Key to good, positive relationships is effective communication 🙏.
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Effective communication is always about understanding the other person, not about winning an argument or forcing your opinions on others 😉. To improve your assertiveness: value yourself and your options. They are as important as anyone else’s. Know your needs and wants.
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Don’t say what you don’t want, say what you prefer.
Don’t say what you don’t like, say what you like.
Don’t say what you haven’t managed to do, say what are the options.
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Examples of effective communication:
➡️ Instead of saying „I don’t like it when you…” say: „I feel better when you…
➡️ Instead of saying „it’s not how you do it!” say: „Have you tried this way?”
➡️ Instead of saying „I don’t want to…” say: „I’d like it more if…”
Do you see the difference?
Tag: friends
Relationships
Recently I’ve been thinking about people that I have in my life. I am one of those people that would like to keep in touch with all the people I’ve ever met – with people from primary school, college, from the time when I lived abroad, with people I met at some holidays or parties… but it’s just not possible.
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Building relationships and taking care of them takes time. You can work on a relationship for years and then lose it in 1 week/month. 💔
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So if you have somebody in your life that you’d want to have forever – take care of that person and of your relationship. Don’t let him/her go. 🙏
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Use this magical time now we have now and take care of the people you want to keep in your life – buy some small gift for them 🎁, send a Christmas card 🎄 or just call them with best wishes 💫
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We need to cherish good people that we have close to us and make them feel loved and appreciated 🙏
Social media clean up
How do you feel scrolling instagram or facebook? 🤔 Are you smilling seeing photos of others, do you feel inspired reading their posts, are you motivated hearing about their successes? 🤗
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Make sure you follow people you feel good about ⚠️. If there’s any account you follow that makes you feel bad about yourself, that makes you feel worse 👎, unloved 💔, unsuccessful, unattractive or any other negative emotion – unfollow now!!! ❌
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Just like you wouldn’t talk to a person you don’t like or that makes you feel bad, don’t do it online either! 😉 Surround yourself with positive people only, with people that inspire you, motivate you, that send positive vibes only! 🤗
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I love scrolling instagram and seeing people I follow succed, it makes me feel motivated! 🤩
Questions you shouldn’t ask or be asked
I believe in honesty and being open. We should be open and talk about our lifes, our feelings, our emotions 👍 but there are couple subjects that you should not start unless you’re really close to a person you’re talking to and you get a feeling from that person that it’s ok to talk about it ⚠️.
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There are questions that you shouldn’t ask and shouldn’t be asked, like:
➡️ Did you put on weight? 🙄
➡️ You’re gonna eat it all? 😳
➡️ When will you get a boyfriend? 😒
➡️ When will you get married? 😐
➡️ Why don’t you have kids? 🤔
➡️ You still didn’t get a promotion at work? 🤷🏼♀️
Etc etc
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Those are normal questions between friends, really close ones ❤ but you shouldn’t be asked those e.g. at a family dinner with uncles or aunts you barely see 👴👵, at an office party 🕺💃, at a high-school reunion 👩🎓👨🏻🎓or at any meeting with people you’re not that close with 🤷🏼♀️
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There are people who are fine with those questions and they will answer them and talk about those subjects easily 👍 but some people not only don’t like those questions but they might feel anxiety or even be ashamed to answer them and will be thinking about them and/or feeling bad even days later 😖
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The thing is, unless you know someone really well you might not notice a difference between those two groups and you might ask this question a shy and insecure person that will be hurt hearing it 😕
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How do you feel about it?
Do you agree?
Be fair!
You know the saying – treat others how you want to be treated, right? It also works the other way round 😉 – expect from others what they can expect from you.
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Don’t expect somebody to be honest with you if you’re not honest with them ⚠️
Don’t expect somebody to hear you out if you don’t listen to them. ⚠️
Don’t expect somebody to help you if you never help them. ⚠️
Be fair!
