I hope you are aware that we are only on this beautiful earth for a certain window of time. Life simply will not last forever. But this fact should not sadden you. What you need to focus on is what you can control. The quality of your days on this earth is something you certainly can be the driver of.

With that said, you must learn how to make your life full of, well, life. You cannot do this by wishing away and dreaming. Now, having hopes and dreams is a very good thing, but without action, those hopes and dreams will never come to surface. Let’s look at some of the best ways you can enrich your life:

Setting goals. Write them down, keep them in a place such as a journal or on a sheet of paper and stick it to your refrigerator to keep as reminder for yourself of these goals. Set goals by month, year, 5-year, and 10-year periods. Carefully consider what all it is you want to achieve for each of these periods, and be sure to look back and see if you actually made the progress you wanted. This list will no doubt evolve and change often as time goes on and life changes happen, and you likely won’t reach every one of your goals, but writing your goals down will make it more likely that you will achieve them.

Avoid jealousy. Jealousy is a destructive emotion. It is also a good sign that you’re not living your life to the fullest. People who feel fulfilled in their lives will typically celebrate other people’s success. People who aren’t fulfilled will fill their emotional void with negative emotions.

Stop complaining. If you’re not happy with something in your life, you can complain about it, or you can actively work to change it. The former is destructive and unproductive, while the latter can get you headed in the right direction.

Take good care of your body. This is the shell you will remain in all of your life, after all. Eat a healthy diet, get a sufficient amount of sleep each night, and exercise regularly.

Take good care of your mind. Avoid feeding it with junk. A little downtime is okay, but don’t dedicate much time to watching reality television, reading gossip blogs, checking sports scores, and wasting valuable time on other stuff that requires little mental energy. Even the news can be a negative source of energy for your brain, with its constant bombardment of negativity and biased content. These things are all a waste of time—while you could instead address your mind to the attention of mentally stimulating activities, such as reading non-fiction educational books, attending social events, or learning a new language. Keeping your attention on mind-stimulating activities will allow you to improve in various aspects through much better use of your time.

Live consciously. It is far too easy to get stuck into ruts and routines that you just get used to every day, but remember—you only have a limited number of days on this earth. Don’t put your life on auto-pilot. Each day, you should ask yourself this question: Why am I doing this? If you wake up too many mornings in a row without a good answer, then it’s time for you to make a change.