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How to be HAPPY

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🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 72 All our Smiley Future steps have been, no doubt, a journey into ourselves ☺. I hope that it was a good and constructive experience for you, which you can benefit from everyday now 🙏. I congratulate you on your courage and persistance! 😎 I hope that you’ve found your way to benefit most and use the tips I’ve shared here. ::: Here’s last task for you: thank yourself for the effort and all the work with some amazing award 🏆. If you’ve planned what’s gonna be your award here’s finally the time for it! If you haven’t planned it – find your favourite way to celebrate. Appreciate yourself and tell yourself, and say it loud!, that you are proud of yourself! 💪 ::: Answer those questions: * What have those steps have taught me about myself? 🤔 * What came easily? 🤔 * What was a challenge for me? 🤔 ::: And that’s the end of Smiley Future steps! But don’t worry, there will be another series about gaining confidence and motivation soon! 🤗 ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 71 We’re almost at the end of our Smiley Future cycle! 😀 Let’s sum up practicing gratitude – have you managed to practice it in your everyday activities? 🤔 ::: Which of those practicing gratitude excercises has proved to be best for you? 🔸️ Finding 3 reasons to be grateful everyday in the evening (step 56) 🔸️ Showing gratitude towards other people (step 57) 🔸️ Gratitude towards your body (step 58) 🔸️ Gratitude for what’s not material (step 59) 🔸️ Gratitude for your surroundings (step 60) ::: Has practicing gratitude had an impact on you, your surroundings? 🤔 If yes, in what way? Write down your reflections 📝 ::: Next week: Last step – Summing up all Smiley Future steps ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 70 Continuing summing all our steps up try answering this question: did you find practicing mindfullness useful? 🤔 Just to remind you, we had those steps: 🔸️ Practicing mindfullness: observation (step 51) 🔸️ Practicing mindfullness: awarness (step 52) 🔸️ Practicing mindfullness: listening (step 53) 🔸️ Practicing mindfullness: submergence (step 54) ::: Have you managed to increase your mindfullness? 🤔 Has practicing mindfullness had an impact on you, your surroundings? ::: Write down your reflections 📝 ::: Next week: Summing up: Gratitude in your everyday activities ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 69 Today let’s focus on summing up on your tools which we used for the last 16 months in our Smiley Future 🤗. Which ones became most useful to you? 🤔 ::: Here’s a list of those most important ones: 🔸️ Building a goal with SMART method (step 6) 🔸️ Implementation intention (step 10) 🔸️ Process visualisation with positive or negative outcome (step 11) 🔸️ Training will power: reducing stress (step 17), improving your willpower by breathing (step 18), autoobservation (step 19), beating tiredness and feeling burnt out (step 20), finding the source of your ‘I desire’ power (step 20) – which of those elements did you find most useful? 🔸️ Ways of being good to yourself (step 25) 🔸️ Ways of deferring gratification (step 30) 🔸️ Ways of beating procrastination (step 32) 🔸️ Ways to fight lack of motivation (step 37) 🔸️ Working on your sabotagin thoughts (step 42-45) 🔸️ Observing the impact of emotions on your willpower (step 47) ::: Which one of those tools helped you most? 🤔 In what way can you use them in the future? Write down your reflections 📝 ::: Next week: Summing up: Practicing mindfullness ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 68 Today we’re gonna continue summing everything up ✔. I highly encourage you to reflect on what subjects were most important to you, what did you discover about yourself? 🧐 To make it easier here’s a list of the subjects we went through: 🔸️Training strong will 🔸️Mind traps 🔸️Be good to yourself 🔸️Procrastinating 🔸️Deffering gratification 🔸️Sabotaging thoughts 🔸️Emotions vs will power 🔸️Mindfullness 🔸️Practicing gratitude ::: Which out of those subjects touched you the most, made you reflect most, opened your eyes? 🤔 Will those be helpful in the future? How can you use them? Write down your thoughts 📝 ::: Next week: Summing up: Your tools ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 67 Time for summing up 🤩. It is a very important moment, in which you should pay full attention. Why? 🤔 Because every path leading to a long-term goal is about learning something new 🤗. You find out plenty new things about yourself, you have a change to draw conclusions from your strong and weak points, successes, mistakes and failures. ::: Let’s start summing up with analyzing success and strong points. Answer those questions: ➡️ What have you acomplished during this challenge? ➡️ What new habits, tools or knowledge have you started using in practice? ➡️ What have you managed to do? ➡️ How close did you get to reaching goal? Where were you in the begging of this challenge and where are you now? ➡️ What advantages and strong points do you notice now, from time perspective? Maybe you’ve managed to discover or appreciate more some of your resources (internal or external) that you haven’t seen before? ::: Second part of summing up is about mistakes, failures and mishaps that have come along the way and thank to which you can learn new things about yourself 😉. Remember to avoid excessive self-criticism and blaming yourself. You’re doing this summing up in order to uses this experience and learn from it 👍. Be good to yourself and understanding. Remember: the only person who doesn’t make mistakes is a person who doesn’t do anything at all! 😉 ::: Answer those questions: ➡️ What was hard, what have you not managed to achieve? Why did you think it happened? ➡️ What knowledge have you gained because of it? ➡️ What discoveries about yourself will be useful in the future, while reaching other goals? ➡️ What did your difficulties come from? What helped or what could help next time? ::: In the end thank yourself for the perseverance and courage 🙏. Thanks to it you try, you make mistakes and learn new things about yourself in order to take another step forward ➡️ ::: Next week: Suming up: Your biggest discoveries ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 66 Today I highly encourage you to create new reward system, now regarding maintaining the change 🏆 ::: Start rewarding with complimenting yourself on even smallest successes 🤗. I know it may not be easy and you are probably not used to catching on your sucesses but more on your mistakes or failures 🤔. It is worth though to try it out and redirect your attention to progress and accomplishments 🤩. ::: If you are having problem with that write down all the compliments you like to hear and use them on every occassion of even smallest acomplishments 😎. Every day. If nothing comes to your mind try those examples: „You’re doing great!”, „Good job!”, „Keep going!” 👏 ::: Another step of conscious rewarding yourself is to create reward system, for example once a week or once a month 😊. Let it be something that will make you very happy (but won’t be a conflict to your main goal) 😀 ::: Next week: Suming up: conclusions on successes and mistakes ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 65 Last week we talked about possible difficulty in maintaining a change e.g. during holidays 😬. There might appear other obstacles and that’s why I highly encourage you to create new implementation intentions! 🤗 This tool shouldn’t be underrated! ::: Task for today: Create new implementation intentions – if you need to remind youreslf how to do it check out step 10 of our Smiley Future 😉. This time make those intentions about maintaining the change. They may differ from the first ones you’ve created in the beginning of our challege then. So don’t skip that step! I promise you it is worth doing it! ::: Next week: Create new reward system ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 64 Today we’re gonna finish creating new plan for maintaining change 🤗 – lets focus on last 2 letters of SMART method so answer those questions: ➡️Is your plan realistic? ➡️Will you be able to realize this plan now not as a part of a challenge/project/diet but as a new way of living 🤔? Have a moment to think whether it goes well with your everyday routine/schedule ➡️ What do you need to make the plan for maintaining the change realistic? ::: Now time to set a new time bound – after what time will you realize you’ve achieved to maintain the change and that you’ve managed to make it a permanent change? Set a specific date 😉 ::: At first it can be after e.g. 3 months. Let this time be a test whether you’ve managed to maintain the change and maybe to check what do you need to change to make it permanent. It is very important to test it so you won’t go back to old bad habits 😉 ::: Next week: Create new implementation intentions ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 63 Today another hint helpful in maintaining change 🤩. Think whether maintaining change is attractive to you, in other words what’s your motivation 🤔 ::: Answer this question: ➡️Why do you want to maintain the change? 🤔 Write down all the reasons that come to your mind 📝 and keep it so you could go back to it in moments of weakness or doubts in maintaining your change 😉. ::: Task for today: I encourage you to create new benefit card (check out step 38) this time focusing on benefits of maintaining your goal 💪 ::: What benefit card is? It is simply a list of all reasons why you’d like to maintain your goal 🤩. If you’re wondering what’s the point in writing them down and you think „I will remember them” – I’ll surprise you: in the moments of lost motivation it is easy to forget why you want something so much 😉. When you find a temptation in reach of your sight (or hand), you’re stressed and/or tired or you’re in a bad mood those reasons suddenly all get forgotten 🤷🏼‍♀️ ::: In those kind of situations benefit card might come very useful. Have it always with you (for example as a note in your phone 📱) and read it in difficult moments to make it easier to maintain your goal 😉. It is best though to read it everyday, even when you’re feeling motivated. ::: Benefit card next to process visualisation (step 11) are great tools to strengthen your strong will 💪 ::: Next week: Permanent change ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 62 How to maintain change? 🤔 ::: First hint is so obvious that it is actually common to miss out on by thinking „it will all work out itself” 🤷🏼‍♀️. And here it is: think how do you plan to maintain the change. ::: Write your answer down and create a initial plan, of course using SMART method (see step 6) 🧐 ::: Task for today: focus on first 2 criteria of SMART method and try making your plan specific and measurable 📏📐 ::: For example, if you lost weight, improved your stamina 💪 and started having new nutritional habits, now in order to maintain it you probably don’t need to keep working out as often as you have but you can’t just sit down and get back to lazy life on sofa! 😉 ::: So you might (and should) plan to work out e.g. 3 times a week instead of 5-6. Choose form of your workouts (fitness, gym, jogging?) and plan it out in your calendar 📅 ::: If you e.g. learned a new language you also need to keep working on it, practicing etc . Same with every finished project! 😉 ::: Now let’s have that coffee, a small bite of a macaroon and get to work! 😀 ::: Next week: Create new plan ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 61 We’ve got only last couple of steps ahead! 😀 That’s why now we’re gonna learn how to maintain what we’ve built/changed 🤔. ::: Let’s start with some theory 🧐. Psychologists examining motivation have been trying to establish how to proceed life changes. They’ve been wondering what phases we can divide change into, what is important and needed in each phase 🤔. In 1982 James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente described what is called the transtheoretical model of change also known as wheel of change in which they extracted such phases: ➡️ 1. Phase of initial contemplation – when we don’t realize that we need a change 😅 ➡️ 2. Phase of contemplation – when we realize there’s a problem and need of change and start considering all pros and cons 🤔 ➡️ 3. Phase of preparing for change (our first 13 steps) 🤗 ➡️ 4. Phase of action – we’re now completing this phase! 