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Don’t be surprised that somebody isn’t telling you some secrets or personal things if you don’t share some personal stuff with them or if you can’t keep a secret 🤷🏼♀️. Would you tell them a secret of yours if you’d know that they’d tell it everyone around? 🤔
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Then when somebody is telling you something personal or confessing of their problems don’t reply with „Ahh, that’s nothing. My situation is even worse…” 🙄 or ‘fight’ over who is in worse situation „You’re tired? Believe me, I’m more tired!” 😏 Nobody likes that! Let him/her talk, hear them out 👂and then when they’re finished and are ready for some advices you can compare their situation to yours, tell them what helped you, how you’re dealing with such situation etc but don’t make it about you. 😉 Let this moment be about him/her, focus on your friend and let them feel heared out. Your time to confess and complain about your sitation will come, don’t worry 😉
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And finally, don’t expect somebody to help you if you’ve never helped them! Why would they do that? 🤔 It should work both ways! E.g. at work – ask somebody to do something for you but also offer to do something for them from time to time 😉
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Let’s all treat each other how you’d like to be treated, be fair with others and never let a relationship work only one way 🙏
P.s. Check out my Instagram for an idea for a last minute Xmas gift
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? 🧐
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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 😶.
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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! 🤗
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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 🙏
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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…) 😊
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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!
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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? 😊
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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
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Source: @chodakowskaewa‘s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”
Chasing after perfect numbers
Are you chasing after perfect numbers? I know I am and it’s not good 😫👎
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I’ve realised that everything I do lately and everything I have I see in numbers 🔢. How many contracts have I installed at work (I work in an administration office), how many emails I’ve sent 📨, how many times I’ve worked out during a week 💪, how much weight I lost 🤗, how many centimeters I lost in hips, how many likes did I get on my latest post 😅, how many new followers I gained 🤩, how many books I’ve read…
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Dreaming of perfect weight 🤗 (a number), big Smiley Society community 👥 (number of followers), big comission at work 💰 (a number) and so on and so on… 🙄
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I’ve been chasing so hard after that that I got my panic attacks back and feel stressed all the time 😫
And what for?
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It’s not that working hard is bad and that we shouldn’t dream, of course we should but this has got to stop somewhere 🤷🏼♀️.
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We need to see above the numbers, see bigger goal in it. For example, let’s not focus on how much weight we’ve lost during a diet but let’s appreciate that we work on our health 🥦, that we try to eat better and take care of our body, that’s what matters 😉.
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Counting followers? Well, to be honest, I thought that at this time (almost 2 years of running Smiley Society) I thought there will be more of you here 😅 but thanks to this blog I got back to taking more pictures 📸, I bought mysefl a camera 📷, been learning how to edit photos and videos, I got back to writing (and in English!), I’ve been learning a lot on psychology in order to give that knowledge to you…there’s more to that than followers and even though I thought Smiley Society would be bigger by now, it made me work on myself, self-evolve and learn new things! ☺
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Counting money, commision? 💰 Sure, it’s important in life but you can’t put a number on most important things in life: love ❤, family 👨👩👧👧, friends, health 😇, adventures, memories 😍…THOSE are the things that matter and that we (myself included) should focus on ⚠️
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What do you think? Do you agree? Are you chasing some numbers?
Let’s support each other
Have you ever told somebody about your goals/dreams/a project you had started working on and heard laughter or some unpleasant response 😞? „You’re not gonna make it!”, „This is just stupid”, „Why would you wanna do that?”.
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Have you ever had a new dream or started working on some new goal and decided to keep it to yourself because you were scared of others’ reaction 🤷🏼♀️?
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Have you just stopped telling your close ones about your dreams or your accomplishments because you don’t feel like you have their support and nothing ever impresses them 💔?
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I know I have. I have 1 big project that I’m working on that my family doesn’t know about and 1 secret project that I haven’t told ANYONE about 🤐
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And you know what? This is not how it’s supposed to work 👎.
We should all SUPPORT each other, we should all BELIEVE in others and we should ALWAYS be happy for others’ successes and let them know that they did a good job/congratulate them 👏.
