100 Easy Energizers
Simple swaps to infuse a bit of energy into your life
If you find yourself restless in life, do you ever sit back and ask yourself how you can be the most energetic person you know? Do you want to avoid the boredom, have things to talk about and live the life you only get one chance to live? I know I do! I have said a thousand times that I want to skid sideways into my grave, saying “What a ride!” instead of being lowered slowly to my final rest.
Recently, gray hair jumped into my life along with wrinkles, aging friends and with it, a bit of fear that life is going by much too fast. Most of us have been stuck in bad jobs, dealt with bad relationships even been stuck from time to time in a bad mood. But, those aren’t the moments we want to live again and again. You want change. You want energy. You want renewal. That’s the life you want, so why not embrace it? Why not try a few of these 100 ideas to get your motor running and learn to live life in a higher gear?
1.Change your toothpaste — nothing gets you going like a whole new taste every morning.
2. Change your hairstyle. Be brave darling! Tell a new-to-you stylist to have fun and to surprise you with the cut. It’s invigorating!
3. Eat at a restaurant with bad reviews.
4. Fall in love. Fall in love. Fall in Love.
5. Try a new exercise class.
6. Write a book. It can be short!
7. Learn something new.
8. Did I mention fall in love? It can be your spouse, a hobby, or a brand-new friend, just fall deeply, head over heels, like a teenager, in love. Do it again.
9. Spend a day sitting by a creek or the ocean, with nothing to read, or do. Listen. You’ll find the very wisest part of you.
10. Watch 10 TED talks in one day.
12. You can’t change your perspective or be exciting unless you change your view.
13. Do the right thing.
14. Buy a $200 pen.
15. Visit a nursing home. What stories will you tell when you are living there?
16. If you’re turning 40, or 50, or 102, find something to do the day after your birthday, something that only a younger person would do. Do it.
17. Volunteer to teach really smart kids something important.
18. Eat dessert.
19. Rent a little red convertible. Drive it ‘til you feel like it’s part of you.
21. Clean a closet, with a vengeance. If you’re not sure if you need it, you don’t need it.
22. Draw exactly what the child beside you is drawing.
23. Walk around the Shiloh Conservation Area across from Shiloh Crossing.
24. Take a new route home.
25. Shop at a different grocery store.
26. Go to your favorite clothing shop. Ask them to find the perfect outfit for you. Buy it, wear it, be it.
27. Let your hair go gray. Worrying about skunk lines and swimming pools limited my life in crazy ways. Going gray, well, that has been the most liberating thing I’ve ever done!
28. Start a business.
29. Spend your birthday writing letters to people who have been significant in your life.
30. Hire a housekeeper.
31. Get involved in changing something that is just plain wrong.
32. Go the library.
33. Buy three foods you see other people buying in the grocery — things you’ve never tried. Eat them for dinner.
34. Join the Facebook group “I’ll Help”- Billings and then, help.
35. Wave at strangers. Talk to Strangers. Go somewhere and be the mysterious stranger.
36. Wear the negligee.
37. Get a new job so you can quit complaining about your old job. (Please!)
38. Accept help.
39. Find something to look forward to after your next milestone event. If an empty nest looms, pick a hobby you will start the day the kids move out.
41. Find a reasonable doctor. Take their advice.
42. Go to a movie. By yourself.
43. Take a drive with no map and no destination.
44. Listen, for one hour, to someone who is as wrong as wrong can be.
45. Listen, for two hours, to someone who is as smart, and wise, and as on point as a person can be. Close your eyes and take in their power.
46. That thing that scares you? Do it.
47. Become a ‘Big’ with Big Brothers, Big Sisters.
48. Enter a contest. Try to win.
49. Sit on the Rims and watch the sunrise, stay for a while and watch our city as it moves through the day.
51. Sit in a different chair for dinner.
52.Sit in a different pew at church.
53. Try kickboxing.
54. Ask your kookiest friend to plan a day. Enjoy the ride.
55. Buy a first-class ticket.
56. Leave the person you need to leave. Forgive them. Forgive you. But leave.
57. Establish a ‘don’t bug me’ signal. Use it.
58. Do yoga for 30 days.
59. Cook without a recipe, unless you never use a recipe, in that case, follow recipes for one week.
68. Tell someone how you really feel. You know who.
69. Pray for the person you just talked to. Be gracious.
70. Swing (The kind in a playground.)
71. Really listen to the person you are spending time with. What do they want, who are they, how can you be a blessing to them?
72. Get counseling.
73. Help someone.
75. Hide surprises for people. Don’t take credit for it.
76. Use a cuss word.
77. Write love notes in crayon.
78. What you normally do, do the opposite.
79. Look up three high school friends. You didn’t turn out so bad, did you?
80. Set a new goal.
81. Achieve that goal. Set another goal.
82. Turn off the TV.
83. Take a long walk. Buy lunch. Walk some more. Buy dinner. Walk some more. Take a taxi home.
84. Leave your phone at home.
85. Let your spouse decide.
86. Be nice. Really nice. The kind of nice that makes you happy.
87. Find new friends.
88. Join a service club.
89. Read a trashy novel.
90. Read three really good books.
91. Sit in the sun.
92. Travel.
93. Stop and just be you. For as long as you can, a day, a week, a year, just stop and be you.
94. Whichever looks like the most fun — do that.
95. Be someone’s joy.
96. Make a difference.
97. Take a risk.
98. Smile at strangers, your kids, your boss, your spouse.
99. Smile some more.
100. Never forget that you are enough. You are wise. You are wonderful.
I wrote this on a Saturday morning while the world was quiet. When my husband woke, he turned on the TV, an unusual way for us to start the day. I gave him the wifely ‘don’t bug me’ eye, he said, “Cartoons?” So with gray hair and adult activities calling, we sat and laughed at Bugs Bunny, then went to Harper and Madison for coffee, conversation, and cinnamon rolls, which are not on our diet. I fell in love. Again.
