How to Romanticize Your Life | 10 Tips to Start Loving Your Life Right Now

If you’ve been on the internet at all in the past year, it’s likely that you’ve heard the phrase “you’ve got to romanticize your life”. TikTok and Instagram are full of videos of people sipping herbal tea and watching the sunset while talking about having main character energy. But what does it really mean to romanticize your life? Why does it matter? And how can you create some of this life-changing magic in your own life?

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A Brief History of Romanticizing Your Life

It seems like the idea of romanticizing life has really taken off in the past year – but this concept isn’t new. For hundreds of years, humans have dreamed of finding more romance and magic in their everyday lives.

Marie Antoinette was famous for escaping to her cottage, Hameau de la Reine, where she romanticized the everyday pleasures of a simpler life. And in the early 1800s, the Romantic era romanticized the ideas of self-expression, spirituality, nature, and love.

These ideas have cropped up at various points throughout history. But they all have one thing in common – when life gets difficult, people start seeking more romanticization in their lives. In the 19th century, the movement was a reaction against the industrial revolution, when hard, long days of work began to discourage dreamers everywhere.

And in the 2020s… It’s no surprise that people would want to start finding some romance and magic in their stressful, isolating pandemic-era lives.

What Does It Mean to Romanticize Your Life?

Romanticizing your life means seeing your world as a story in which you are the main character. And once we realize this, we realize that if it’s our job to become the writer of our own story.

Romanticizing our lives encourage us to take control, and approach life with more courage, strength, and optimism than ever before.

Approaching life like this also helps us appreciate all the little, amazing things around us. When you romanticize your life, you will want to stop and smell the flowers more. You’ll want to travel more, spend more time with friends, and enjoy more of what life has to offer.

Romanticizing your life means that you’ll see all of these little moments and opportunities as… Well, romantic. And that small change can revolutionize the way you live and appreciate your life.

10 Ways Start Romanticizing Your Life

1. Learn to appreciate the little things more.

It’s easy to recognize and feel grateful for the big things in life. But in order to really find the beauty in our everyday lives, we need to start expressing gratitude for all the little joys around us instead of taking them for granted. Some things you can appreciate right now:

• Where are you right now? Are you in a warm, comfortable place? Take a moment to feel thankful that you are able to feel safe and comfy.
• Look out the window. Is it sunny and bright? Is the sun rising or setting and filling the sky with colours? Or maybe it’s dark, cloudy and stormy. But even so… Isn’t it amazing to be able to see the sky?
• Think about your favourite person in the world. Picture their smile and the sound of their laugh. How amazing is it that you were able to meet them in your lifetime?

2. Get serious about your self-care.

If you’re trying to manifest some main character energy in your life, you need to start treating yourself like you already are. Start treating yourself to some romanticized self-care, like bubble baths and face masks while burning your favorite candle.

But it’s important to focus on more practical self-care too – spend more time tidying your space, cooking meals for yourself, and keeping a planner to keep you organized.

But just because they’re practical doesn’t mean they can’t be romanticized too. Start seeing these tasks as a gift to your future self. When you frame chores as little acts of service to yourself, it’s hard not to fall in love with them all over again.

3. Disconnect from technology more often.

Although this trend started on TikTok, a truly amazing life is found further away from our screens. I’m the last person to preach about quitting our devices altogether – but cutting down on your screen time can be a beautiful thing.

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I took a camping trip where we had no cellphone service. In those couple of days, we had the most fun we had had in months… Probably because we were truly living in the moment instead of constantly interrupting our experience to check our phones.

Longer periods of totally screen-free time are so impactful when you’re able to schedule them. But even reducing day-to-day screen time will have a huge impact.

Start using the screen time feature on your phone more to realize just how much of your life you’re spending scrolling. You can also try downloading some helpful apps like Freedom (a website blocker that can help you block out distracting sites for certain periods of time), DinnerMode (an app that focuses on encouraging you to appreciate screen-free mealtimes), or RealizD (a tracker that makes you realize the impact of your phone usage with helpful insights and alerts).

It’s also been helpful for me to take up some hobbies that have nothing to do with technology. I love using guitar, reading, crocheting, and yoga as opportunities to unplug.

4. Turn your home into your happy place.

We all spend a huge amount of time at home – and as we all know, our time at home majorly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our homes can be a place that uplift and inspire us. But if they’re dragging us down, that can be detrimental to our overall happiness.

Focus on keeping your home tidy – whatever that means to you. But having a happy home is about more than keeping it clean.

Your space should be filled with things that inspire you and make you happy. That could include pictures of family and friends, house plants, art that you love, and soft, comfortable textures. It’s not about spending tons of money or making your home “trendy”. Instead, I see it as turning your space into a reflection of yourself and creating an environment where you can thrive.

5. Lose the weight of other people’s opinions.

Anyone else spend a huge chunk of their life caring excessively about what everyone else thought about them and their choices?

