We all have certain goals for our lives, but mostly they always centre around our careers, our finances, relationships or fitness.
It’s great to set goals in those areas, but as the years go by, you slowly come to realize that more than anything, what you want most is to be at peace, calm and at ease.
Because if you can’t be at peace with yourself and your life, working towards the other goals just doesn’t make sense or feel it has any purpose to it.
So how about setting goals for a peaceful life too?
A peaceful life needs to be crafted and made. It doesn’t just happen on its own.
Here in this blog post, I share 10 goals for a peaceful life that we all can practice and work towards.
1. Develop more calmness.
Table of Contents
How would you be if you developed more calmness in your life right now?
To stop getting anxious over little things, to stop rushing, to stop attaching, and just be calm.
If you’re calm, you’re more intentional. You will move through slowly in life and enjoy your being.
This is my goal right now-
Calmness in the way we speak.
Calmness in the way we walk.
Calmness in the way we show up in the world.
To be calm and centred no matter what our external circumstances is one of the biggest inner strengths of a peaceful person.
2. Learn to respond rather than react
Keep a goal to yourself that you will give yourself the time and space to respond rather than react to things.
It’s a natural human tendency to react to things instantly.
Some of us react by coming to conclusions easily, blaming the other person, reacting unkindly, judging harshly and giving in to anger.
Others react by completely avoiding the situation, being unwilling to change, shutting off completely and running away from things they need to face.
Notice how are reacting to things. Notice what you are clinging on to or also what you are avoiding.
I think one of the ways to know whether you are responding or reacting is by taking into account how kind you are acting.
When we react, we are always unkind and harsh.
Whereas if we truly take time to respond, we will always be much more kinder.
So learn to pause and respond. Keep that as your inner goal in your life.
Make it a rule that you won’t make any decisions or any comments when in anger or when filled with other negative emotions. They are all impermanent.
Learning to pause and be kind. That’s a beautiful goal to work in ourselves.
When we learn to respond, I believe we will make much more better and clearer decisions and we will be much more firm in our inner strength.
You.. me.. we.. deserve to give yourself this space to enjoy a more peaceful life.
3. Stop trying to control
When J. Krishnamurthy was asked how he was so peaceful, he simply answered, “Because…I don’t mind what happens”
It’s so simple- to not mind what happens, but how many of us are suffering because we mind, we get bothered by what happens.
To be peaceful we must learn to be in a positive relationship with the present moment, with ‘what happens’.
Let things be. Let them be. Let go and release all attachments to the ideal versions you create in your head.
If it’s raining, let it rain.
If it’s cold, let it be cold.
If there’s someone in your life who wants to go out of your life, let them, just let them.
If they are choosing something over you, let them.
If they want to judge or misunderstand you, let them.
The work to change, fix or control the actions of another is futile and full of stress and exhaustion.
Don’t force change on anything or anyone.
This does not mean that you give up and don’t make any changes for the better.
You do make changes, but the only changes you make are in your life, and not try to force change out of situations or people.
The only person you have control over is yourself. So rather put all your energy on yourself, pursuing yourself, and your goals and developing yourself.
Allow things to just be and hold responsibility for only your life.
Your only assignment here on Earth is You.
P.S. If you are ready to give a try at working on yourself and changing your life, I have recently created a Special challenge/Guide for you to Change your Life in 7 days.
I think you’ll love it if you give it a try for 7 days and see what’s possible for you.
4. Accept the nature of impermanence
Stop fighting change.
You can’t have things to remain as they are.
It is the nature of things to change. Accept the impermanent nature of things.
Everything is impermanent- thoughts, feelings, relations, situations, mountains, rivers, deserts, your pets, your parents, you and even our earth won’t be there to last forever.
Impermanence does not mean that the ending is sad.
Rather, because of impermanence, everything becomes possible.
Everything passes- the good, the bad. So flow as a river with the changes that take place in your life as best as you can.
Accept what has happened and tell yourself, “That was then. This is Now”
Now you can be at peace.
Now you don’t have to be as worried as you were in the past.
Now you don’t have to go back to your old ways.
Now you can love yourself better.
The sooner you accept the changes happening in your life instead of resenting or resisting them, the sooner more peaceful your life will be.
Tell yourself, “This too shall pass” and be calm in the face of everything.
When you accept impermanence, you accept life.
5. Be kind to yourself.
Build yourself up, don’t beat yourself up.
Be kind to yourself through all the phases of your life.
Be kind to all parts of you, not just the good parts of you.
You deserve to be loved by you.
See yourself highly. And if you suffer from low self-esteem, here are some journal prompts to help you improve your self esteem
Watch how you talk to yourself. Speak kind words, uplifting words, and good words to yourself and see how it changes your life.
