Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes walks through three steps to build a rich and meaningful life: define what it looks like across people, possessions, health, and experiences. Make a visual collage and write specific end-states for each. Then identify concrete actions and ask yourself daily: what is one thing I can use my energy for today?
Foreign. Welcome to this video about creating a rich and meaningful life. This is part of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Nuggets series and I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In order to effectively use our energy to help us achieve that rich and meaningful life, first we have to know what that life looks like. What are we actually striving toward? So define a rich and meaningful life. What does that look like for you? Who's in it? And what are those relationships like? What things do you have? Both tangible things like boats or houses or dogs or whatever it is, as well as things like your health and well being. What do you have? What do they look like? What do you do and experiences? What experiences are important in your rich and meaningful life? Most of us don't want to spend all day, every day sitting on the couch watching television. So what experiences do you want to have in your rich and meaningful life? Maybe you want to learn how to rock climb or how to make cheese or whatever it is you want to do. Putting those down so you have those out there in order to know what you're working toward, in order to tell yourself, all right, when I have time, when I have energy, I can do things in order to work towards these goals. Once you kind of know what that is, find a picture of each person, thing and experience that's important in your life. And you can do this online. You can make a digital collage. You don't have to print anything out. Or you can, if you want, and for each person, thing or experience, describe exactly what you want it to be like in your rich and meaningful life. That is your end goal. That's what you hope to have for each person, thing and experience. Then identify what you can do to address that thing in order to nurture it into what you hope for. Maybe your best friend is one of those people that's important in your rich and meaningful life. Well, we know that relationships require time, effort, work. So if you have an idea of having this person in your life six months from now, six years from now, that's great. What does that relationship look like and what can you do on a regular basis to nurture that relationship, to make sure it grows into what you want it to? Once you've identified what your rich and meaningful life looks like and then identified the steps you need to take in order to move from where you're at right now to, to having this ultimate goal, you know, what, what do you need to do in order to nurture it, to make it flourish? Then you need to start taking steps to implement it. What can you start doing today in order to start working towards at least one of those goals? One of those people, things or experiences that's important in your rich and meaningful life? Every morning ask yourself, what is one thing I can use my energy for today in order to work towards a rich and meaningful life? Likewise, every time you start doing something that requires energy, ask yourself, is doing this? Is using my energy on this? Helping me work towards what's important in my rich and meaningful life? Or is using energy on this wasted energy? Thank you.
