➡️ 1. Read everyday 📖 – even 15-20min of reading a day can do the trick! You can always learn something new from any book, either some interesting fact about some culture, some historical fact or maybe some new word? 😉
➡️ 2. Play games 🀄 – Brain fitness programs and games are a wonderful way to tease and challenge your brain. Sudoku, crosswords and electronic games can all improve your brain’s speed and memory. I highly recommend Lumosity app! 🤗
➡️ 3. Excercise on a weekly basis 💪 – healthy body = healthy mind! 😉 When working out you make your heart work faster which stimulates better blood circulation and brings more oxygen to your body and brain 🧠. It boosts your memory, improves your concentration, enhances your creativity etc! 🤗
➡️ 4. Get out of the comfort zone 💥 – when leaving your comfort zone you need to start thinking, you end up in a new situation, need to be creative, learn new skills etc. Great way to make your brain work! 😊
➡️ 5. Take time to meditate 🧘🏼♀️ – daily meditation is perhaps the single greatest thing you can do for your mind/body health 😊. Meditation not only relaxes you, it gives your brain a workout. By creating a different mental state, you engage your brain in new and interesting ways while increasing your brain fitness 🤩
➡️ 6. Keep learning new skills 📈 – learning a new skill works multiple areas of the brain. Your memory comes into play, you learn new movements and you associate things differently 😊. Reading Shakespeare, learning to cook and building an airplane out of toothpicks all will challenge your brain and give you something to think about 😁
Which one is your favourite?
Category: Self-evolving
5 Ways How to be More Creative
➡️ 1. Get tired physically 💪
Not only it is scientifically proven that we’re more creative when we’re tired 😴 but a research has also shown that physical exercise helps to force you to adopt a more creative mindset using the right half of the brain 🧠. Exercise also increases blood flow and oxygen to the brain, which sharpen mental clarity.
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➡️ 2. Embrace boredom 😳
Try putting social media, TV and all devices away. Get bored on purpose 🙄. Just lay down and let your mind wander 😍. A research shows that being bored actually propels us towards deeper thinking and creativity 🤯. The theory goes that a bored mind searches for stimulation, which moves it into the daydreaming state, which leads to new ideas 😎.
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➡️ 3. Watch a TED talk or listen to a podcast 🎙
Nothing makes me more creative than being motivated by seeing others succeed! 🤩 And where to find that motivation, listen to successful people talk? Try any TED talk and you will be amazed! 😉
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➡️ 4. Generate way more ideas than you think you actually need ☺
People who are able to generate a lot of ideas (good and not-so-good) are much more likely to have a couple of brilliant ideas hidden in the mix than those who only come up with a couple of ideas to begin with 👍. Block out time for free writing and come up with as many ideas around a problem as your brain can generate, even if they seem silly. As Thomas Edison said, “Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”
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5. Make time to play 🎪
Studies show that when we fully immerse ourself in just doing what we enjoy — in other words, getting out of our own heads — it stimulates outside-the-box thinking and silences our inner critic 😊. Tinker with toys, build something, get outside… and most importantly, think like a kid! 😀
P.s. Join me in Creative Challenge on my Instagram! 🙂
How to be productive
There are plenty different tips on how to be productive, some will work on you and some won’t so you need to test them all and see what’s effective on you! 😊
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This is what works for me
🔸️ Planning
➡️ First of all when I set my goal I visualise me succeeding to be even more pumped/motivated 🤩
➡️ I write down a list of steps I need to take to reach my goal. The more you break your goal into smaller steps the better.
➡️ I open my calendar and assign each step to some date. 1 step a day (or even a week if those are bigger steps) should be enough.
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Once I have my goal divided into smaller steps and each step planned for a specific date/period of time I know what and when I have to do 🤓. Focus on that step only, don’t think what comes next.
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🔸️Taking the steps
I work on my projects/goals after my regular work so those are my advices for people who have goals outside their work life/career (or want to make those goals their new career 😉)
➡️ Don’t take long breaks and don’t get too comfortable, you’ll lose whole will to work 😅
The hardest part is to start so once I finish regular job, I eat dinner and go straight to my projects. („I’ll rest, see 1 episode of my favourite show and I’ll get to work” almost never works 😅). I try to stay „pumped” after work to do more and more.