💪 ➡️ 5. Phase of maintaining – we’re entering this phase just now and we’ve got new challenge ahead: how to maintain change? 🤔 What to do so as not to come back to old habits? 🤷🏼‍♀️ ::: We’re gonna focus on that subject for next couple (and last) of steps 😊. Before we move on to propper hints, here’s task for today: analyze what you’ve accomplished with out previous steps, what you’ve managed to change 🤔. How does this change impact you today? Is it better than on step 1? 😉 ::: Next week: How to maintain change? ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 60 Time for last step of practicing gratitude 🙏. Today I encourage you to look around your closest surroundings. Think about the place you live in and think what you can be grateful for 🤗. ::: Today’s task might help you in that: imagine that someone close to you visits you and has never been in that area before 😉. Take a moment to sit down and plan out your day together in your surroundings where you’ll be showing your favourite spots, you’ll invite to try out your favourite activities, use local attractions etc 😉. ::: Try making this plan very subjective and personal 😊. Even if you’re not a big fan of your surroundings or you know every bit of it I am sure that there are things you haven’t done here (or haven’t done in a while) waiting for a special occassion 😉. ::: Once you finish creating that plan… take yourself on a trip! 😀 ::: If you want, you can invite someone to join you of course but there’s one condition: spend this day fully aware and grateful 🙏. Look at what surrounds you from different perspective with fresh eyes, open mind and heart ❤. Enjoy! ::: Next week: Stages of change ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrow” ::: P.s. Have you ever had spinach waffles? 😀

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 59 How did you like practicing gratitude towards your body last week? 🤔 Today I invite you to do this exercise but taking something totally different as the subject of gratitude 😉 ::: ➡️ Task for today: focus on what’s not material. Bring your attention to intangible reasons to be grateful, not related to owning something: going to a cinema with your friends 🎬 (maybe not nowadays but after covid era😅), having an evening to yourself 🧘🏼‍♀️, a smile of a stranger you pass by 😊, romantic dinner with your other half 😍, a nice workout 💪 – there are plenty examples ::: In the end this excercise might not be that easy as those moments – especially those small ones that you have everyday – easily get missed out on, you take them for granted 🤷🏼‍♀️. We tend to appreciate them from time to time only (when it’s somebody’s birthday, wedding, you attend your favourite concert etc). ::: Although due to pandemic I think we’re all gonna enjoy our first beer/drink🥂 in a pub after a lockdown, seeing a movie in a cinema 🎫 or attending a concert 🎶 much more than we used to couple years ago 😀. ::: If you want, you can start a special jar to „keep” special moments like those by putting notes with special memories of such moments 🤩. Thanks to it you’ll have the possibility of going back to them in hard/worse times simply by reading them and reminding of those good days 🤗. Apart from that, it feels good to see the jar getting full – this way you get a physical proof that you have plenty reasons to feel grateful every day! 😀 ::: Next week: Gratitude for your surroundings ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 58 Let’s continue learning about gratitude 🙏. Today I want you to try out this excercise that is great for practicing self-love and crucial for people who work on their body or try to lose weight 😊. ::: Question for today: what are your grateful for in your body? 🤔 Sit down comfortably and bring your whole attention to gratitude towards your body. ::: If nothing comes to your mind here’s an example: feel grateful for your feet 👣 that carry you every day, for your legs thanks to which you can walk, run and dance 💃, for your stomach that digests, cleanses and nourishes 🤗, for your back that carry you tall and proud 😎 or let you safely curl up and hide when you need it, for your arms and hands 🤲 thanks to which you can work, hold, hug, pet. Feel grateful for your voice 💬 thanks to which you can express your thoughts and feelings, sing, shout or laugh, for your eyes 👀 that let you see, for your ears 👂 that let your hear, for nose 👃 and tongue 👅 that can taste, that ease your appetite and ability to appreciate smells and flavours. ::: If you want, you can try out this excercise in a form of meditation or relaxation 🧘🏼‍♀️ – lay down in a comfortable position, close your eyes, let your body loose and think what are you grateful for in your body, thank it, thank yourself 🤗 ::: Next week: Gratitude for what’s not material ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 57 Let’s continue our practicing gratitude and try out another excercise 🙏. Task for today is feeling (and showing) gratitude towards others 🤩. How can you do it? ➡️ 1. Notice, appreciate and thank others (close ones, coworkers etc) for every little (and easy to miss) gestures coming from them 🙏. Bring your attention to everything that you get from them: attention, support, help 🤝. Short conversation 💬, making a tea when you feel sick 😪, helping in solving a problem, a text showing that somebody thinks of you in a difficult moment…. ::: When you concentrate on noticing and appreciating those details, you’ll see that you have plenty more reasons to feel grateful that you’ve thought before 🤩 ::: ➡️ 2. Notice, appreciate and thank strangers who you meet along your way e.g. as a customer. It can be a mindful waiter 😊, friendly saleswoman 🤗, a clerk with a smile on his face 😁, bus driver that waits for you to get in before he drives away 🚃… Notice those specific things that others do for you and feel grateful 😍 ::: Do you notice those little deeds from others in your everyday life? 🤔 I sure do and I’m always grateful for every little help or support I get from others but on the other hand I feel sad/disappointed when others do not notice/appreciate what I do for them and take it for granted 💔 . Do you feel the same way? ::: Next week: Gratitude towards your body ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 56 I hope that last week’s step nr 55 about gratitude got you interested and ready to practice it! 🤗 You’re ready? Let’s get to today’s task straight away! 🤩 ::: For the next couple of days (until our next step in a week) every night when you’re laying in bed already think of 3 things that you are grateful for in that exact moment 🙏. Notice how you feel before that excercise and how you feel afterwards. Does something change? 🤔 Does it get easier with time to find reasons to be grateful? 😊 ::: So as not to forget about this excercise stick a note next to your bed with a reminder 📌. How do you like that excercise? Maybe you’ll practice it every night from now on? 🤗 Write down your reflections 📝 ::: Today I am grateful for my friends, for the support I get from my husband and for our financial situation 😊🙏 ::: Next week: Gratitude towards other people ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

u feel gratitude? ➡️ What are you grateful for? ➡️ Is feeling grateful dificult or easy for you? ::: Next week: Practicing gratitude – excercise 🙏 ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 54 Time for last excercise in our mindfullness series 🧘🏼‍♀️ – careful submergence. The purpose of this exercise is to cultivate the satisfaction of being here and now 🙏 and to avoid constant feeling of struggle (or boredom) that overwhelms us everyday 😉. ::: Instead of waiting for the end of boring routine tasks 🙄 in order to do something differnt, try experiencing that routine in a totally new way 🤩. ::: For example, when you’re cleaning the house 💨 bring your attention to every little detail of different activities: feel the smooth moves while vacuuming 💫, feel your muscles work while washing the dishes 💥, notice what the objects you touch look like 👀, what do they feel like etc. ::: This whole excercise is about fresh new creative look on activities well-known to you and experiencing them in a totally new way instead of treating them as a burdensome obstacle standing on your way to the next tasks 🤗. ::: If you want you can choose another routine activity instead of cleaning of course 😉. But who knows, maybe even cleaning will turn out to be a fun experience? Try it out! 🤗 ::: Write down your reflections and conclusions after this excercise 📝 ::: Next week: Do you feel gratitude? ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 53 Today I want you to practice an excercise that increases awarness by listening 👂. ::: Key element of this excercise is not to judge what you hear – listening without the impact of the past or of the future 😉. Lots of things that we feel are connected to the past. For example, we don’t like some song because it reminds us of some difficult moment 😥. ::: That’s why today I want you to listen to something new, something you don’t know yet 🤗. It will let you focus on attentive experience by listening. ::: ➡️ 1. As soon as you pick some new song put your headphones on, close your eyes and sit down in a comfortable position 😊 ➡️ 2. Try not to judge the song right away by its genre, artis tor songwriter. Ignore all those labels and dive deep into the sounds during whole song 🎶 ➡️ 3. Let yourself explore new aspect of listening to music 😍. Even if at first you don’t like it, try to set aside this feeling and let your conciousness fully dive into the sounds you hear. Soak into the melody 😊 ➡️ 4. Explore the song by bringing your attention from one instrument (voice) to another 🎷. Notice them not only together but seperately. If there are vocal parts in the song focus on the sound of the voice, its scale and tone. If there is more than one voice also try to hear each one of them seperately 😊 ::: How did you like that excercise? Have you managed to experience music without judging it, from another perspective, with mindfullness? Write down your observations, reflections and conclusions 📝 ::: Next week: Practicing mindfullness: submergence ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 52 How do you find mindfullness practice so far? 🤔 Today I want us to practice mindful awarness 🤩. This excercise is to boost your awarness while doing everyday, normal activities and to appreciate their results 😉. ::: Think of something that happens couple times a day everyday, something that you take for granted and don’t bring any attention to 🤷🏼‍♀️. It can be e.g. opening door 🚪. For one day, everytime you grab a handle stop for a second and bring your attention to where you are, how you feel and where do these doors lead you to 🤔. ::: A moment that you choose doesn’t have to be a physical activity. You can focus on a point where a negative thought appears 💭. Stop then, notice your emotions and that thought – see if it’s needed and then push it away 👊🏻. ::: It can be a moment right before a meal – before you start eating bring your attention to smell 👃, color of the meal 👀 or focus on the fact of how good it is to eat a meal with family or friends ❤. ::: This excercise helps you switch from automatic thinking 🧠 to experiencing mindfullness and gratitude for every little (and so far – boring) thing or action 🤗. ::: Next week: Practicing mindfullness: listening 👂 ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 51 Let’s continue practicing mindfullness 🧘🏼‍♀️. Next excercise is careful observation 👀. It lets you notice and appreciate simple, obvious elements of reality and it serves you to feel that you’re a part of a beautiful natural environment what tends to slip out in everyday rush 😉. ::: ➡️ 1. Pick an element of nature in your close surroundings and focus on that for a minute or two. It can be a flower 🌸, a tree 🌳, an insect 🐞, clouds ☁️, moon 🌚…anything ::: ➡️ 2. Don’t do anything else ❌ just watch the element 👀. Relax and observe it as long as your concentration lets you. ::: ➡️ 3. Look at the chosen element as if you’ve seen it for the first time 😁 ::: ➡️ 4. Explore every aspect of that chosen element. Let its presence soak you completely 🤗 ::: How do you feel after that excercise? Do any new thoughts, discoveries come to your mind? Write them down! 