Your world has shrunk
For almost all of us, our worlds have massively shrunk at the moment. We are isolated at home, many of us are furloughed, or working from home. Either way, you’re just not getting out very much and our worlds have shrunk. So, what I’m trying to do, because that’s definitely the case for me, is to expand the space that I’m living in, albeit a small one. And I don’t mean a literal extension or loft extension or going down into the basement, I mean capitalising on the things that you’re already doing or in other words, getting the most value out of things you’re already doing, and potentially introducing something new that you get more value from as well.
Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin
When I say make your world a bit bigger, no matter how small it is in its origin size, that is in terms of the head and the heart as well. So one of the things that I’m doing a lot of, is really focusing in on the charity work that I’m doing. Now, I know money can be tight for many of us, but I’ve actually expanded my charity budget, giving money, for example, we sponsored a cat very recently. Now, perhaps animals isn’t as much your thing as it is mine, but the point is this: When we do something for something else, for a cause or for something that’s bigger than us, or for somebody else, it makes us feel good. It has the physiological effect of boosting hormones like dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, perhaps even some endorphins. It makes us feel good, and when we feel good, we feel as though we’re living more. We feel our world is filling up and our hearts are filling up too.
Expand your heads and hearts
So that’s my piece of advice for you. Kick this idea around to see what you think, see if you can make it work for you. But if we can’t go out, if we can’t literally make our world bigger, we can do more to fill the world, the amount of space that we’re currently residing in, both literally and in our heads and in our hearts.