➡️ If you do need a break between work and projects go for a walk or, even better, workout! Physical activity will boost your mind and release endorphins so you’ll feel better and will be pumped to work! 😁
➡️ Tick off every little thing you’ve done from your ‘TO DO’ list. Even if it’s a really small thing that took you 1 minute – tick it off ✔ the more ticks you’ll get the better you’ll feel
➡️ If you haven’t managed to do everything from your ‘TO DO’ list just open your calendar, assign a new date for the steps that you’ve got left 📅
➡️ Once again go throught the list of things you did manage to do, you’ll see how productive you’ve been! 🤗
➡️ Have a well-deserved rest 😊
Healthy balance
You know what’s one of my main rules in life? Healthy balance about EVERYTHING 😉
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We live in crazy times where everybody is in a rush, everybody wants to be the best at something 😬. Some people risk it all to get what they want. Is it worth it though? 🤷🏼♀️
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I’ve heard some people say that in order to be successful you need to totally limit your time off and focus on work 😶. That you need to drop Netflix, drop the time with your loved ones and spend every minute of your day self-evolving 😏 That instead of watching a tv show on Netflix in the evening you should focus on broadening your skills, your knowledge and read a book 📖
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I understand that in order to succeed you need to work hard and I totally agree with that 👍 I highly encourage everybody to self-evolve, to learn new skills… sure, that too ☝️. But to limit your time off? 😕 To never watch Netflix (apart from the fact that you can always learn something from a tv show/movie/documentary 🙄)? To never have propper leisure time? 😒
Na-ah 👎
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There needs to be balance⚖. Not only you NEED TO REST regularly in order to rebuild your energy to work, to get new ideas 🤩, to stay fresh 🙂 but if you work your ass off and never rest you’ll lose your motivation, lose your will to work and it will all become a torture for you and in the end when you succeed it won’t bring you any joy 😏
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Another example are people who want to lose weight or muscle up and they work out every day or even twice a day 🙄. That ain’t the way to do it 🚫. Muscles grow on your rest days! You need at least 1 day break from working out a week for the body to recharge and for your muscles to grow.
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You should make sure that there’s heathy balance ⚖ in every part of your life:
Between work 💻 & rest 🎬
Between working out 💪& regeneration 🧖♀️
Between your career 👩💻 & private life 💃
Between the time you’ve got for others 👥 and time you’ve got for yourself 🧘🏼♀️
Between physical development 💪 and mental development 🧠
Between caring about what’s important ⚠️ and ignoring what’s not 🚫
Healthy balance is the key, believe me 😉
Live a colorful life! ❤💜💙💚💛🧡
Paint it the way you want! 🎨🤗
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In order to make your life colorful you need to break your routine 😉 Being organized and having everything planned is cool and you know I am all for it but you need to get crazy sometimes too! 😜
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Be spontaneous! Drop that mop on a Saturday and instead of spending whole day cleaning your house call your friends and go bowling 🎳, to an aquapark 🏄♂️ or even for a roadtrip if possible! 🚙
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Go to your favourite restaurant but skip you favourite meals and order something new 🤩! You won’t get to know new tastes and maybe even find you new favourite dish if you won’t be trying new things! 😉
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And it works same way in life! Do something new! Take up a new hobby! 🤹♂️ Start some new course! 📚 Join some association and meet new people! 👥
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Best memories are made when you leave your comfort zone and do something new, even if it’s scary, believe me! ☺
Chasing after perfect numbers
Are you chasing after perfect numbers? I know I am and it’s not good 😫👎
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I’ve realised that everything I do lately and everything I have I see in numbers 🔢. How many contracts have I installed at work (I work in an administration office), how many emails I’ve sent 📨, how many times I’ve worked out during a week 💪, how much weight I lost 🤗, how many centimeters I lost in hips, how many likes did I get on my latest post 😅, how many new followers I gained 🤩, how many books I’ve read…
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Dreaming of perfect weight 🤗 (a number), big Smiley Society community 👥 (number of followers), big comission at work 💰 (a number) and so on and so on… 🙄
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I’ve been chasing so hard after that that I got my panic attacks back and feel stressed all the time 😫
And what for?
