Career AdviceSelf Improvement

5 Tips To Thrive While Working Full-Time

posted on June 18, 2018 | by Sam Brown

We live in the age of the side hustle, but the thought of starting a blog or a business while working full-time is overwhelming for most. Especially if you’re barely managing to keep your life together as it is! In this blog post, I’m sharing 5 tips to thrive in your full-time job, so you’ll be able to pursue your goals outside of work, too.

Create a morning routine

I know I tend to harp on about morning routines (I swear I mention them in every post!), but creating a morning routine is one of the most powerful ways to get your life together while working full-time. Not only is a morning routine a practical way to make sure all the important stuff (including self-care) gets done everyday, but it’s also symbolic. Doing something for yourself before you do something for your boss will help to remind you that you’re the most important person in your life. I love to make my morning routine a mix of getting organized for the day and looking after my physical and mental health. But definitely check out this blog post if you’re wanting a step-by-step guide (or this blog post if you love sleeping in).

Choose your outfit the night before

Choosing your outfit for work the night before (or better yet – choosing a week’s worth on Sunday night) is super practical, since it’ll save you a heap of time each morning. But that’s not why I’m suggesting you do it. It’s actually because choosing your outfit the night before will reduce decision fatigue. Decision fatigue is exactly what it sounds like – it’s when your decision making abilities are fatigued. And when you’re decision fatigued, you make poor choices. Like plonking yourself on the couch and cracking open that fresh tub of Ben and Jerry’s instead of going to the gym like you’d planned. Choosing your outfits ahead of time is a simple way to make sure you have enough decision-making energy for the stuff you do after work (which is when most of us tend to make our least helpful decisions).

Curb your social media addiction

I don’t know about you, but whenever my life is feeling particularly messy, I find that I spend more and more time scrolling through Instagram. Mainly because I have NO idea what I should do first and Instagram provides an easy, endless way to avoid that problem. If you have a tendency to fill in your time with mindless social media just because you’re too overwhelmed with life, checking social media at designated times can be SUPER helpful. Obviously this one needs quite a bit of discipline (I shared some advice on how to do it here), but it’s often only once we allow ourselves to notice the void and discomfort in our lives that we’re motivated to change it.

Practice gratitude

Do you know what’s super easy to do when you’re struggling to keep your life together? Whine about it to your co-workers or your partner or anytime you need to fill a few seconds of silence. Complaining about life is something that a lot of us (myself included!) have gotten into the habit of doing because it’s not cool to like Mondays. And it’s just an easy way to make conversation. And even if you hate Mondays – hearing yourself repeat that again and again every week isn’t helping you in any way, shape or form.

Because it’s hard to stop creating, a gratitude practice is a great way to start to add some positivity into your life. Because in reality, we’ve all got clean drinking water, a roof over our heads and a full belly – which is more than most people in the world can say. You can use something like the 5 Minute Journal app if you’d like to do it on your phone, write three things you’re grateful for in your journey each morning or you can do what me and my boyfriend do and tell each other three good things about the day before we go to bed. It sounds like it won’t make a difference, I know, but it does!

Approach your personal life like it’s your job

I know it doesn’t sound fun to approach your personal life like it’s your job (particularly if you’re not loving on your job atm!), but what I mean is simply to pretend that someone’s paying you to do all the stuff you’ve promised yourself you’re going to do. Because, in reality, the pay off that comes from following through with your own plans is WAY better than money. Plus, also because we often do things for money more readily than we do things for our own personal benefit (which is kinda crazy – because the reason we want to make money is because of our own personal benefit). So next time you make a commitment to yourself that you’re going to go to the gym after work or eat your meal prepare, ask yourself how you’d act if you were being paid to do it and proceed accordingly.

Which one of these are you going to try? Let me know in the comments.

And just so you know, I write more posts like this on my blog Smart Twenties.