It took me almost a quarter of a century to realize that life is so much better when you live it for yourself. When you start romanticizing your life and loving yourself, some people might judge you. You’ve got to learn to accept that and then let it go if you’re ever going to be truly happy.

If you want to learn how to romanticize your life, it needs to be the life that you want it to be. It needs to be filled with all of the excitement, silliness, and joy that you want… Even if that makes some smaller minds uncomfortable.

If wearing nothing but bright colours, crying into your popcorn at a kid’s movie, or chopping off all your hair makes you happy, I can’t think of anything more romantic than doing it anyway.

6. Wear clothes that make you happy.

I recently read an amazing Reddit post where someone described this act as “costuming” her activities. In a way, picking out an outfit that makes you feel your best is inspiring, and sets your intention for the type of day you’re ready to have.

If wearing overalls and a floppy sunhat inspires you to get your yard work done, wear that. If you know everyone else is wearing the dreaded jeans-and-a-nice-top-combo (what does this even mean??) for dinner but you would rather wear a poofy pink dress, wear that. We’re trying to stop living our lives for everyone else – it’s time to stop dressing for them too.

And of course, this goes the other way too. If you feel more comfortable in sweats and a baggy hoodie, then that’s what you should wear. If your outfit serves its function while also making you feel your best, that sounds like a win to me.

7. Invest in your own self improvement.

The best way to create a life you love starts from within. Your life could be perfect around you – but until you start working on your inner self, you will never be able to see it that way.

I am a huge advocate of therapy for everyone – it is such a great tool to help you on your journey. I’ve talked before about my amazing experience with BetterHelp, an online therapy platform that can connect you with thousands of fantastic therapists worldwide to help find your perfect fit.

There are also so many fantastic resources that can help you on your journey to create your best life – and there are so many simple ways to incorporate them into your life.

I love listening to TED Talks while I do chores around the house (this one from Mel Robbins was life-changing for me). Take a course that interests you rather than mindlessly watching Netflix. Instead of scrolling on your phone before bed, challenge yourself to read a chapter of a self-help book. Simple switches like this surround you with the inspiration and motivation you need to create a life you love.

Click to shop some of my recommendations for inspiring reads below:

8. Practice mindfulness.

We all have beauty and wonder all around us – but we’re too wrapped up in our problems and distractions to really take notice of it. Finding mindfulness is one of the biggest lessons you’ll discover when you start learning how to romanticize your life.

Mindfulness is all about finding presence in the here and now. Rather than regretting the past or worrying about the future, you should aim to truly accept and acknowledge what you’re feeling right now. I like using the 5-4-3-2-1 method to help ground me and set me up for mindfulness. It looks a little like this:

5. What are 5 things you can see right now? (My example: I can see my laptop screen, a blue water bottle, a candle burning on my coffee table, my fuzzy socks, the popsicle I am eating)

4. What are 4 things you are touching right now? (I feel the softness of my sweater, my feet resting on the floor, the heat of my laptop on my lap, the coolness of the popsicle in my mouth)

3. What are 3 things you can hear right now? (I hear the hum of the refrigerator, my boyfriend singing to himself in the other room, the clacking of my keys as I type)

2. What are 2 things you can smell right now? (I can smell the pumpkin candle and my berry yogurt popsicle).

1. What’s 1 thing you can taste? (You guessed it. Can you tell I’m really enjoying this popsicle right now?)

9. Learn the art of dating yourself.

Society loves to romanticize our relationships with others. But our relationship with ourselves is so much more important. Learning to treat yourself like you would a romantic partner is a huge part of learning how to romanticize your life.

Think about some of the things you might do to show love to a partner. Things like buying flowers, lighting candles and taking a bath, or going out to a movie, are fun when a partner does them for you. But in a way, aren’t they are even lovelier when you do them for yourself?

Learn to stop being afraid of doing things by yourself – see them as opportunities for a self-date. Take yourself out for coffee, go for a hike, or watch a movie. Learning to romanticize your life means romanticizing time spent alone too.

10. Treat yourself like the main character.

Finally, it’s time to change your self-talk to reflect the new way you are learning to see your world. Something I see come up often when people talk about learning how to romanticize your life is having “main character energy”. Just think for a second… How do you view your favorite characters in books, TV, and movies?

Most well-written main characters have flaws. They make mistakes and have setbacks. Despite all these things… We still root for them. We believe that they are good people who are deserving of a happy ending. Don’t we deserve a little more of this grace for ourselves too?

Harnessing this feeling means knowing what you want out of life and learning to feel confident in your own skin. It’s not a change that can happen overnight – but it’s one that can transform your whole life. What better time to start than today?

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Learning how to romanticize your life doesn’t mean that you gloss over all your problems and live in a fantasy world. It’s actually quite the opposite – for me, the act of romanticizing your life helps you create a life that you love. And that is a beautiful thing.

What do you think about this trend? Have you tried romanticizing your own life? Let me know in the comments below!