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It’s not that working hard is bad and that we shouldn’t dream, of course we should but this has got to stop somewhere 🤷🏼♀️.
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We need to see above the numbers, see bigger goal in it. For example, let’s not focus on how much weight we’ve lost during a diet but let’s appreciate that we work on our health 🥦, that we try to eat better and take care of our body, that’s what matters 😉.
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Counting followers? Well, to be honest, I thought that at this time (almost 2 years of running Smiley Society) I thought there will be more of you here 😅 but thanks to this blog I got back to taking more pictures 📸, I bought mysefl a camera 📷, been learning how to edit photos and videos, I got back to writing (and in English!), I’ve been learning a lot on psychology in order to give that knowledge to you…there’s more to that than followers and even though I thought Smiley Society would be bigger by now, it made me work on myself, self-evolve and learn new things! ☺
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Counting money, commision? 💰 Sure, it’s important in life but you can’t put a number on most important things in life: love ❤, family 👨👩👧👧, friends, health 😇, adventures, memories 😍…THOSE are the things that matter and that we (myself included) should focus on ⚠️
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What do you think? Do you agree? Are you chasing some numbers?
Let’s support each other
Have you ever told somebody about your goals/dreams/a project you had started working on and heard laughter or some unpleasant response 😞? „You’re not gonna make it!”, „This is just stupid”, „Why would you wanna do that?”.
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Have you ever had a new dream or started working on some new goal and decided to keep it to yourself because you were scared of others’ reaction 🤷🏼♀️?
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Have you just stopped telling your close ones about your dreams or your accomplishments because you don’t feel like you have their support and nothing ever impresses them 💔?
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I know I have. I have 1 big project that I’m working on that my family doesn’t know about and 1 secret project that I haven’t told ANYONE about 🤐
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And you know what? This is not how it’s supposed to work 👎.
We should all SUPPORT each other, we should all BELIEVE in others and we should ALWAYS be happy for others’ successes and let them know that they did a good job/congratulate them 👏.
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We REALLY need to learn to be happy for others and to support them. Even if a friend of yours tells you about most obscure, to you 😉, dream, something that he/she wants sooo bad and works hard for it, even if it is totally uninteresting to you and you wouldn’t want a thing like that – support your friend, if it makes her/him happy be happy to her/him 🙏.
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And if you’re not supporting somebody because deep deep down inside you are jealous (come on, admit it 😉) of somebody’s accomplishmets be patient and learn to be happy for others. Your time will come too 🤩. It’s not a race where only 1 gets a reward. If somebody succeeded before you it doesn’t mean that you cannot succeed too! 🎖
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Let’s all help each other, support each other and lets openly talk about our dreams 💬
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So tell me, what are you dreams? What have you been recently working on?
Whatever it is I BELIEVE IN YOU!! 🤗
How to easily change your mindset
Stop thinking „I have to” and start thinking „I can”. 💪
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This is the easiest and most effective way to find what you should be grateful for 🤗
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Instead of thinking „Damn, I have to go to work tomorrow 🙄” think „I can work! I didn’t lose job during coronavirus shutdown and I can keep on earning money 💪!”.
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Instead of thinking „I have to make dinner, I so don’t feel like it 🙄” think „I can make dinner! I have all the ingredients in the fridge and I don’t have to walk around being hungry, I am so lucky 😋!”
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Instead of thinking „I have to ride 300km to see my Mom, it’s so far away 🙄” think „I can still catch a train and go see her, not everyone is so lucky as so many people already lost their moms ❤”.
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It’s not only about finding the reasons why you should be grateful but once you start thinking like that, once you start seeing your life as a list of opportunities and not tasks that you HAVE TO do you’ll feel more willing to do them! 😉
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Words „have to” bring this pressure and tension, when you hear someone saying „you have to do this” you don’t feel like doing it at all 🤷🏼♀️, it works another way round.