😊 ::: Next week: Practicing mindfullness: awareness ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 50 Let’s start our practicing mindfullness series! Ready? 🤗 First excercise is mindfullness breathing 💨. You can practice it in any position and at any time of the day. Try to stand still. Set a timer and focus on your breath for one minute. ::: ➡️ 1. Inhale with your nose 👃 and exhale with your mouth 👄 ➡️ 2. Let your thoughts come and go freely, don’t focus on them. If you start habitually wonder about things to do, your problems etc just bring your focus back to breathing and let your thoughts go away ➡️ 3. Concentrate on your breath: how does it float through your body, how each breath in fills you with oxygen and life and how each breath out lets you get rid of what is unnecessary ::: If you liked that excerise and it let you relax you can practice it longer 😊 Write down any observations you’ve noticed while practicing mindfullness 📝 ::: Next week: Practicing mindfullness: observation ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 49 To notice your emotions, to be good to yourself and to understand yourself better you’ll need mindfullness 🤗 ::: What is it? 🤔 In short, it is an intentional focusing on here & now without judging it. Practicing mindfullness we focus on what we experience in a specific moment, here & now ⬇️ We dont think about the past or the future 🚫, we focus on what’s happening now. Couple next steps will be about mindfullness ☺ ::: During mindfullness training try to remember about couple tips: 💫 Don’t judge your thoughts and emotions that you’re feeling 💫 Be patient and persistent – let your thoughts and emotions go in and out in their time 💫 Keep your head open, imagine you’re a beginner at every training 💫 Avoid expectations – just try practicing mindfullness without any script or thoughts on how will it go ::: Task for today: Are you attentive every day? 🧐 Do you focus on here & now, feel the presence? If yes, in what moments you find it easy to be focused on here & now and when is it harder? 🤔 ::: Have you ever practiced mindfullness? 😊 ::: Next week: Practicing mindfullness: breathing ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 48 Second part of our emotions vs willpower section ☝️ Do you react totally differently than how you’ve planned when you’re angry, mad or feeling any other strong emotion? 🤷🏼‍♀️ It happens to all of us, that’s why last week we’ve talked about overcoming sadness and today we’ll look closer on how anger 🤬 has an impact on your willpower. ::: I encorage you to reflect 🤔 and answer those questions: ➡️ What do you do when you’re angry? 😡 What are your ways to get the anger out, to calm down? 🧘🏼‍♀️ Does anger have an impact on your motivation, willpower? If yes, how? ➡️ When you’re mad do any sabotaging thoughts appear? What are they? Create helpful reaction to them 😊 ➡️ What can you do to feel anger without sabotaging your goals and complicating realizing your goal? 🧐 Do you suppress anger and use harmful to you ways (and to your goal) to release the tension? If yes, try finding a solution for that. Create (and write down) a strategy for constructive feeling and overcoming anger and calming yourself down in difficult moments 🤗 ::: Whenever I feel angry I try to workout 💪 (if possible at the moment) to get the anger out. This way I am even more pumped and get a good workout session 💦 but I also do not end up doing something unfavorable to me like e.g. reaching for unhealthy comfort food or alcohol 😉 ::: Have you ever tried working out when feeling mad? What are your ways to overcome anger? 😊 ::: Next week: What is mindfullness ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 47 Next couple of steps will be about a very important subject – a connection between emotions and your will power and perseverance 💪 ::: Have you noticed that when you’re angry, mad or feeling any other strong emotion you tend to react totally differently than how you’ve planned? 🤔 We all know it and it is worth taking a closer look on how emotions influence your willpower. Today we’ll start with sadness 😞 ::: Try answering those questions: ➡️ What do you do when you’re sad? What are your needs to get through the sadness and soothe it? Do you tend to make yourself feel better by eating 🍕🍰🍫? Do you sometimes resign from some important to you actions to reach your goal because of sadness? 😰 ➡️ When you’re sad do some sabotaging thoughts appear? Create helpful reactions for them 😉 ➡️ What can you do to get through sadness without resigning from your goals and giving up? If you tend to ‘eat the emotions away’ (we all know the term ‘comfort food’ right? 😅) try finding a solution for it. For example change unhealthy snacks 🍿🍫🌭 for healthy ones 🍎🥜🥗 or try finding another ways to soothe the sadness other than eating 👍. Maybe a conversation with someone close to you 💬, watching a comedy 🎬 or a relaxing bath 🛀? You know yourself best! 🤗 ::: If this excercise is difficult to you and you’ll feel tense 😬, take couple deep breaths when you’re done with the questions, relax your body and have a rest 😘 Next week: Anger vs willpower ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 46 Today’s the last step of our intense (and uneasy!) work on sabotaging thoughts 💪 ::: ➡️Today’s task nr 1: Now appreciate yourself for all the hard work and congratulate yourself on your success 😎. Yes, success because just noticing the sabotaging thoughts is already a big part of the success! 😉 ::: I realize that working on sabotaging thoughts lasts longer than a week or a month. Those last couple steps were only a stimulus and en encouragement to work! 💪 So remember: everytime you notice a sabotaging thought appreciate yourself with a smile and a good word! 🙏 Same thing when you choose a helpful reaction instead of being tempted! 🤗 ::: If a sabotaging thought you ‘caught’ wasn’t pleasant, you got tense or upset, after recalling a helpful/supporting thought take couple deep breaths and relax your body 🧘🏼‍♀️ ::: ➡️ And now task nr 2: Create a system of awarding yourself (daily, weekly, monthly) for your hard work on sabotaging thoughts 🏆. You deserve it! 🤗 ::: Write down some nice, supporting words to yourself appreciating your work 📝 ::: Next week: How emotions influence your willpower 🤔 ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 45 Do you remember our previous steps about sabotaging thoughts? 🤔 Have you managed to work on them and create your helpful recreation or helpful reaction? 🧐 If yes – wonderful! 🤗 Now start using them in practice. ::: Here are some examples of sabotaging thoughts and answers to them taken from „The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person” book by Judith Beck 📖 ::: ➡️Situation: Reaching your goal will affect your family’s life 😐 🧠Sabotaging thought: I can’t put my needs first above the others 🤷🏼‍♀️ ❤Helpful reaction: I can try reaching for goal that is imporant to me.Time to start thinking about my own needs 👊🏻. My family should eat healthy too, limit fattening products, it will be good for them as well. 😊 ::: ➡️Situation: You don’t let yourself have any satisfaction until you lose as much weight as possible 😬 🧠Sabotaging thought: As long as I won’t reach my target weight I won’t feel any satisfaction. I don’t deserve any prizes until I lose as much weight as possible 🙄 ❤Helpful reaction: I need to learn to be happy about small successes 🤩. Celebrarting every 2 kgs lost will make me feel better and will strenghten my belief in myself! 😎 ::: ➡️ Situation: Temptation 😟 🧠Sabotaging thought: I deserve to eat anything that I want 🤷🏼‍♀️ ❤Helpful reaction: If I want to benefit and stay thin I can’t eat anything I want. It is more important to lose weight and feel good than to spontanously decide what to eat 🤗 ::: Remember, those are only examples (although I really am often in situation nr 3 😅😳) that should help you understand the idea of creating helpful reaction/supporting thought for sabotaging thought 🙂. ::: Create your helpful reactions that fit your individual situation and personality. You are the expert of yourself! 😚 Next week: Appreciate your hard work! ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 44 Have you managed to notice your sabotaging thoughts? 🧐 If yes – great! I hope you’ve written them down because today we’re gonna look for a way to fight them! 👊🏻 ::: Task for today: for each sabotaging thought create a supporting thouht or helpful recreation 🤗. Now you’ll be able to not only notice a sabotaging thought but to stop and choose how you wanna react❗. Will you accept what the sabotaging thought is telling you or will you, thanks to previously prepared supporting thought or helpful recreation, choose another solution? 🤩 ::: Working on sabotaging thoughts makes you aware of your choices and you no longer will work or react automatically. 🤗 ::: Take a pen, piece of paper and write down your sabotaging thoughts and some helpful answer to them! 📝 ::: Next week: Defeat your sabotaging thoughts ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 43 As you my remember from last week’s step sabotaging thoughts are on a subconscious level and are often irrational 🤔. Don’t judge them but also don’t ignore them – take them seriously. Even if they seem silly, weird or without any sense to you carefully look into them 🧐 ::: Why is it worth to do it? Here are couple reasons: 🔶️Sabotaging thoughts can: ➡️ Bring down your self-confidence ➡️ Let you reject knowledge, good advices or hints from others ➡️ Increase general stress level (and that weakens your strong will! Remember step 17?) ::: That’s why task for today is: keep observing your sabotaging thoughts (and when you notice them, write them down! 📝) while remembering to be good to yourself! 😉 ::: Next week: Create your helpful recreation ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 42 Does it happen to you sometimes that you do something automatically and then you think why did it happen like that and you complain on lack of motivation and strong will? 🧐 ::: If yes, then next couple steps are for you as we will be working on catching automatic thoughts that sabotage your effort ⚠️ ::: Before every action (or resignation of acting) some thoughts appear 🤔. They often appear on a subconcious level so we might not notice them and that’s why we tend to think that they’re „stronger” than us 🤷🏼‍♀️. ::: Today I encourage you to look deeper at thoughts that sabotage your effort 🧐. Try observing them while you’re fighting with some temptation or you feel like resigning from some important activity (e.g. workout). What do you notice? What happens then? 🤔 Write down what thoughts you observe 📝 and everytime, no matter how irrational or hard to accept they might be, congratulate yourself 👏! It is hard work on yourself so it is very important that you appreciate you for doing it! 🤗 ::: What are your thoughts that usually sabotage your goal? Mine is usually: „I don’t feel like it”, „I’m too tired” or „I don’t know exactly how to do it” 🤷🏼‍♀️ ::: Next week: Know your sabotaging thoughts ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 41 How are you finding our latest steps about lack of motivation? 😊 Do they help you? Do those methods help you fight laziness and get to work? 💪 If not, do not give up, keep looking! Try to learn to understand your body, your needs! 🤗 ::: Today I want to ask you an important question: Is following your dream… a pleasure to you? 🤔 Surprised? I feel like we’re so often telling ourselves that we’re „fighting with ourselves”, „overcoming our weaknesses”, „changing for better” (do you see how negative those messages sound? 🙄) that word ‘pleasure’ is no longer in our vocabulary 😑. And it is really hard without it! ::: If what you’re doing doesn’t give you any pleasure it will be hard for you to last on this path longer than couple weeks 😉 ::: That’s why a task for today is: find pleasure on your way of reaching your goal 🤩 ::: Let’s see some examples: ➡️ If your goal is to lose weight: write down what type of physical activity you like most 🏊‍♂️⛹️‍♂️🚴‍♂️ ➡️ If you’re setting up a new business: write down what part of your new challenge you like most, maybe you like creating a business plan? Or reaching our to clients? 