We’re born here to learn how to love ourselves in the best possible way. We’re born here to express unconditional love not just to others, but also to ourselves.
Don’t love yourself only when you succeed. Love yourself also when you’re failing, because that’s when you need it the most.
Don’t love yourself only when you’re feeling great. But love yourself also when your mood is down.
Practice self-care and give yourself much me-time.
In the end, it’s our kindness and self-compassion that will save us.
If you’re kind to yourself and if you love yourself, you will keep growing and you will never settle for less. And this way, you will know peace.
6. Slow down your pace
When we slow down, it’s much more easier to be mindful and intentional with our time.
Let us stop rushing with our bodies and be gentle with our movements and actions throughout the day as best as we can.
How we act with our bodies, and how we live with our bodies determines our peace to a great extent.
When you slow down your pace and how you do things, you automatically calm down your body and your demeanour will be calm and composed too.
There is a new way to do what you do- you can do the same thing in a stressed manner, or ease.
It’s better to do things in a relaxed manner, without overwhelm, without stress and anxiety.
It just takes a moment for us to decide to slow down.
Slow down the pace of how you walk and move around.
You can practice this as you move around in your home, your office or as you go for a mindful walk.
Slow down your pace of how you respond to things.
Slow down the pace of how you talk.
Slow down your pace of how you do things. Remember, it’s not what you do, but how you do it.
Be graceful in your actions and you will enjoy peaceful days and peaceful days will turn into a peaceful life.
I had written a short post to say more on this-
The Power of Graceful movement in life on wellbeing
7. Create space for peaceful habits
The truth is we won’t be peaceful if we don’t intentionally make space for it.
If you’re thinking that life will automatically be peaceful once something gets done, or if somebody changed, or if you had more of this or less of that.. then you’re gravely mistaken.
To have a peaceful life, you have to carve out some space for it in your days.
Give yourself some time in your day to cultivate peace and soothe yourself.
It can be anything from journaling, hiking, painting, a certain form of meditation, yoga, exercise, a long walk, time in nature, or anything.
Choose things that suit you best and explore around. Give time to hobbies (Here are more than 50 Hobby ideas you can try)
Pay attention to how you feel when you engage in that activity and after you finish it.
Is it bringing you peace and joy? Then do more of those things.
If it’s making you feel guilty, sad, worried or anxious then release them one by one from your life.
- P.S 10 Daily Habits that Improved my life
- 21 Happy Habits for Happiness
- Why you should make time for hobbies
8. Nourish your mind with good things
If there is anything that can change your life by how you treat them, it is your mind.
Treat your mind not as an enemy, but as your friend.
Fill your mind with good things and it will help you bloom.
You don’t have to believe everything your mind says.
Instead, you put good food into your mind so that it can chew on it.
Our minds can be influenced easily.
Choose to influence your mind with good things so that it can help you in turn.
You can have a good influence on your mind by being mindful about what you watch, read, listen or be friends with.
But without good food, the mind is only interested in being negative, because that is its intrinsic nature- to think and overthink.
You have to teach your mind to be good and positive and stop treating it as if like a trash bin.
This is a goal we all should keep to be more peaceful and to change our lives.
9. Show Curiosity
Be curious about life. Be curious about things.
Try to think what would happen if you don’t give up if you reach for your highest self, if you don’t succumb to fear.
What would happen if you went after your biggest dreams?
Show curiosity, for this is the only life we get.
Life is not only about taking, but it is mostly about Giving.
What can we give back to the world too? What can we give back to the Earth for everything it provides as a mother to us?
Show curiosity about your hobbies.
Show curiosity about your goals
Show curiosity about your habits.
Be curious about how your life could change if you released the things that are weighing you down.
You don’t need to have a lot of hope in life for the future. Just being curious is enough.
Be curious about what would make a peaceful life and go on an exploration.
Make life an adventure.
10. Be Love
Lastly, to be peaceful is to Be ‘Love’.
Our goal, in the end, is not to have love, but to be love.
We are here to be ‘love’ in our being so that when we come to the end of our lives, we can be a being full of love and gratitude.
We wouldn’t have been born here on this Planet Earth if love was not required from us.
Through all our hard times, all our setbacks, all our loss, and all our grief, we are here to learn that we can still choose to Love and Be Love.
Let life on this Earth not just be a brief visit where we do not learn and grow.
Let this Life on earth be a place where we learn to love, give, to learn to be peaceful and learned to express our highest self.
This life is our playground and let us learn to live our life that way.
As we add years to our lives, those additions to our age are only more life we get, and the more time we get to practice and express what we’re here to do.
This much from me for today.
I hope we get to express our fullest potential and make our lives peaceful for us and everyone around us.
The better we take care of ourselves, the better we take care of the world.
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