It’s all about mindset! 🤗
It’s not about the situation but how you react 😉.
Your thinking can truly make a difference!
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Let’s try an easy excercise.
Instead of thinking „What if I won’t make it?” 🤔 think „What if it works out?”
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Instead of thinking „What if they judge me?” 😶 think „What if thanks to this situation I’ll finally learn who is a good friend, who supports me now matter what, who’s a true friend?”
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Instead of thinking „What if nobody likes it?” 🤷♀️ think „What if people love it?”
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You don’t know what’s gonna happen. You don’t know how will people react 🤷♀️. Why would you imagine only negative situations then? We tend to overthink and worry about something not going well, about somebody not liking what we do… If you NEED TO imagine future situation, if you need to kind of predicts what’s gonna happen do it in a positive way! 😃 Not only you’ll worry less, have easier life, less stress etc but if you think of positive outcome, if you stay positive and believe in success you get more confident! 😉 And when you get more confident you are more like to succeed!
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You see? It’s all about positive thinking!
Tag: mindset
How to stay calm now?
Last 2 years have been hard to us all. First pandemic, now war (next door for us here in Poland 😬).
We’re all tired, stressed, tired of being stressed…we need to take care of ourselves 🙏 we need to take care of our minds ❤
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How to stay calm now?
🔸️ First of all, if watching news boosts your anxiety stop watching it! Either go online only for 10-15min to catch up on most important things to know what’s happening or, even better, ask your family/friends to inform you if there’d be something you really need to know about. Don’t spend hours watching photos/videos from the war.
🔸️ Instead of constant reading about next victims 💔 read how you can help. There’s plenty foundations where you can donate. If you live in Poland, Moldova or Romania you can donate food, clothes, cosmetics, blankets for the refugees.
🔸️ If that’s all too much for you you can cut off from all of that completely and keep on living your normal life, that’s totally fine and understandable. Focus on yourself and practice self-care.
🔸️ If you find yourself panicking, take slow deep breaths, try meditating, go for a walk or soak in a warm bath. Do whatever makes you calm.
🔸️Write down all your questions, all your anxieties, let it all out.
🔸️ Talk to your close ones about your concerns, hear them out (but please talk to people who know what they’re talking about, don’t spread fake news etc). Remember that you can always message me ❤
MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY – STEP 15: Sabotaging thoughts
We’ve talked about different reasons why we may lack motivation: lack of „I desire” power (or it’s too weak 😔), being too stressed or too tired😴, mind traps etc… Today we’re gonna focus on sabotaging thoughts that often come to our mind and ruin our plans or desire to work 😬
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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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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? 🤔
Mine are 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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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 🧐.
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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!!)
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Keep observing your sabotaging thoughts (and when you notice them, write them down! 📝) while remembering to be good to yourself! 😉. Then 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❗.
MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY – STEP 12: Learning how to defer gratification
Last week we’ve talked about deferring gratification – does it apply to you? 🤔 Does your brain demand a reward here and now? 😬 Do you forget about your goal when you see something you want (e.g. a cake while being on a diet) and you easily succumb to temptation? 🧐
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Don’t worry! The art of deferring gratification can be learned, same as you can train your willpower 💪.
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Try this exercise 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 instant gratification is supposed to come after 10 minutes then our brain sees it as future benefit 🔜. Hence the system that processes the promise of a reward calms down and strong biological impulse to instant consummation weakens ⬇️.
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In order for your brain 🧠 to think straight try waiting 10 minutes before you succumb to temptation. If after 10 minutes you still want it, take it/do 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 ↔️.
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If you need to do 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 😉. For me, it’s always the most difficult to start working and when I do I usually want to finish so this trick works on me quie well 👍
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Try doing that excercise and write down your results. „10 miutes rule” might work great when you don’t feel like working! ☺
It’s OK
It’s OK.
It’s ok if you’re 30+ and still don’t know what you want to do in life. We all need time to figure out what is our true passion, what we really care about and what we’re good at. Take your time, try different things 😉
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It’s ok if you’re 30+ and you’re still single and don’t have kids. Don’t rush into any relationship just to make the pressure that society puts on us go away. Keep looking for that prince/princess, keep evolving, keep blooming, your time will come 🌸.
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It’s ok if you’re 30+ and you’re deep into marriage with several kids and no career. We all want different things and there’s no need to fill bad about not fitting into some ‘society standards’. Just be you, follow your instincts and do what you want with your life 🤷🏼♀️.
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It’s ok if you’re 30+ and don’t have any academic degree, you’re not a doctor or a master in any field. Education is important but experience is more powerful and there’s no university that can teach you how to deal with problems 😉
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It’s ok if you don’t keep in touch with some relatives because it’s better and healthier for you this way 😉
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It’s ok if you’re 30+ and you miss your Mom when she’s not around and you keep calling each other every day.
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We all have different needs. We all have different prorieties. We all are different and it’s ok 😘.
Why is self-care so important?
Why is self-care so important? 🤔
First of all when you take care of yourself, when you are rested and calm you look at world differently!
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I got to a point couple months ago when I was so tired and so burnt out that nothing was bringing me joy, I was tired, stressed and annoyed all the time 🙄 When one small thing went wrong I’d instantly explode like a bomb.
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And then I finally learned to rest, to take care of myself, to have some me-time and I felt so much better! Not only I felt rested, calmer and was doing everyday duties or working on my projects with a smile on my face 😊 but also I wasn’t so tense and e.g. I wouldn’t explode when something unexpected happened or when something went wrong 😊 I was happy and excited to work again! I was nice to people around me again 🤗
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Second of all, you can’t feed others from an empty bowl! So you can’t take care of others unless you take care of yourself first! 😉 You NEED to be joyful, calm and rested to be able to help others and to be happy about it 😊
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 🤔.
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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? 🤷🏼♀️
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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? 😉
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Next week: How to maintain change?
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Source: @chodakowskaewa‘s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”
Smiley Future – Step 55
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”
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 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”
How to be HAPPY 