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❗.
Tag: psychology
MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY – STEP 14: Mind traps
Try to think why you lack motivation 🤔 Maybe you’re too tired and need rest? Or maybe you don’t have a precise plan? 🧐 Or maybe you’re trapped in one of the mind traps : „everything or nothing” thinking, excessive pessimism or exaggeration 🤯
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If you are, create a list of counter-arguments that will help you look at reality without falling into those mind traps 🤗
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Come back to the source of your „I want” power, visualise your goal, try to find your motivation 🤩
Sit down and answer those questions:
➡️ What encouraged you to set this goal?
➡️ What will happen when you reach it?
➡️ What will you gain?
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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 💪. I always get most motivated by other people’s success 🤗.
Smiley Future – Step 72: LAST ONE
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.
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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! 💪
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Answer those questions:
* What have those steps have taught me about myself? 🤔
* What came easily? 🤔
* What was a challenge for me? 🤔
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And that’s the end of Smiley Future steps! But don’t worry, there will be another series about gaining confidence and motivation soon! 🤗
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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)
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Have you managed to increase your mindfullness? 🤔
Has practicing mindfullness had an impact on you, your surroundings?
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Write down your reflections 📝
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Next week: Summing up: Mindfullness in your everyday activities
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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? 🤔
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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)
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Which one of those tools helped you most? 🤔
In what way can you use them in the future?
Write down your reflections 📝
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Next week: Summing up: Practicing mindfullness
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Source: @chodakowskaewa‘s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”
How to boost happiness!
Want to boost happiness but don’t know how? 🤔 You’ve tried many methods, new things but still don’t know exactly what to do to be happier? 🤷🏼♀️ You’d like less abstract tips and more scientific facts and useful tips on happiness? Look no further! 😀
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As you may know there are 4 basic hormones that impact our mood and feeling of happiness:
🔅dopamine
🔅endorphins
🔅oxytocin
🔅serotonin
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Now how to make them work and make you happy? Easy! Just try out the activities that boost those hormones! ☺
For dopamine, the reward chemical, try:
➡️ eating yummy food (this is why I can’t get through any diet, eating gives me too much joy! 😅)
➡️ achieving a goal
➡️ completing a task (with last two remember to set small goals and small tasks – this way you’ll get a dose of dopamine)
➡️ self-care activities (check out self-care challenge we did in February – you’ll find it in my Stories Highlights)
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For endorphin, the pain killer you’ll need:
➡️ exercising 💪
➡️ listening to music 🎶
➡️ watching a movie 🎬 (I think you know by know where and when to look for Positive Movies Recommendations! If you don’t – I post them here every Sunday)
➡️ laughter 😂
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To boost oxytocin, known as the love hormone, those activities will work:
➡️ socializing
➡️ physical touch
➡️ petting animals 🐶🐈
➡️ helping others
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And last but not least – serotonin, the mood stabilizers:
➡️ Sun exposure 🌞
➡️ mindfullness (see Chill Sessions in my Stories Highlights) 🙏
➡️ be with nature (spring is here, enjoy it!)
➡️ meditation 🧘🏼♀️
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As you can see, with Smiley Society I try to boost all those hormones for you! 🤗 We have self-care Thursdays 🧖♀️ and plenty healthy recipes 🥑 for dopamine, positive movie recommendations 🎬 on Sundays to boost endorphins, Smiley talks 💬 and e.g. Fun challenge we did in May for oxytocin (there will be definitely a challenge about helping others soon) and I post videos for mindfullness 🙏 and meditation 🧘🏼♀️ from time to time too for serotonin!
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Let me know what else can I do and how can I help to make you happy! 🤗
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!
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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!
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Next week: Create new reward system
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Source: @chodakowskaewa‘s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”
Smiley Future – Step 62
How to maintain change? 🤔
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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.
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Write your answer down and create a initial plan, of course using SMART method (see step 6) 🧐
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Task for today: focus on first 2 criteria of SMART method and try making your plan specific and measurable 📏📐
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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! 😉
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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 📅
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If you e.g. learned a new language you also need to keep working on it, practicing etc .
Same with every finished project! 😉
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Now let’s have that coffee, a small bite of a macaroon and get to work! 😀
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Next week: Create new plan
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Source: @chodakowskaewa‘s book “90 days – design your tomorrrow”
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”
How to be HAPPY 