💬 ::: ➡️ Turn some music you like on and make it nice background to your work 🎶 ➡️ Reward yourself! 🏆 ::: My 3 goals I’m focusing on now are: making @smileysociety big 🔝, writing 2nd novel 📖 and losing weight 💪 and what gives me pleasure in those projects are: with @smileysociety I love reading your comments and nice messages from all of you 📩, while working on my novel I love writing and letting all emotions go ✒, putting them on paper and as for losing weight – taking care of my health makes me happy 🤗, I feel good that I eat well but also – I love the feeling after a good workout! 💪 ::: What are some nice things you like about your goals/projects? 😁 Next week: Thoughts that sabotage your goal ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 40 If you still lack motivation think whether you’re not too tired or too overwhelmed 🤷🏼‍♀️. ::: Maybe you need regeneration? 🧘🏼‍♀️ If yes, think what do you need most to feel better? Being active or relaxing? ☺ Rest or new wave of inspiration? To be alone or to be among others? More sleep? 🛌 Healthier diet? 🥦 Contact with nature? 🏞 Maybe it would be good if you’d went to have a massage or see a doctor? 🏥 ::: Treat rest and rebuilding your strength (physical or mental) as ESSENTIAL step in reaching your goal 💪. If you’re lacking strength you can’t demand from yourself to be motivated and to have the will to work 😉. Task for this week: take care of youself!!! 🙏 What helps you rest, regenerate? Next week: Motivations vs pleasure ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 39 Let’s continue the subject of lost motivation 🤔 I have a question for you today: do you use your support in your moments of weakness? 🧐 ::: It might seem trivial but many people find asking for help difficult 🤷🏼‍♀️. It requires us presenting our weaknesses, showing our delicate site… 😬And if you’re a resourceful, independent and well-organized person asking for help might be even harder 😶. ::: That’s why today I want to remind you of this important aspect: you don’t have to be alone with your crisis, your weaknesess and troubles! 🤗 ::: How to reach for help? First of all, accept it that you don’t have to manage everything well all the time 😉. Everybody has their worse moments and it’s not a reason to be ashamed, to punish yourself or self-criticize (I hope that during those worse day you remember to be good to yourself! ⚠️) Give yourself the right to be weak, treat yourself with understanding and tenderness 🙏 ::: Secondly, find in your surroundings a person who you trust, feel safe with. Tell this person what you are struggling with, that you need support, ask how he/she can help you (maybe he/she can share his/her experience, listen to you, let you spill everything out…) 😊 ::: Before you say: „There’s no such person in my surroundings” think well first ☝️. Maybe it’s not that obvious to your if you rarely ask for help and support? 🤷🏼‍♀️ But avoid those who are always critical and rigorous 👎. That attitude is the last you need right now! ::: Talk to someone who will help you organize your feelings, your thoughts 🤯. Maybe you’ll find a source of your discouragement and find a solution during that talk? 😊 ::: Task for today – answer couple questions: ➡️ People I can count on: ➡️ If it is difficult for you to ask for help, for support think what can be a reason of that? 🤔 Maybe you have some beliefs or fears in your mind? 🤷🏼‍♀️ Write them down and try finding a counterargument to each thought 📝 Next week: Lost motivation vs tiredness ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 38 Apart from a little „reminder” of your dream, that we talked about last week, in a moment of crisis a Benefit Card will help you a lot! 😊 ::: What is it? Benefit Card is just a list of all your reasons why you want to reach your goal 🤩. ::: If you’re wondering why bother writing them down ✒ and you think „I remember them all easily 🙄” I’ll surprise you: in moments of lost motivation it is easy to forget why you want to reach your goal that much 😉. When there is a temptation in eyesight (and within reach of a hand 😅), you’re feeling stressed, tired and/or you’re in a bad mood, believe me, those reasons suddenly fly away and it is so hard to remember those 😅. ::: In those kind of situations Benefit Card might come very useful! 👍 Carry it with you everday and read it in any moment of weakness to remind yourself why you want to pursue following your dream 😉. ::: It is best to read Benefit Card everyday, even when you don’t feel the drop of motivation 😎 ::: And here’s task for today: Create your Benefit Card and find a way to have it always with you (maybe it could be a note in your phone 📲, a piece of paper in your wallet etc 📄). Write down ALL the reasons that come to your mind, those small ones and big ones, important ones and less important ones 😁 Good luck! ::: Next week: Use your support ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 37 Today we continue the subject of lost motivation 😶. I have a task for you today composed of 2 parts 😁 ::: Part 1 – Check if you’re not trapped in one of the mind traps 🤯: „everything or nothing” thinking, excessive pessimism or exaggeration (Remember? We talked about it in step 15). ::: If you are, create a list of counter-arguments that will help you look at reality without falling into those mind traps 😊 ::: Part 2 – Come back to the source of your „I want” power 💪, to your motivation. Find a moment to yourself, sit down and answer those questions: ➡️What encouraged you to set this goal? ➡️ What will happen when you reach it? ➡️ What will you gain? What do you want most? ➡️ What will happen when you don’t reach it? What will you lose? ::: If you want, find something that reminds you of important reasons why you started 😊. It can be notes, picture of someone who succeeded and inspired you 🤩, some symbol of your motivation. If you don’t have it, create a reminder on your phone that will help you remember those reasons 📱. It can be a picture/note on a screensaver, a symbolic bracelet, a song…The choice is yours! 🤗 Next week: Create a benefit card ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 36 Today we continue the subject of lost motivation 🔽. If the reason of your motivation dropping is a change of circumstances, some difficult situation, be flexible with it! 😉 ::: Life often surprises us and it is possible that the reality is different than when you’ve set your goal and formed a plan of action 🤷🏼‍♀️. ::: That’s why when reality brings you new challenges grab a pen and update your plan! ✒ ::: Turn your favourite music on 🎶, make yourself a nice cup of tea ☕ and do today’s task: prepare a new plan (remember our SMART method? 🤔 Go back to step 6), new implementation intentions (step 10) and process visualisation (step 11). ::: Instead of dropping everything and quiting be flexible and adjust your plan to new reality 😉 ::: Your new plan: S – Specific – what exactly do you want to accomplish? 🤩 M – Measurable – how will you know you’ve achieved your goal? 🤔 A – Achievable/Atractive – why is this goal important to you? 🧐 R – Realistic – are you able to reach it? 😅 T – Time Bound – by when will you reach it? 🕰 ::: Write down your implementation intentions. And remember, something done is better than something perfect (but in your head) 😉! ::: Next week: Lost motivation – an excercise ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 35 Next few steps we’re gonna work on what to do when your motivation drops 🤷🏼‍♀️ ::: There can be plenty various reasons of losing motivation: difficult time, stressful time, lack of support, health problems, being tired…😔 ::: To find motivation again think what could be the reason of its weakening 🤔 Try answering those questions: ➡️ What might be the reason of losing your motivation? 🧐 ➡️ What usually helped you in similar situations in the past? 🤔 ➡️ In what kind of situations you tend to think „I don’t feel like it” and you feel you’re losing motivation? 😞 ➡️ Does losing motivation appear in certain time of a day, e.g. in the evening or is it present all the time? 🤔 ::: If it’s only in some parts of the day maybe you’re experiencing weakened strongwill which is natural 🙂. However if you’re lacking motivation all the time the reason of it might be deeper and more serious ⚠️. ::: Don’t worry, we’ll try to find it in next few steps 🤗. And remember: the fact that you see your lack of motivation and that you want to better understand it is a great success already and not a reason to be sad or angry with yourself! 👍 Be good to yourself 🙏 Next week: Manage your plan ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 34 Let’s continue our talk about procrastination so constant postponing for later 🤷🏼‍♀️ ::: Last week I’ve mentioned that fear of failure might be one of the reasons of procrastination. Today couple words on another possible reason of constant postponing things for later. You might be surprised but it is…fear of success! 😳 ::: Yes, sometimes subconsiously you’re afraid of success 😞. Why? You can be scared of the reaction of people around you (e.g. because of jealousy 🙄) or you can be afraid of even bigger pressure that you will not fulfill 🤯 (I’m sure you’ve heard of writers who after a big success of their first book had an enormous difficulty to write another) ::: How to remedy it? The awarness and naming the fear of success itself might be very helpful 👍. ::: Try answering those questions: ➡️ What are you afraid of in possible success? ➡️ Imagine that you’ve reached your goal. What will happen then? ➡️ Can you, apart from obvious benefits, suffer losses too? If yes, what would that be? ➡️ Is your fear justified? ➡️ Who could you talk to about your fears? ::: If you can, ask somebody close to you for support, talk to somebody 💬 who is more objective and can look at your fears and doubts from another perspective 😉 I’m all ears if you want to talk! 😊 ::: Next week: Use some motivation techniques that you know ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 33 This and next week you’ll look at postponing things for later closer. Why does it happen to yo? How can you prevent that? 🤔 ::: One of the reasons of procrastinating is FEAR OF FAILURE 😳. It often comes with excessive perfectionism but it might have other sources too. ::: This fear can paralyze you to this extend that when you are facing some task you keep postponing it for later and later 🙄 Do you know the feeling? I sure do. And in the end there’s so little time that you explain failure by lack of time 🙄 ::: How to prevent it? 🤔 1. If it’s perfectionism that stands in the way and is a reason of fear and procrastination keep repeating this: „Something that is done is better than something perfect”! 🤗 If you have another favourite way of reminding yourself that it is better to do something not perfect rather than not do it at all – use it! 😊 ::: 2. Divide the task into smaller steps. This might reduce the fear of ton of work that is awaiting you. Reward yourself for each step that you’ve accomplished 🎖 Now write down the steps of your task or goal. Does it help? Next week: Fear of success ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 32 Do you happen to think of yourself as lazy? 🤪 Are you lazy though? 🤔 Or maybe you’re just procrastinating – constantly postponing things that need to be done to the very last second? 🤷🏼‍♀️ ::: How is it different from being lazy? Lazy people like the state of not doing anything and they feel good about that 😝 while those who procrastinate feel bad about not having done something, they feel guilty and suffer because of that 😫 ::: Task for today: check if the problem of procrastinating concerns you as well 🧐 ::: Answer those questions: 🔸️Do you often can’t get to do something, can’t force yourself to work on something that is important to you and you end up not doing it at all? 🤷🏼‍♀️ 🔸️Do you often wait for the „perfect” moment to start some important project and you keep postponing it? 😏 🔸️Do you happen to delay realization of some important task by doing some other important (but not crucial) things? 🙄 🔸️Does it often happen that you can’t start some important to you task and you end up feeling stressed and/or scared after that? 