In this fast paced world, it’s easy to get caught up in the work and actions all the time. While being productive is great, overworking could lead to burnout. Today we will give you some ways to live a softer life, especially when you are not working.
First, what does it mean to live a softer life? A softer life means a life with less stress, more joy, happiness, peace, comfort and fulfillment. While it’s not possible to always be these things all the time, simply because life isn’t always all rainbow and sunshine, you can definitely maximize your environment and routine to give you a softer life.
1. Create a Relaxing Environment
The first thing you want to do is making sure that you have a relaxing environment around. You can start by cleaning up all the mess you may have and declutter items that you don’t need.
Then, you can start arranging things to be more cohesive, add some beautiful objects that make you feel happy. Turn on some classical or relaxing music in the background. Light up scented candles of your choice or put on a calming diffuser scent.
2. Allow Time to Unwind
We’re living in a hyper productive society where hustling all the time is being glorified. But too much hustling can have a negative toll on our physical and mental health. Allow some time in the day for you to relax and unwind.
It could be an hour before bed or fifteen minutes in the middle of the day to sit down and drink a cup of your favorite tea. You can also try reading a book or going for walks in nature. It will refresh your soul and prevent burnout. Something you definitely need.
3. Do Something Creative
Everyone has a creative side and allowing your creative side to flourish is a great way to lead a softer life.
There are various mediums you could use to showcase your creativity. From cooking, baking, flower arranging, painting, designing, sculpting, visual journaling, makeup or crafting something from scratch.
You just have to spare some time to discover your creative sides and get your fingers on it.
4. Add Some Luxury in Your Life
Adding touches of luxury is a wonderful way to add softness to your life. Luxury doesn’t have to actually be expensive, it just has to look expensive.
For a starter, you could change your boring plain plastic table wares with some porcelain or china. Instead of wearing t shirt and sweatpants, you can wear some beautiful lounge wear or robes.
You can apply the same kind of principle into other parts of your life and enhance it to fit a softer and luxurious lifestyle, on a budget.
5. Pamper Yourself
The way you treat your physical self would affect your inner self and vice versa. By pampering yourself physically, you would also improve the well-being of your inner self.
Give yourself a spa treatment. If you can’t go outside, you can do an at home spa treatment. Have daily skincare routine, once in the morning once in the evening. Do your nails. Put on a little bit of makeup and perfume.
Wear a presentable outfit every single day. Before you realize it, you would feel so much better and when you make pampering yourself a habit, you are already living a softer life.
6. Set Boundaries with Others
One of the biggest stress factor for most people is socializing. It could be resulted from being around the wrong kind of people or a lack of boundaries with others.
The truth is, other people would treat you the way you treat yourself. This is why it’s important for you to treat yourself well and verbally mention your boundaries with other people.
For example, your boss keeps on giving you workload, more than what you get paid for and he expects you to work on the weekend as well. You can firmly and politely tell them, ‘I am not available to work on the weekend, thank you for understanding.”
Do NOT apologize for communicating your boundaries. Don’t forget that we are humans too, who need to cater to ourselves as well instead of constantly trying to cater to other people.
Setting strong boundaries with other people could instantly reduce your stress level and help you lead a softer life.
7. Manage Your Finances Well
If we want to live a softer life, we have to be realistic. Another stress factor for most people is their finances. This is why it’s so important to learn how to manage your finances well so you don’t have to worry about money.
Always have some savings and emergency fund so if something unexpected comes up, you have the money to take care of it and won’t get too stressed about it.
Learn to invest. The earlier you start investing your money, the more money you would have later thanks to compounding. Nothing gives you more sense of ease than knowing you have spare money in the bank.
We have a basic guide to finance you can check out to learn more about this point to help you understand the concept of finance better.
8. Experience Beauty
The world is filled with so much beauty. All you need to do is experience it. Beauty could be found in the little everyday things like flowers in your backyard, an antique furniture you have or a meal you just cooked. You could also purposely go out to seek beauty somewhere.
Traveling is a great way to seek out and experience a specific type of beauty in the world. Beaches, mountains, forests, art galleries, museums, historical sites and buildings, shopping malls or luxurious hotels and spa could be great destination to seek out specific types of beauty you desire.
Those were some ways you could live a softer life. Don’t forget that being soft is not a sign of weakness and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a softer life, especially as a feminine woman.
