re feeling those emotions. And when you kind of get out of that season, which 2023 has been a big, seasonal shift for my life personally, when you reflect back on that tough season. Like for me, if you’ve listened to any episode from the last six months, you know, 21 was the hardest year of my entire life. I know for a lot of people that was 2020. For me, it was 2021 2021 was just not my year for a whole lot of reasons. And really, neither was 2022. It was great. But it was also really freaking hard.
Now that I’m kind of outside of those seasons, and I’m on the other side, I can reflect back on that time and say, you know, this was really hard. I was constantly overwhelmed. I was really anxious. But I did what I needed to do. And I grew and got stronger in the ways that I needed to do that, to get through those seasons. And damn, I’m so proud and so impressed by myself and towards myself, because I got through those seasons, right. And you can do this on like a yearly scale, you can do this on a daily scale, like I said, right, you can walk away from a day feeling really great, really happy, really joyful. And still remember that at 1115. When you got that email from your boss, you were like ready to crap your pants, right? You can have both. And it’s really important that we acknowledge these kind of hard seasons are these heavy emotions, because you can’t have the good and my experience all the time without feeling a little bit of bad, right? How do we know what’s good, if we don’t first learn what’s not good, what feels not good, right? So it’s really important that we acknowledge these, these hardships and these, you know, the unhappiness whatever, in order to then be able to identify the good, the wonderful and beautiful, okay. And finally, tip number five, this one is so good. And it’s such a good reminder for all of you, who really focus on the big and focus on the future. Tip number five, to feeling more joyful every single day, is to not forget the little things, right? Like, don’t forget the little guy, the little guys there for a reason, those little moments of joy are there for a reason. And when you keep those in your brain, when you practice gratitude for those things, there is so much joy that is unlocked when you do that, that will literally change the amount of joy that you feel every single day, right. And the little things include, like the most perfect cup of coffee in the morning, or getting to go for a walk and you witness, I don’t know another dog on the street playing with its human. Or for me an example right now in this moment is my neighbor’s have all of these this is so random. Have all of these squirrels who like play in their front yard, I love watching them play. I think they’re so cute. And that’s a little moment of joy in life. That brings me so much joy every single day. And it fills me with so much joy. And this is a huge version of the compound effect. Right? If you’ve ever read that book by Darren Hardy, I believe that’s the author of that book. He talks about how little things over time, compound into big things. And it’s the same that’s the same kind of idea, in theory with with tip number five is not forgetting the little things. When we recognize the small parts of life, the small moments of joy, and we just sort of collect those things over time. Like I’m kind of picturing like putting a penny in the jar. Every single time you have like a small moment of joy. Eventually, you’re going to have this entire jar full of pennies. And each one represents a moment of joy that you had in your life and when you put it all together, how much joy you have
you’ll be able to visually see and have have felt throughout the day, because you recognize those small things. So as you go throughout your day, when something makes you happy, make a mental note of it, when something brings you joy, really reflect on that maybe someone held the door for you, maybe someone bought your cup of coffee, maybe you got that Amazon order in the mail, finally, that you’ve been wanting for days and days and days, right? Maybe you got a phone call from a friend that you haven’t talked to in a really long time, right? All of these are seemingly small things that really over time compound into a super joyful life. And it’s really good. And it’s, it’s always a good thing to remember those things and not let those things go and commit those things to memory. Because when we do our sort of joyful jar, if you would, would be overflowing with with those small things because they take up space when we let them take up space. So that’s thing number five, don’t forget the little things. And that is everything that I have for you today, my top five tips to feeling more joyful, I hope that you can walk away with at least one of these things in your back pocket and pull them out the rest of your week and going forward throughout your life and really lean on them in order to feel more joyful throughout your day today. If you haven’t already taken the living and sunshine at personality survey, go do that right now. Like I said, it’s linked in the show notes. And when you do, please send me a message on Instagram and let me know what you got. And before we rounded out today, let’s go ahead and read our review of the week. All right, so our review of the week comes from a Dr. Smith us Artemis, I’m not sure how you say this.
This is an old one. It’s from two years ago back when I first started my podcast, but they say yes something to listen to. I am a huge music, TV and movie addict and really never listened to podcast but I finally have one worthy of my listening ear. This is going to be great. Arthur Lewis, thank you so much for this review. I’m so grateful for you see practicing gratitude, right. And if you listening today haven’t yet given the show a review. It helps the show grow so much and it’s really easy to do. If you’re unsure how to leave a review over on Spotify or Apple podcast head to my Instagram page and my highlights I have a little walkthrough that you can watch in order to learn how to do that. And when you do know that I am sending you a huge hug and high five through the phone. Until next week, my friend I am sending you all the sunshine good vibes and I hope you make it a great day. That is all I have for you today my dudes and I hope you love today’s episode. If you did, I would seriously appreciate it if you went and left the show a review and rating on whatever platform you’re currently listening on. For every review and rating that you leave it truly helps the show grow and reach more women just like yourself. If you had any major takeaways or aha moments, be sure to take a screenshot of this episode. post it to your social media stories with your biggest takeaways and tag me at living in sunshine so I can share it with my people as well. Again, thank you so much for hanging out with me this week. And until next time, I am sending you all the sunshine good vibes and I hope you make it a great day.