😟 🔸️Does it often happen to you that you start working on something that is important to you (e.g. going on a diet, starting writing a book etc) but you quickly interrupt it and never come back to it? 🤷🏼‍♀️ ::: If you’ve answered „YES” ✔ to 3 or more questions next steps might be very useful to you 😉. We’ll think of some possible reasons of constant postponing important things for later 🤔 ::: Next week: Fear of failure ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 31 Do you know that saying „out of sight, out of mind”? 🤔 Turns out that scientific researches prove that wisdom when it comes to fighting temptation and empowering willpower! 💪 ::: Good healthy mindset probably already suggests you that it is easier not to eat sweets when you don’t have them around in the house 😉 ::: Brian Wansink, american psychologist learning about eating behaviour did an interesting research with James E. Painter that he describes in his book „Mindless Eating” 🧐 ::: Gentlemen gave their secretaries chocolates 🍫 on Secretaries week in some office. Some of the sweets were in a box with a see-through lid where they could see all the chocolates 👀 and some of the sweets were in a normal not see-through box where the content of the box stayed hidden 📦. ::: What do you think, which chocolates tempted more to be eaten? 😅 Of course those with a see-through lid 🤷🏼‍♀️. Women that could see the chocolates were tempted 71% times more! 😱😳 They were reaching for chocolates 7,7 times a day while those women who had „hidden” chocolates reached for them only 4,6 times a day. ::: You see? Out of sight out of mind 🤗 So here’s your task for today: get rid of all the temptations in your house 😉. Not only sweets but maybe some stuff that you spend too much time on while you could spend the time working on your dreams like PS games or your Netlix account? 🤷🏼‍♀️ Think about it. You don’t have to throw them away/delete them but you can maybe lend those games to your friend or ask your friend to change your password to your Netflix account 😉 ::: What do you think? Would that help you? Next week: Procrastination so constant postponing doing things that need to be done – test ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 30 Today we continue subject of deferring gratification. If, after last week’s task, you already know that it brings you problems I have good news for you: you can practice the ability to defer gratification (so self-control) 🤗. ::: This exercise is from Kelly McGonigqal’s book „The Willpower Instinct”: It appears that 10 minutes is not a long time to wait for something we want 🕰. Neurologists however discovered that it has great impact on how your brain processes the vision of reward 🤔. ::: If inatant gratification is supposed to come after 10 minutes then our brain sees it as future benefit ➡️. Then the system that processes the promise of a reward calms down and strong biological impulse to instant consummation weakens ⬇️. :;: Our brain comparing a cookie that we have to wait 10 minutes for 🍪 with a long-term benefit like losing weight 💪 stops leaning towards promised reward that much. In the instant gratification it is the ‘instant’ part that seduces our brain and changes our preferences 🧠 ::: In order for your brain to think straight make a decision to always wait 10 minutes before you succumb to temptation 😉. If after 10 minutes you still want it, take it. Before the time passes though try to think of long-term benefits you’ll get for resisting temptation. If it’s possible, try also creating some physical or visual distance. ::: If your challenge for willpower requires using „I want” strenght (so doing something you don’t feel like doing) you can also use „10 minutes rule” to help you resist the temptation of delaying necessary actions and to force yourself a bit to do them 😉. ::: Try making it „do it for 10 minutes, then you can stop”. Let yourself stop working after 10 minutes – it might turn out that as you already had started you will want to continue 😉 ::: Try making that excercise and write down your results. „10 miutes rule” might work great when you don’t feel like working out! 💪😁 Next week: How to fight temptation! ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 29 Please read and let me know if it sounds familiar 😉 You’re standing in front of a bakery and you see a yummy cookie 🤤. Your friend brings donuts to work 😍. You feel lilke joining your husband and watch TV instead of working out 📺. ::: Your brain demands a reward here and now! 🏆. You forget about your goal and all the reasons why you wanted to achieve it. You succumb to temptation… 😞 ::: Or maybe…? With your last remains of strongwill you step away from bakery 🤚, you leave dounts from friend somewhere out of sight 🚫, you leave husband in front of TV and you walk into another room to workout and on your way there you remind yourself that each workout gets you closer to your dream body 💪. ::: The ability to postpone pleasures or rewards is called ‘deferring gratification’ in psychology 🧠. It is crucial to realize long-distance goals because it helps you not to succumb to temptation each time but to resist because of you goal that is somewhere in the future 😎. ::: Why is it so hard to defer gratification? Because seeing temptation or reward instantly launches more primitive and oldest part of our brain demanding gratification right away 🤯. Luckily we also have prefrontal cortex (part of our brain) that can cool that instant rush and demand down because it is responsible for controlling our impulses 🤚. ::: Task for today: think how deferring gratification looks in your case 🤔 In what situations is it easier or more difficult to you? 🤔 What helps you defer gratification? 🧐 What makes deferring gratification hard or impossible to you? 🤨 Next week: Deferring gratification – excercise ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 28 How do you relax? 😉 Today’s last part of „Be good to yourself” series. ::: Do you remember when we talked about factors that weaken your strong will? 🤔 It was stress and tiredness and lately we’ve been talking a lot about the danger of treating yourself badly and punishing (and getting into a trap of „everything or nothing” thinking” ⚠️). ::: That’s why sometimes in order to rebuild and strengthen strong will you need rest, regeneration and pleasures that will give you energy and motivation to work 🤗. ::: Task for today: Make a list of your ways of relax and pleasures. It is important so that they wouldn’t be contradictory to your goal (so e.g. don’t write on your list „eating huge pizza” or „eating chocolate cookies” when your goal is to eat healthy 😉). ::: It might be an evening with a good book 📖 or a movie 🎬, talk or meeting with a friend 💬, relaxing bath 🛀, walk around the neighbourhood 🏞, playing with dog 🐶, relaxing yoga session etc. 🧘🏼‍♀️ ::: So what are your ways to relax? Tell me! 😊 Next week: Sometimes it’s better to postpone ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 27 What’s the difference between punishment and self-discipline? 🤔 Perhaps you’ve already asked yourself that on our last step about punishing yourself. How to distinguish it? 🧐 ::: You don’t want to be too strict but on the other hand you need self-discipline so as not to spend the rest of your life living lazily and letting everything go and not reaching any goals 😉. ::: Do you know that the word „discipline” means in latin knowledge, giving orders, teaching? 👨🏻‍🎓 As you see it has nothing to do with punishment, right? 😊 ::: Authors of many books about discipline emphasize that it comes from constant attempts. You fail, you get up wiser and move on 💪. Self-discipline is an effect of your effort and not giving up on next attempts. ::: While main task of the punishment is to scare, it only teaches us what to avoid, brings tension, and often, fear and anger 🤢. ::: I hope that you see now the difference and as to be good to yourself you’ll start liking self-discipline and avoid punishing 🤗 ::: How to distinguish them in practice? Common ground of those two often is the will to avoid some activity. Sometimes we need to force ourselves to do something that is beneficial to us (e.g. working out). ::: How can we know if our forcing is a part of self-discipline or punishment? 🤔 If you’re not sure think of a situation when you really don’t feel like doing something and answer couple questions: *Sitation: *What do you feel then? 🤔 *Is my body tense or loose? Do I clutch my jaw, feel tension in my arms? 😓 ::: If you feel a lot of tension, anger or fear and negative thoughts about yourself pop into your head it is probably closer to punishment than to self-discipline. You’ll recognize self-discipline when you’ll be easily able to say why activity that you’re trying to force yourself to is good and beneficial to you 🤗 Nexy week: Learn to rest ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 26 Do you ever punish yourself? For eating something that you shouldn’t have, skipping training, making mistake…? 🤔 ::: I know that this topic isn’t pleasant but if it does happen I highly encourage you to work on it 💪. ::: Have a look how you find reaching your goal. Do you find it as a war – with yourself, external obstacles? 🤔 If yes then there’s risk that you’ll end up in an eternal fight with yourself and you’ll see every mistake as losing 😫. What comes next you might be even punishing yourself with bad words like „I am horrible”, strict refusing any small awards/pleasures or doing something as a punishment 😖 ::: So as strongwill wouldn’t break down and your desire/fighting for your goal would become a part of your everyday life, part of your lifestyle you need: patience, indulgence and will to act which doesn’t come with permament tension and fear of losing. ::: Task for today: instead of treating realising your goal as a fight or „good” and „bad” actions try to look at it as a process of learning 🤓. ::: You know those cute videos on YouTube of little kids learning how to walk? 😍 They fall down, get up and keep trying again and again – often with a smile on their faces! 🤗 Mistakes and slips are inseparable part of learning anything. And making new habits is nothing but learning. ::: Try reformulating critical thoughts to a thought beneficial to learning. E.g. instead of telling yourself „I am lazy because I didn’t work out” it could be „I found out about myself that if I don’t work out in the morning I am too tired after work. I’ll rearrange my plan of a day.” ::: Now write another examples down so you could use them in the future. Critical thought: Thought beneficial to learning: Next week: Distinguish punishment from self-discipline ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 25 How did last excercise go? Did you manage to sincerely answer to the questions? 🤔 If you have you might’ve noticed that you can be too strict to yourself and today you’re gonna find out how to change it 🤗 ::: Remember last situation when you’ve made a mistake, a situation when you thought bad about yourself. Got it? What did you think of yourself then? What were you saying to yourself? 🤔 ::: Now imagine that you best friend, a relative, somebody close to you comes to you and tells you that she/he has had an identical situation and she/he is waiting for your reaction. What would you tell her/him? 😉 ::: Task for today: Compare what you say to yourself and what would you say to a person close to you in the same situatio 🤗 Next week: Learning without punishing yourself ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 24 Today I want you to think about your attitude towards making mistakes 🤔. Don’t deny it, we all make them 😉. ::: The question is – what do you do next with them 🤷🏼‍♀️? Do you think of yourself too negatively, too strictly, blame yourself 😞? Or maybe you can look at your mistakes as inseparable element of being human, learning, risking and trying new things 🤗? ::: Do you know how to treat your mistakes as valuable lesson, how to withdraw conclussion and move on? 