7 Ways Oprah Taught Me To Build A Bigger, Better Life
Focusing on your own self-improvement can help you more than you know.
Jonathan Borba | Pexels I've learned a lot from Oprah Winfrey — at this point, I think most people have! Not only is she a living example of beating the odds to create a big, beautiful life, but she also shares how she did it and the experts who teach and inspire her.
Oprah tells us we can change our lives and we want to believe her. But what if empowerment, high vibes, self-acceptance, self-confidence, and inner peace are meant for someone else, but not us? What if we think we don’t have what it takes to Oprah our lives? What if we know there is something better for us, we just don’t know how to begin?
We watch Oprah’s interviews, and we feel empowered. We are inspired by her certainty. We listen to her speak and we are moved to tears. She seems to know what is possible for us, so why do we allow fear and doubt to cloud our minds and stop our progress? How do we get out of our way?
Here are 7 ways Oprah taught me to build a bigger, better life:
1. Flood your brain with positivity.
If you need a quick fix to get yourself out of a funk or if you need a jolt of self-confidence or a quick dose of motivation, try the victory pose.
The victory pose is that universal thing we do when we win. We throw our arms up over our heads in the shape of a ‘V’. Hold that pose for three minutes. Holding that expansive pose can immediately make us feel more powerful, happier, more likely to take action, and more energetic, according to a 2022 study.
This is a free and easy shortcut to feeling motivated and confident. Try it. You’ll be amazed.
2. Smile as often as possible.
Even if you have to fake a smile, smiling sends powerful messages, not only to other people but to your brain and even your cells. The brain is wired to look and focus on the negative to keep you safe (our brains are always scanning for bears or rabid dogs and other dangers) as backed up by research from 2021.
Smiling sends a signal to your brain that helps create a happiness loop that encourages positive-thinking patterns. Smiling can release tension on a cellular level, too. Smiling is contagious, makes you look more attractive, and even makes you appear more trustworthy to others, as demonstrated in a 2015 study.
Retrain your brain. Smile more often. Seriously. What do you have to lose?
3. Know when to save yourself.
This is a tough pill to swallow, but no one is coming to save you. No one. No one can truly help you. The gateway to happiness cannot happen if you blame others. To push forward into empowerment and self-acceptance, you must learn to take responsibility for yourself. 100 percent.
No blaming. No wishing. No waiting. No resenting. No bitterness. No "if onlys."
When you take complete control of your situation, your thoughts, your actions, and your life, you will push forward. Yes, there are situations beyond your control. Yes, you’ve been wronged. Yes, life is unfair. Yes, your situation is dreadful. Yes, you have been hurt.
But use the past as fuel for your future. Take 100% responsibility for your life. Choose your thoughts and your actions carefully and purposefully. You’ve got this.
4. Speak up and be clear in your communication.
No one likes to have to mind read. No one likes it when someone uses wimpy language and cloudy communication. No one likes it when someone mumbles or speaks meekly. Keeping yourself small and making your language unclear leads to frustration for everyone.
Learn to say what you mean. Own what you say. Not only will this make other people better equipped to work with you and understand exactly what you want, but it will also clear up gray areas in cooperation.
Instead of whispering, "If you have time, would you mind cleaning up after yourself? Is that okay?" say, "Please clean up after yourself, load the dishwasher, and make sure the leftovers go into the fridge."
Direct communication makes you feel more empowered, allows others to be successful, and, above all, is honest. Oprah loves honesty.
5. Make bite-sized goals you can actually achieve.
We love Oprah for permitting us to dream, but where do we begin when the dream seems impossibly far-fetched? You begin one bite at a time. Instead of focusing on the overwhelming goal, start with three, seemingly inconsequential things you can do each day to push closer to your dream.
Studio Grand Web via Shutterstock
She taught fitness by breaking down our big goals into small, achievable ones. For instance, three things you do each day to honor your body and mind may be to put on cute clothes, make a hair appointment, and spend time reading an inspirational book. The next day may include going for a walk, connecting with a friend, or skipping cream in your coffee. The next day may look into a gym membership, ask a friend to walk at lunchtime, reducing the portion of one meal.
Small, manageable steps, perhaps three a day, put you on a path to success.
6. Be grateful for everything you have.
Cultivating gratitude is like enrolling in Lifehack 101. Gratitude changes everything. Being grateful pulls us out of our heads and tosses us into a world of hidden beauty. Being grateful reduces materialism and the soul-sucking pursuit of meaningless "stuff."
Gratitude makes us less self-centered, according to research from 2003. It helps us focus on others and not just our needs and wants and complaints. Gratitude makes us healthier, allowing us to sleep better, reduce blood pressure, have increased energy and it can even reduce symptoms of aches, pains, and worries.
Need more reason? The more grateful you are the more decisive and effective you are in the workplace. Yep. You got it. Cultivating gratitude even helps you like your job more and can help you attain your career goals more easily.
7. Let go of what isn't working and move forward.
Yep. To reach our dreams, we have to learn how to give up, surrender, and let go. It is part of the process. We are obsessive control freaks by nature. We want what we want and we want it now. We have dreams, and we want them realized by two o’clock Tuesday or we feel hopeless.
Get clear on your dream, work hard, hustle, connect, reach, and fire like lightning in all directions. Then, let go. Give it space. Let it breathe. There is grace in working hard and then allowing the seeds you’ve planted to take root.
Often, something is waiting for you that is bigger and better than you could ever imagine. When you hold your dreams in tightly clenched hands, your dreams cannot develop. Unclench. Surrender your dream to a power greater than your own. That isn’t giving up. That is keeping the dream alive.
Living an Oprah life is possible for all of us, no matter where we are in our lives. Oprah doesn’t expect us to have all the answers before we start. She doesn’t expect it to be easy or even look pretty.
Oprah wants us to succeed. To start small. To keep going. To dream. To hold ourselves accountable. Come on. You’ve got this. Let’s get started.
T-Ann Pierce is a transformational life coach who helps empower parents to create healthy relationships with their children.