Admit it, how many times during a weekend you think of Monday and you feel scared and angry already? 🤬 Got you! 😉 In the next few steps we’ll practice empowering your attitude that can improve quality of your life and increase your happiness 🤩.
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And that attitude is gratitude so feeling satisfied and appreciating what you’ve got (or not), what surrounds you and what you experience 🤗.
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Human tendency to notice negatives 👀 and danger 💥 can be explained by evolution – this perceptivity saved our ancestors plenty times yet complaining is something more 🙄.
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Constant complaining is a habit. Good news is that – as every habit – you can work on it and habit of complaining can be replaced with gratitude 😉.
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You’re probably wondering what it has to do with strong will and perseverance? 🤔
Practicing gratitude:
🔅Lowers stress (and that empowers willpower, remember?) 📉
🔅 Lowers tension, levels excessive expectations and frustration (that can lead to total giving up on your goal at first obstacle) 🙏
🔅 Helps noticing small successes and strong points that empowers motivation and perseverance 🎯
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As Robert Emmons and Robin Stern say „Clinical trials show that practicing gratitude can have dramatic and lasting positive effects on a person’s life. It can reduce blood pressure, improve immunity, promote happiness and life satisfaction, generate behaviors such as helping others, generosity and cooperation. Additionally, gratitude reduces the risk of depression, anxiety and addiction” 🤩
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Have I convinced you? Let’s start our today’s task 😉:
➡️ How often do you feel gratitude?
➡️ What are you grateful for?
➡️ Is feeling grateful dificult or easy for you?
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Next week: Practicing gratitude – excercise 🙏
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Source: @chodakowskaewa‘s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”
Tag: mind
6 simple ways how to train your brain
➡️ 1. Read everyday 📖 – even 15-20min of reading a day can do the trick! You can always learn something new from any book, either some interesting fact about some culture, some historical fact or maybe some new word? 😉
➡️ 2. Play games 🀄 – Brain fitness programs and games are a wonderful way to tease and challenge your brain. Sudoku, crosswords and electronic games can all improve your brain’s speed and memory. I highly recommend Lumosity app! 🤗
➡️ 3. Excercise on a weekly basis 💪 – healthy body = healthy mind! 😉 When working out you make your heart work faster which stimulates better blood circulation and brings more oxygen to your body and brain 🧠. It boosts your memory, improves your concentration, enhances your creativity etc! 🤗
➡️ 4. Get out of the comfort zone 💥 – when leaving your comfort zone you need to start thinking, you end up in a new situation, need to be creative, learn new skills etc. Great way to make your brain work! 😊
➡️ 5. Take time to meditate 🧘🏼♀️ – daily meditation is perhaps the single greatest thing you can do for your mind/body health 😊. Meditation not only relaxes you, it gives your brain a workout. By creating a different mental state, you engage your brain in new and interesting ways while increasing your brain fitness 🤩
➡️ 6. Keep learning new skills 📈 – learning a new skill works multiple areas of the brain. Your memory comes into play, you learn new movements and you associate things differently 😊. Reading Shakespeare, learning to cook and building an airplane out of toothpicks all will challenge your brain and give you something to think about 😁
Which one is your favourite?
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 😉.
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➡️ 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
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➡️ 2. Don’t do anything else ❌ just watch the element 👀. Relax and observe it as long as your concentration lets you.
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➡️ 3. Look at the chosen element as if you’ve seen it for the first time 😁
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➡️ 4. Explore every aspect of that chosen element. Let its presence soak you completely 🤗
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How do you feel after that excercise? Do any new thoughts, discoveries come to your mind?
Write them down! 😊
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Next week: Practicing mindfullness: awareness
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Source: @chodakowskaewa‘s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”
Smiley Future – Step 50
🧠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.
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➡️ 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
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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 📝
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Next week: Practicing mindfullness: observation
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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 💪
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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 😞
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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! 🤗
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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
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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 💪
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➡️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! 😉
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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! 🤗
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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 🧘🏼♀️
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➡️ And now task nr 2: Create a system of awarding yourself (daily, weekly, monthly) for your hard work on sabotaging thoughts 🏆. You deserve it! 🤗
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Write down some nice, supporting words to yourself appreciating your work 📝
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Next week: How emotions influence your willpower 🤔
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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? 🧐
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If yes, then next couple steps are for you as we will be working on catching automatic thoughts that sabotage your effort ⚠️
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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 🤷🏼♀️.
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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! 🤗
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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” 🤷🏼♀️
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Next week: Know your sabotaging thoughts
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Source: @chodakowskaewa‘s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”
SELF-LOVE: 5 Self-love Exercises That You Need To Practice. NOW
The situation in the world is more and more intense 😓 (and even more intense in Poland now as government keeps taking our rights, now e.g. with an abortion 😡), we are all more and more stressed (I know I am) so it is EVEN MORE IMPORTANT to take care of our mental health now, to be good to ourselves and to practice self-love 🙏
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What are the Benefits Of Practising Self Love Exercises?
By getting into the habit of practising a self-care routine you will:
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🔅 Nourish your body with healthy food and activities
🔅Put yourself first sometimes and learn to say ‘no’.
🔅Take a much-needed break from social media without feeling utterly guilty and wretched.
🔅Indulge without feeling guilty.
🔅Learn to recognise thoughts for what they are and not act upon them.
🔅Love and respect yourself more
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5 Self-love Exercises That You Need To Practice. NOW
➡️ # 1: Write 📝
Sit and write down everything that’s on your mind.
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➡️ # 2: Walk 🚶♂️🚶♀️
Pick some excluded, quiet place, put a warm jumper & face mask on and go for a walk.
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➡️ # 3: Make a Date With Yourself 💖
Watch some movie you love, read a good book, draw, paint, just spend some quality time with you and you only!
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➡️ # 4: Workout 💪
Working out is always good. It’s not only about health benefits but it is good for your mind too! Let it all go. Just let all your anger or frustration out – kickboxing is best for that! You’ll feel so much better!
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➡️ # 5: Don’t forget the small things 🎁
Get yourself something nice! Maybe buy some girly magazine to read about some totally trivial things? Or go online shopping and get new pair of earing or some new book? Anything that will make you happy! 🤗
Remember to treat yourself well! 😘
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.
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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 🤷🏼♀️
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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..💪
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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. 😉
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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 😇.
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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
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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?
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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 😌.
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There are 3 ways to train your willpower. They refer to 3 powers: „I don’t want to”, „I desire” and automonitoring.
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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 😊
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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 😊
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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. 😊
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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
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Source: @chodakowskaewa‘s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”
P.s. It is Mother’s Day today in Poland 😊💕 and I’m gonna see my Mom finally today after almost 4 months
How to be HAPPY 