😉 ::: You’re probably wondering what does an attitude towards making mistakes has to do with strongwill 🧠? If you’re too strict to yourself because of mistakes or failures you’ll easily get into „everything or nothing” thinking (I told you about it in step 15). And this leads to giving up and letting the rest of the plan go 😞 ::: Task for today is to think about that and answer questions below: * How do you treat your mistakes? * What do you think of them? * What do you feel then? Write your answers down 📝 Next week: Be good to yourself ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 23 I strongly encourage you to constant observing 👀 what strengthens and what weakens your strongwill, training it and doing visualisations. ::: In next steps you’re gonna look into a very important issue that I often see around me: excessive rigor and self-criticism 👇 ::: Do you know what I’m talking about? Does it apply to you? Do you focus on your mistakes, setbacks, defects and failures? Do you miss out on your advantages, achievements and successes? 🤔 When you do a sum up at the end of a week/month/year what do focus on more? Failures 👎or successes👍? ::: We all tend to notice negative and threatening affects of our lifes more. Our brain 🧠 works this way to catch potential danger as soon as possible and to prevent it. ::: What’s more, if you’ve experienced rigor and excessive criticism at home or at school you might have a tendency of treating yourself same way 😟 ::: That’s why noticing positives is harder and requires more conscious effort. ::: A task for today is to observe what do you concentrate on 📝 * Do you automatically focus attention on negative aspects? 🤔 * Does it apply to you or reality that surrounds you? 🤔 * What happens when you consciously try to redirect attention to what’s positive about you and what’s positive around you? 🤗 * Does anything change? 🤔 * How do you feel then? 🤔 ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 22 Self-discipline is often mistaken with rigor. Today I encourage you to check whether you’re not too rigorous to yourself 😉. Answer those questions: * How do you react when you make a mistake, get tempted or won’t do something that you should’ve? What do you feel then? What do you think of yourself? 🤔 * Do you tend to focus too much on your weaknesses and even punish yourself for doing something wrong? 🤔 ::: If you are too rigorous to yourself today’s task will be very important ⚠️. ::: Being too rigorous to yourself boosts your stress level that brings many bad consequences and one of those is, if you remember, weak self-control 🧠👎 And so it goes again and again. ::: Task for today: reward yourself! 🏆😊 If you’re not doing it yet think of some reward system. ::: Start with complementing yourself for every tiny success 🤗 Write down all the compliments you’d like to hear and use them for every little accomplishment. Everyday 😉! Here’s couple examples: „Well done”, „You’re going great!”, „Good job!”, „Keep going!”… ::: Another step of aware rewarding yourself is making a reward system and rewarding yourself e.g. once a week or at the end of every stage of reaching goal 😉 Next week: How do you manage your attention? ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 21 How’s your training willpower going? 💪 Any progress? Today we’re gonna learn how to refill reserve of willpower. ::: Think what is the source of your „I desire” power” – come back to where it all started so to your motivation 🤩. If you’ve been taking notes it would be helpful to look through notes you took during our first steps, especially when we’ve been setting goal using SMART method. Remember? We did that in step 6. ::: Try to recall why is this goal important to you. Those questions might help: * What will you gain when you accomplish your current challenge? Will you reach your goal? Write down all benefits – those small ones and big ones, more and less obvious 😉 * Who else, apart from you, will gain when you succeed? Often our close ones are big motivation to us. Write down all benefits 🤗 Next week: Reward yourself! ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 20 As I have mentioned before, psychogists compare willpower to a muscle 💪 so they imply that we can train it and that it has its limits. ::: Just like muscles our self-control can also get…tired 😪. And that’s the moment when we often think that we no longer have the power and give up 🤷🏼‍♀️ ::: I am sure you know this feeling – you e.g. do a squat or a plank, you are supposed to keep it for 30 seconds, muscles burn like crazy and it’s only 14, 15, 16 seconds… A thought appears in your mind „I won’t make it, I am tired, I am not strong enough!” 😫. You are facing a challenge then – either let it go and stop the excercise earlier or force yourself to check if you’re maybe stronger than you think..💪 ::: Willpower works exactly the same! Next time when you face such situation try to get through first feeling of tiredness. Don’t give up straight away, you might find out that despite that tiredness you still have plenty energy and more willpower that you’ve assumed. 😉 ::: Be careful – you can also overtrain your willpower. If you feel overwhelming tiredness that doesn’t go away don’t push yourself to exhaustion ⚠️. Get some rest, regenerate and then try again 😇. ::: If you feel tired all the time you should think what’s the cause of that. Maybe stress, lack of sleep, Hypothyroidism? 🤔 Reasons of that can be plenty so if you often feel tired don’t ignore it ⚠️ Next week: Source of your „I desire” power ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 19 In previous step we’ve establilshed what can weaken your willpower, today we’re gonna talk how to empower it! 💪 Let’s try doing willpower training, shall we? ::: How does it work if comparing willpower to a muscle is metaphorical? 🤔 The key to successful willpower training is noting, which you will do in a second, and chosing what’s harder for you. It is about creating a habit of stoping to make right decision that brings you closer to your goal 😌. ::: There are 3 ways to train your willpower. They refer to 3 powers: „I don’t want to”, „I desire” and automonitoring. ::: Method 1: Improve your „I don’t want to” power. Chose one of your small bad habits that you’d like to change/eliminate like overusing some word, sitting wrong or anything else 😊 ::: Method 2: Improve your „I desire” power. Promise to yourself that you’ll start doing 1 thing a day that brings you closer to your goal (that you haven’t been doing before). It can be working out, drinking 1,5l of water a day, self-care ritual etc 😊 ::: Method 3: Improve automonitoring. Consciously observe something that you usually pay attention to and which is important to reach your goal, e.g. monitor what you eat (and what you snack between meals! 😉), what do you spend money on, how much time do you spend with your close ones etc. 😊 ::: It is important that you find small ways for practicing your self-control 🧠. Remember that willpower works like muscle and you can also overtrain it ⚠️. Don’t throw yourself in the deep end, start slowly, start small. 😉 Which method will you start with? Next week: Willpower vs tiredness ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 18 Do you know that willpower is a part of our intincts? 🤔 Last week we talked about „fight or flight” response and today we’re gonna talk about „pause-and-plan response” – my favourite 😉 ::: This mechanism stops an arousal in our body (the one we feel e.g. when seeing a cake 🤤) and increases the amount of the energy that goes into your mind 🧠. Prefrontal cortex, a part of our brain that is responsible for controlling impulses and planning, starts to work harder 💪. It shares an information with other parts of the mind: Launching self-control! Thanks to it we can take deep breath, stop with a hand on a bag of chips, think and…put it down 😉 ::: Now the good news – not only is self-control a strong instinct like „fight or flight” reaction but you can actually help launching it! 😊 There is an easy, free and accessible for everybody way to do it – the key is to learn to breathe properly. That’s right, breathe. 💨 ::: In order to improve your willpower slow down the rhythm of your breathing, do 4-6 breaths in a minute 🙏. Try to make each one last 10-15 seconds. But don’t hold your breath (it will only make you feel stressed!) but slowly make each inhale and exhale longer. It is easier to start with prolonging your exhale first. Make sure to exhale all out, this way it is easier to take deep breath in. ::: It requires practicing so don’t get mad when you don’t get that rhythm right away. The more you practice the better! 😉 Next week: Empowering your willpower ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 17 Today’s step is a bit long but it is SO important in everyday life ⚠️ How big impact does stress have on willpower? In order to answer that question I’ll tell you about „fight 👊 or flight ✈ response”. It is a physiological reaction when seeing danger that’s been protectin people for centuries from deadly threats. ::: How does it work? 🤷🏼‍♀️ Let’s say you’ve noticed a venomous snake on your path. A part of your brain called amygdala reacts instantly and it prepares your body to fight or run away. The secretion of stress hormones increases, liver releases fats and sugars giving organism energy, lungs start to work faster to oxygenate body, the blood circulation accelerates (that’s why heart start to beat so fast!) to deliver needed substances to all cells. Basically whole organism is mobilizing for you to have best shot to survive 💪. In order not to delay your reactions the activity of the prefrontal cortex, so the part of your brain that is responsible for controlling impuleses, decreases ⬇️ ::: What does it mean? Stress physically decreases your ability to self-control ⚠️ Brain still works in the same way as if you were standing in front of a venomous snake and it starts fight or flight reaction. E.g. when you see an annoying e-mail from your boss 😉. That’s why it is so important to learn to deal with stress! ::: Task for today divides into 3 parts: 1. Try relaxation. Lie down or sit down in a comfortable position 🧘🏼‍♀️, close your eyes, take deep breath and let your body loose muscle by muscle 🙏. ::: 2. Answer those questions: · What do you think about stress and its affect on your life? · How do you rate your stress level? · Do you think of the stress that you experience as bad stress 👎or good stress 👍? ::: 3. Watch short Ted talk with Kelly McGonigal „How to make stress your friend” – so good! 😍 Next week: Improve your willpower by breathing ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 16 I’ve got good news for you – willpower can be trained! 💪 It is often treated like something you either have or don’t but psychology researches show that you can train your strong will just like your muscles. And nobody was born with a 6-pack, right? 😉 ::: It is great news because those who aren’t scrupulous naturally can train it 💪. You’ve actually already started it with implementation intention (step 10) and by process visualisation (step 11) 😉 ::: Since willpower works like a muscle it has limited source of energy and strength. There are things that empower it 👍 but there are also things that weaken it 👎. ::: Your goal is to get to know and, if possible, remove your obstacles to having strong will 😎. Those most basic ones are stress, tiredness and lack of sleep. It seems so simple, right? 🤷🏼‍♀️ Yet you do not always see the connection between those factors and your willpower. ::: Task for today: Observe and write down (or analyze past experiences if you’re calm and rested today) how stress and tiredness have impact on your willpower: * What situations are those? * What happens then? * How do you react? * Is it harder for you to stick to your goal? * Do you have any ways to help yourself and not to be tempted (turn your „I don’t want to” power on) or to do something that you don’t feel like doing (turn your „I want to” power)? Next week: Stress vs willpower (next week Smiley Future will be on Wednesday!) ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 15 Today we’re gonna talk about 3 mind traps which might weaken your willpower and your willingness to act: ::: 1.Thinking „everything or nothing” Have you ever thought „I do everything from my ‘to do’ list or drop everything”? ::: If yes, then you got into „everything or nothing” trap which can have huge impact on your actions and effects (or lack of them) 🤷🏼‍♀️ ::: Thinking like that you don’t see your failures as small errors that you can learn from, you see it as total failure and you might start withdrawing generalized conclusions about yourself like „I’ll never succeed”, „I’m a failure” etc. STOP! 🚫 ::: * If you get trapped into those thoughts write all of them down ✒ Then write a counterargument to each one of them. Get back to it when you have another „everything or nothing” moment ::: 2. Excessive pessimism or optimism „If I haven’t succeeded in 1 year I’ll never succeed” – that’s excessive pessimism when you have only negative thoughts about your future 👎 ::: Excessive optimism is when you ignore your past attempts and previous experience and keep thinking that „this time will be different, it will be perfect” 🙄 For example, you wanted to workout regularly, you’ve had couple attempts at it and failed eaxh time but now you think that you’ll have the willpower and you’ll workout 6 times a week for 3 months 💪🙄 ::: * If you know what I’m talking about write all of such examples down ✒. Now try to make each one of them more realistic e.g. „I’ll try to workout more regularly. I probably won’t be able to workout 6 times a week right away so I’ll workout 2 times this week, 3 times next week and keep improving”. ::: 3. Exaggeration You exaggerate all difficulties and make everything sound impossible. „I won’t make it”, „I never do anything right”. * If you do that write all of those thoughts down and write a counterargument to each one ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow” 📸 pic taken in Italy in 2019