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„I can” attitude will make you feel more willing to actually do those things, you won’t feel that pressure and you’ll do those tasks with a smile on your face! 😊
Try it out!
Positive apps!
I showed 5 positive apps in June (7 over all) on my Instagram Stories and I’d like to sum it all up 🤗.
Here’s quick description if you haven’t seen my stories with tutorial on each app (you can still see it in Positive Apps! Highlights on my profile).
🔸️Gratitude (@gratefulness.me) is a great app for building gratitude and affirmations. It works like a journal where you add what you’re grateful for daily. After a week or a month you have a whole list of things you can be grateful for – great to have on a bad day! 🤗
🔸️My Affirmations is a beautifuly done app for affirmations only BUT you get to say them out loud 🎙. In the app you’ll find various affirmations divided into categories. After you pick your affirmations you get to record yourself and in the end you can play a nice presentation with amazing pictures, calm music and your own voice saying amazing things about you! 🤗Pretty incredible presentation to have when you’re feeling down!
🔸️CBT Thought Diary is an app that works basically like a diary where you can keep on track with your thoughts, emotions and moods.
🔸️ThinkUp (@thinkupapp) is very similar to My Affirmations but with wider choice of affirmations to choose from.
🔸️21 Days Challenge (@21daysapp) is an app for building new healthy habits! You’ll find 11 challenges there for new habits in sections like: Mental wellness, Sleep schedule, Self care, Gratitude, Productivity, Happiness or No Junk Food. Each challenge has 21 steps with 21 different tasks for each day! 😁
🔸️Focusly (@focuslyapp) is a great app for meditation, fighting stress and calming yourself e.g. before sleep. There’s many meditation sessions divided into couple different types and plenty interesting articles.
🔸️Fabulous (@thefabstory) is another app good for building new habits but also about learning about time management and meditation, a bit of everything actually!
It’s impossible to choose just 1 best because they focus on different things so I’d pick 3 – My Affirmations for building gratitude, Focusly for meditation and keeping yourself calm and 21 Days Challenge for learning new habits.
I love those 3 apps and I am SO HAPPY I found those! You need to check them out! ❤🤗
Communication
Do you know what’s key to good relationship?
Communication 😉
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And it’s not only about love relationships, it’s important to make any kind of relationship work – a friendship, a relation you have with your daughter, mom, neighbour, coworker. Anybody.
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We are ALL different. And nobody sits in your head, nobody reads your mind, believe me 😉. So when you don’t like something, when you need help with something you need to COMMUNICATE.
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Plenty woman (I used to be one of them) think that if they send „signals” to their partner he’ll know what she needs/means 😅 That if she says something between the lines about a movie she’d like to watch or talk about her friend’s new cosmetics he’ll instantly get the idea to take you to cinema to see that movie and he’ll buy those cosmetics for you 😅 No, this doesn’t work with men.
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Men and women work totally differently and so do our minds! You need to be loud and clear 😉
COMMUNICATE.
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It works like that with everybody. If you’re angry with your boss because he/she gives you so much work tell him/her politely (!) that you’re swamped and ask if he/she can maybe get one of your co-workers to help you, to divide some big task between 2-3 people, not just 1 🤷🏼♀️
TALK.
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If you’re frustrated with your friend because he keeps inviting you to places you don’t like or wants to do something you’re not fan of – tell him. He simply might not know that you don’t like it! I’m sure he doesn’t do it to make you angry, he’s just anaware of your negative feelings. Why? Because you’ve never told him that you e.g. don’t like bowling or eating at that Thai restaurant. 😉
LET HIM KNOW.
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We all need to talk more. Say what we think out loud. Don’t keep your thought or feelings to yourself. But remember, if it’s something negative think how to communicate it to your friend to not hurt his feelings 🙏. We should always be sincere and if you don’t like something you should say it but do it gently.
📸 pic taken in Zakhyntos in 2017
How to be HAPPY 