What does it really mean to live with intention? It’s about building a balanced life for yourself that feels full of purpose and meaning. It also means that your life—your activities and work—feel worthwhile and are focused on making you a better person. Living with intention is about getting out the autopilot mode and just going through the motions in life. It’s about making conscious choices and seeing exactly how you envision your life. Here are a few tips you can implement for living with intention.

Focus on activities that are meaningful to you. Many of us have a lot of things going on in our lives, and those things lead to lots of scheduled activities. So, since these activities can sometimes fill our days, it’s crucial to try to choose to do things that are meaningful to us. So, ask yourself questions like: What are activities that make my life feel like it has purpose? What are the most important things to me in life? and Ultimately, what do I really want out of this life I’m living? To the degree possible, when we can mold our activities around the answers to these questions, our overall happiness will increase because we are living with intention.

Keep working to be a better person. When we live with intention, we also generally focus on areas of self-improvement and how we can grow on a personal level. When we improve ourselves in this way, we feel our lives are more meaningful. However, bettering ourselves doesn’t happen overnight. Experiencing growth is usually a lifelong process. It takes work and monitoring results. Ultimately, when we are working on being a better person (a better listener, more compassionate, more devoted to our work), then we are living intentionally.

Work toward balance. When you feel your life getting out of balance, it’s harder to live with intention. Feeling overwhelmed, overworked, and overly emotional are all signs of being out of balance. When you feel this way, it’s important to get re-centered in order to start feeling like you are living your life intentionally. Part of this involves paying attention to your overall wellness too—so having a healthy diet, getting out and moving, and resting when you need to are key.

Live in the moment. Being intentional also means living mindfully which involves being present in all that you do. It’s about neither dwelling on the past nor projecting what could happen into the future. When you are mindful, you have better self-awareness and this allows you to build sturdier relationships and overall decrease your levels of anxiety. Mindfulness usually takes some discipline to achieve, but once you do, you can choose paths for your life that are more meaningful. So consider incorporating some meditation and conscious breathing into your everyday life.

Look for a way to make a difference. Helping others will also make your life feel like it has more purpose and in turn, feel like you are living with more intention. Giving back to others and finding ways to help them not only helps their mental well-being but yours as well. One way to do this in a formal manner is by looking for organizations you can volunteer for. Get involved with a cause that is meaningful to you and see if it doesn’t help you feel like you are living with more intention.