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 14 Today we start realising our goal! In upcoming steps willpower will be one of most important subjects. ⚠️ Here’s what’s most important. ::: Willpower divides into 3 parts: · Power to do something even though you’d prefer to avoid it (power „I want to!”) 💪 · Power helping push temptations away (power „I don’t want to”) 🚫 · Power that remembers what you desire in long-term (power „I desire!”) 🤩 ::: Willpower is what differs us from animals. By forseeing future you are able to not give in to impulses or instincts ⚠️. Thinking about will power you often want to delete lower impulses or some feelins but they are important too! 😉 ::: For example disgust protects you from bad food, fear from danger and desires help you setting goals 😉. If you want to improve your willpower it is not about fighting impulses but about using them to help you 🤗 ::: How to manage your willpower? 🤔 For that you need to get to know yourself better. Only when you understand your way of thinking in a situation that requires your willpower then you can strengthen it 💪. ::: You make many decisions on autopilot (and it’s good because there are s omany of them during a day that your brain would not be able to get to them all!😅) so your task for today is to notice that autopilot and improving you self-awarness. ::: Observe and write down ✒ ·What situations need your willpower? 🤔 · What thoughts, feelings, impulses appear in those situations? 🧐 · What decisions they lead you to? Supporting your goal or the opposite? 🤔 · Which moments/elements are crucial to making a decision? Noticing them will help you stop that bad autopilot and prepare for those situations earlier. 🧐 ::: If you want to learn more about it I advice you to read Kelly McGonigal’s book „The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It” 📖 ::: Next week: Mind traps ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 13 This is our last step of preparations and after that you’ll be ready to start reaching your goal! 😊 ::: Now we need to focus on your surroundings and people around you. You are already well prepared so now it’s time to let your close ones know that there will be changes/that you’ll e.g. have less free time etc. ::: While focusing on your resolutions and goals you could forget that it would be good to also get your close ones ready. Why? * You have a chance to present them your plan and to explain why your goal is important to you and ask them for support 🤝 * Once you’ll tell them about your resolution you’ll feel bigger pressure and it will be harder for you to let go once some obstacles come or you’ll have a bad day 😉 * While talking to your close ones you’ll see their reactions and you’ll know if you can count on them and have their support or the opposite 😉 ::: Unfortunately it happens that family or friends react on someone’s will to change with resistance or even anger. There are plenty stories of girls who decided to drop couch potato life and and start working out, eating healthy and they heard „You better stop because you’ll be anorectic”, „Are you crazy?” etc. 🙄 ::: Usually it comes from people who know that they should change something about their lives too and because they don’t want to do it, it is easier for them to denny it, sabotage positive changes in person next to them etc. 🙄 If you get those kind of reactions look for support in somebody else like me and other members of Smiley Society! 🤗 ::: But I do hope that you’ll get positive comments only. Next week: What is willpower and how does it work ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 12 Preparations to start reaching our goal are coming to an end – we start in 2 steps! If you have started earlier I hope that those prepation steps inspire you to possible changes and make your chance for success bigger 💪 ::: After last long and big step today there’s much simpler and quicker one 😉. Answer only one question: What do you need to reach your goal? 🤔 ::: Take a moment to write all of those stuff down – from most simple ones to those more complicated, for example: new leggins, prescribed diet, better time management, support from others. ::: Maybe during creating your plan or during process visualisation you’ve already realised what you’re missing? ::: Use this step to try and get those things, to organize or find a solution you need. ::: If you don’t come up with any solution remember I can help! You’re not alone, use Smiley Society support 😘 Next week: Prepare your surroundings ::: Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow” 📸 pic taken in 2016

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 11 You often hear that imagining success helps you get motivated. Research shows though that it is not imagining success that helps but visualisation of process so imagining the path that takes you to your goal 🏁 ::: The visualisation makes you practice in your mind the difficult path that awaits you and helps you get ready for its all steps. ::: Depending on what works on you best, punishments or rewards, you can choose proces visualisation with a negative outcome (what happens when you don’t reach the goal) or with positive outcome (what happens when you do). ::: * Simulation of process with positive outcome 👍 Imagine going shopping and you choose only healthy products. Imagine passing sweets section and not taking any 🚫. Imagine being at a party full of food and unhealthy snacks where everybody eats but you don’t. Imagine you working out and doing excercises that you like, e.g. swimming, riding a bike etc. You’ve reached your goal 💪 Imagine yourself thin with a beautiful body. Imagine walking into a party looking fabulous and having all people stare at you 🤩 ::: *Simulation of process with negavite outcome 👎and proces letting you avoid it Imagine yourself fatter. Your favourite pants don’t fit because you put on weight 😳. Family and friends tell you that your overweight problem becomes more and more serious. You walk into a party and people look at you and gossip. You feel bad about yourself, you’re unhappy and you’re self-esteem drops 😞 Now imagine how you can avoid those situations. You buy only healthy stuff. You don’t overeat at a party. See with your imagination you working out 💪 ::: Those are examples from the research. Now think of your visualisations. 1. Decide whether you are more sensitive to punishments or to rewards 👍👎 2. Imagine the proces taking you to your goal (process of losing weight, looking for a better job etc.) – make sure to imagine specific situations 🧐 3. Write your visualisation down Keep reading it and imagining the proccess several times a week 📝 Next week: What do you need to reach your goal — Source: @chodakowskaewa’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow” 📸 Greece, 2015

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 10 Implementation intention meaning how to implement your plan into life. . Last week you created a plan of action based on your stenghts 💪 Today we’re gonna add your weakneses and obstacles that you may come upon to it. To make it all work you’re gonna need implementation intention but don’t worry, it’s a simple mechanism that is very effective! . How does it work? Imagine possible future scenarios that can be obstacles to reaching your goal and then find a solution for it. Later create (and write down!) a sentence: „If situation X happens, I’m gonna do Y” 😊 . Example: „If i’ll be eating out I’m gonna choose healthy and fit dish, for example a salad” 🥦. „If I won’t want to workout I’ll ask my close ones for support and cheering” 💪. „When I’ll be doing shopping I’ll go to a store with a prepared ‘to buy’ list” 🗒 . Creating scenarios like this in your head is effective because it creates a connection between a situation/obstacle and your reaction to it. ⚠️ If a situation like this happens you won’t have to wonder what to do! You’ll work automatically because you’ve already excercised that scenario in your head 😉 . Making decisions (especially pushing temptations away 😅) requires a lot of energy from you and when you’re in a hurry or hungry you choose what’s easiest but not what’s best 🤔. You know what I’m talking about? Implementation intention is for those kind of situations! . So let’s get to work! Try to think of as many situations in which you let go and lose your motivation. Find best reactions to them and write them down in „If situation X happens, I’m gonna do Y” scheme 😊 . Next week: Process visualisation ::: Next week: — Source: @chodakowskaeka’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow” 📸 pic taken in Malta in 2016

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 9 Creating plan based on your strenghts In those difficult times we all need a bit of a break for your mind 🤯 Just sit down, relax and start creating your plan of action! ::: You’ve been preparing it for the last 8 steps so I hope this will be easy and pleasant for you 😉 ::: I encourage you to write down how do you want to realize your goal (set in SMART method) with help of your strenghts from step 7 💪 ::: * What are you good at? Example: I’m reliable. I always keep my promises. Submission to the action plan: „I’ll make a pact with another person to workout togetherm then it’ll be easier for me to realise my training plan as I will want to be reliable to the other person” ::: * What are you effective at? What kind of situations you feel biggest impact on? Example: I’m very organised Submission to the action plan: „I’ll organize a plan for a day/week this way so I’d have time for activities related to the goal – training, cooking, spending time with family, writing CV etc.” That’s my way 🙋🏼‍♀️ ::: * If you’ve managed to establish who you can count on in your surroundings when it comes to realising your goal, somebody who has the knowledge and experience, turn to that person for an advice. Use the hints you get from him/her to make or change your plan. Be flexible and open to any hints you get. You know yourself best! How can you use somebody’s knowledge and experience? ::: *Your life situation e.g. if your financial situation lets you buy training programs or a career consultation. Your family situation is important here too e.g. if you have small children maybe apart from husband your family or friends can help you find time to realise your goal? How will you use your life situation in your plan? ::: I hope those examples showed you the essence of today’s task – plan of action based on your strenghts. If you’ll get some comments while preparing this plan like what is difficult for you, what hardly ever works write them down, we’ll get back to them. ::: Next week: How to use your weaknesses! — Source: @chodakowskaeka’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow” 📸 pic taken in China in 2012 (yes, that’s me 😅)