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We REALLY need to learn to be happy for others and to support them. Even if a friend of yours tells you about most obscure, to you 😉, dream, something that he/she wants sooo bad and works hard for it, even if it is totally uninteresting to you and you wouldn’t want a thing like that – support your friend, if it makes her/him happy be happy to her/him 🙏.
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And if you’re not supporting somebody because deep deep down inside you are jealous (come on, admit it 😉) of somebody’s accomplishmets be patient and learn to be happy for others. Your time will come too 🤩. It’s not a race where only 1 gets a reward. If somebody succeeded before you it doesn’t mean that you cannot succeed too! 🎖
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Let’s all help each other, support each other and lets openly talk about our dreams 💬
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So tell me, what are you dreams? What have you been recently working on?
Whatever it is I BELIEVE IN YOU!! 🤗
Communication
Do you know what’s key to good relationship?
Communication 😉
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And it’s not only about love relationships, it’s important to make any kind of relationship work – a friendship, a relation you have with your daughter, mom, neighbour, coworker. Anybody.
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We are ALL different. And nobody sits in your head, nobody reads your mind, believe me 😉. So when you don’t like something, when you need help with something you need to COMMUNICATE.
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Plenty woman (I used to be one of them) think that if they send „signals” to their partner he’ll know what she needs/means 😅 That if she says something between the lines about a movie she’d like to watch or talk about her friend’s new cosmetics he’ll instantly get the idea to take you to cinema to see that movie and he’ll buy those cosmetics for you 😅 No, this doesn’t work with men.
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Men and women work totally differently and so do our minds! You need to be loud and clear 😉
COMMUNICATE.
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It works like that with everybody. If you’re angry with your boss because he/she gives you so much work tell him/her politely (!) that you’re swamped and ask if he/she can maybe get one of your co-workers to help you, to divide some big task between 2-3 people, not just 1 🤷🏼♀️
TALK.
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If you’re frustrated with your friend because he keeps inviting you to places you don’t like or wants to do something you’re not fan of – tell him. He simply might not know that you don’t like it! I’m sure he doesn’t do it to make you angry, he’s just anaware of your negative feelings. Why? Because you’ve never told him that you e.g. don’t like bowling or eating at that Thai restaurant. 😉
LET HIM KNOW.
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We all need to talk more. Say what we think out loud. Don’t keep your thought or feelings to yourself. But remember, if it’s something negative think how to communicate it to your friend to not hurt his feelings 🙏. We should always be sincere and if you don’t like something you should say it but do it gently.
📸 pic taken in Zakhyntos in 2017
Queens
Girls (this posts is strictly for girls), how many girls out of your surrounding do you admire?
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How many girls (in everyday life or e.g. here on ig) inspire you? How many girls would you like to switch places with? 🤷🏼♀️
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Now, how many girls have you said that, how you feel, that you admire her/them, that she’s doing good? 👍
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How many girls have said anything like that to you? How many girls feel motivated by you? Are they open about that?
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I feel like there’s some unhealthy competition between us, girls 🤷🏼♀️ Each one has to (or actually feels like they have to) be better than others. Some girls once they see others succeed get angry and jealous. Some even start to say bad things about the other one out of the jealousy.
Is this healthy?
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If some other girl succeeded you should be happy for her! You should congratulate her! 🤗Don’t be angry with her! Her achieving some goal doesn’t mean you can’t! It’s not like there’s limited place for successful ones!
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We should be all helping each other! Fixing our crowns! 👑 Motivating each other! Congratulating each other! 😚
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We are powerful together! And only when we stick together! 🤝
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Stop saying bad things about a girl who hasn’t done anything wrong but got successful. Take her as an example, be inspired, motivated by her! 😉
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There’s this saying I really like that fits here perfectly: „A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms”.
Don’t look at others (unless it’s for inspiration and motivation). Just bloom. 🌸
How to be HAPPY 