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 8 Last week we talked about your strenghts 👍. Today let’s talk about your wekanesses 👎. I know it may not be pleasant but it’s an important thing to do. In couple steps you’re gonna use your weaknesses to prepare a „plan b” for situation that may complicate achieving your goal. ::: You can divide weaknesses into internal restrictions (your character) and external restictions (e.g. lack of knowledge, lack of time, not being understood by others, difficult situations). ::: Try to answer couple questions: · What kind of knowledge you don’t have but need for your goal? · What part of your character can become an obstacle in reaching your goal? How can it complicate your plans? · What types of situations are the hardest for you when it comes to following your dream? If it happened in the past what was the most challenging in it for you? · What would your close ones mention as your weakness? · What is difficult for you? What will be biggest challenge for you while following your dream? Next week: Creating plan based on your strenghts — Source: @chodakowskaeka’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 7 You already summed up your last year, made a circle of life that showed you which part of life you should focus on and you set a SMART goal – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and in time bound. Now it’s time to work on yourself and how to use both your strenghts AND weaknesses in achieving your goal 💪 ::: First of all say out loud what are your strenghts. * What are you good at? 😁 * What comes easy for you? 🤔 * What are you effective at? 🙈 In what situations do you feel you have biggest impact on something, you feel your power? 💪 * Remind yourself of a difficult situation (at work, at home, some conflict or crisis) in which you did well. What skills, knowledge, experience helped you in it? 🤔 * What do your friends and family appreciate in you? 👍 ::: Now time for your external strenghts. * On whose emotional support you can count? Who out of your family, close ones can and will give it to you? Who can you call in a moment of crisis, doubt? ☎️ * On whose support can you count? Who can give you good advice, some hints, answers when you need it? Who gives you honest feedback on how you’re doing? Apart from close ones this can be done in some Facebook groups, people trying to achieve same goal or fighting with similar difficulties. 💬 * What in your life situation will help you achieve this goal? Take your finances, moral support under consideration (e.g. friends/people who can help you create a nice CV, creat a well-balanced diet, create workout plan etc.) 🤔 — Source: @chodakowskaeka’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 6 – Setting goals (I once posted it already but it’s an important reminder and next step in our Smiley Future) Goals set right will help you UNDERSTAND the path you need to walk through, it will be easier for you to PLAN your next steps, it will be easier for you to CONTROL if it’s going good, there will be LESS PRESSURE and it will be easier for you to BE PERSISTANT 😊 ::: Goals need to set with a SMART method 🤓: ::: S – Specific – Provide enough detail so that you know exactly what you should be doing. For example, stop setting goals such as „I need to lose 10kg in 3 months”. Make it more „I need to start eating more vegetables and workout 4 times a week” 🥦💪. This is more doable, you have more control over it (as you know exactly what you need to do) and there’s less pressure. Try sticking to it and just wait for results. Same with e.g. growing here on ig. Instead of setting a goal like „I need to get 1k new followers in a month” try „I need to post daily, take more colorful photos and interact with other users more”. Just do it and wait for the results 😉 ::: M – Measurable – A measurable goal has an outcome that can be assessed as a hit or miss ✔❌. So e.g. you can easily check whether you worked out 4 times this week or posted everyday. ::: A – Achievable – An achievable goal has an outcome that is realistic given your current situation. Make sure you actually have the time 🕰 to workout 4 times a week or post daily. Don’t set such goal if you know you won’t make it. ::: R – Realistic – Start small. If you set your goal too high („I need to lose 10kg in a month” or „I need to gain 10k followers in a month”) there’s too big pressure and you will give up quickly if you won’t see results you’d want 🤔 ::: T – Time Bound – Set a timeframe for the goal: „in three months”, „by six months”. Setting an end point for the goal gives you a clear target to achieve 🏁 ::: Now that you know how to set your goal right let me know what are your goals! 😊 — Source: @chodakowskaeka’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 5 — Let’s get back to our circle of life. You will find it in ‘Downloads’ section in m BIO. ::: Today time to think about hobbies and to sum up whole circle. After that it will be easier for you to set a challenge and design your tomorrow 💪 ::: Last section that we need to analize is widely understood personal development. It is our passions, hobbies and interests, basically everything you like doing and that makes you feel creative 🤩 ::: As usual – mark on your circle of life how happy you are about your personal development/hobbies in a scale from 1 to 10. ::: Here are the questions that will help you mark that subject: * Do you think this part needs change? If yes, what would have to change? Maybe there is something that you want for a long time, something you miss yet you kept putting it off? * What will you gain by those changes? * What will happen if you don’t change anything about your personal development? * In what way does personal development have an impact on other aspects of your life now? ::: Bonus: in the cirlce of life I made for you you’ll find an empty spot for a section that is important to you and that we haven’t talked about here. I, personally, put „Confidence” there. ::: Do you have your whole circle of life ready? Remember, the circle is for your eyes only, you don’t have to show it to anybody. ::: Now that you have whole circle ready it is time to analyze it as a whole. This circle will help you find segment that needs change most and – what comes after – your goal. Changing one, crucial segment might bring changes into others ones. ::: Look at your circle and answer those questions: * What is the most important in life to you? How do those values take place next to the circle? Do they combine? * Which segment has most impact on other segments? * Which segment do you want to work on 1st? ::: Next week : Setting your goal — Source: @chodakowskaeka’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 4 — Let’s get back to our circle of life. You will find it in ‘Downloads’ section in m BIO. ::: Today time to think about money 💰 Something that we usually find hard to talk about 😳. Why? Because we don’t have financial education at school, because of the beliefs about money and earning that we bring from home and because of emotions that come with our beliefs, experience or current situation. ::: It is difficult for us to talk about money because we don’t want to come of as a poor one, braggart, dodger or materialist. ::: Survey says that 50% of people is ashamed to talk about money, 30% feel unsheated talking about them and 20% feel fear 😳. What are the consequences? We don’t ask for a rise at work, we rarely negotiate the price of some product or service. ::: Finances are an important part of our life and even if money itself won’t make you happy they, without a doubt, contribute to the comfort of life and feeling safe. ::: As usual – mark on your circle of life how happy you are about your finances in a scale from 1 to 10. Here are the questions that will help you mark that subject: * Do you think this part needs change? If yes, what would have to change? Take couple aspects into consideration: earning, spending and saving. * What will you gain by those changes? * What will happen if you don’t change anything about your finances? * In what way do finances have an impact on other aspects of your life now? ::: Next week: Sum up of the circle of life (in the meantime fill up all the missing parts with your hobbies and/or other parts you added for yourself. — Source: @chodakowskaeka’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 3 — Let’s get back to our circle of life. Remember it, right? You will find it in ‘Downloads’ section in m BIO. ::: Today time to think about your health 🥦 ::: As usual – mark on your circle of life how happy you are about your health in a scale from 1 to 10. ::: Here are the questions that will help you mark that subject: * Do you think this part needs change? If yes, what would have to change? * In what way are you active physically 💪? Is it well suited in its kind and intensivity? * Lack of sleep is plague of those times 😴 Lots of people think that they can work more or have some fun at the expense of their sleep time, while research shows that lack of sleep has bad impact on your health and especially on your cognitive abilities (so memory, attention and ability to learn). Do you sleep long enough? 🛌 What’s the quality of your sleep? Do you fall asleep and wake up at similar times or is your sleeping rhythm dysregulated? * It is easy to forget about health prevention when nothing is wrong with you but it is prevention itself and early diagnosis that help catch alarming symptoms before they get annoying or severe. Do you examine yourself regularly? Do you know that types of examinations and how often you should do? 💉💊 * What will you gain by those changes? * What will happen if you don’t change anything about your health? * In what way does health have an impact on other aspects of your life now? Next week: Finances 💰 — Source: @chodakowskaeka’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

🧠SMILEY FUTURE🧠 — Step 2 — Let’s get back to our circle of life (you’ll find it in Downloads section in BIO). Today time to think about your career 👩‍🎨👨🏻‍🎓👨🏿‍⚖ It can be your work, studies or school. If you’re not working at the moment because you’re on maternity leave or on holidays do not miss out on this part. ::: As usual – mark on your circle of life how happy you are about your career in a scale from 1 to 10. ::: Here are the questions that will help you mark that subject: * Do you think this part needs change? If yes, what would have to change? * What will you gain by those changes? * What will happen if you don’t change it? * In what way does career have an impact on other aspects of your life now? Next week: Health 🥦 — Source: @chodakowskaeka’s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”

I’ll be starting a new section for you, lets call it „SMILEY FUTURE” For this part i’ll be using @chodakowskaewa new book „90 days – design your tomorrow” but also other psychological books . It will come as excercises for you and I’ll be posting it once a week, on Tuesdays . In order to follow your dreams and to become successful you need to plan your strategy of changes and in order to to that you need to summarize what you have, what you are proud of and what you don’t like in your life first . There is this famous excercise among psychologists and/or coaches called „The circle of life”. It is a circle divided into seperate segments of life like „Relations”, „Finances”, „Career” etc. You mark how sattisfied you are with each segment on a scale from 1 to 10. You can see examples of a circle of life and a filled one attached here. We’re gonna work on a smaller circle divided into 6 parts (last photo) but if you feel the need to divide it into more parts then you can do it too. We’ll divide each segment into seperate day and we’ll start with ‘Relations’ today. (Come back next Tuesday for another segment – ‘Career’)! Before you mark the answer on your circle answer those questions: * How satisfied are you with relations in your life in a scale from 1 to 10? *Does this segment need changing? What would you like to change? *What will you gain by changing it? *What will happen if you don’t change it? *In what way do the relations have impact on the rest of the segments of your life? This is just for you, answer those question honestly. Next week: Career and once we have all the segments done you’ll know exactly what you need to work on.

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