➡️ 1. Simply Take A Five-Minute Break ⏰️
Set a timer on your phone and when the timer goes off, stop what you’re doing and move away from your desk and sit down somewhere quiet. Close your eyes and take in a couple of deep breaths 🙏.
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➡️ 2. Go Outside 🌲🌳
Studies have shown that getting outside into nature is one of the best things you can do for your mental health 🧠. Exposure to nature lowers stress, improves your attention span, improves your mental health and even can help you increase your empathy.
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➡️ 3. Take The Stairs, Walk Around, Simply Move Your Body 🏃♀️🤸♀️
This one can be harder to plan so make sure to look at your schedule at the beginning of each day and identify one or two opportunities to move your body. The more you do it, the more you’ll find new ways to move your body 💪.
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➡️ 4. Notice Your Eating And Drinking 🌮🥤
Get out a journal and for three days write down everything you eat and drink as well as how you feel an hour after each meal. After those three days, you’ll start to notice where and when you eat too much, not enough, or foods that make you feel sleepy or hyped up.
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➡️ 5. Acknowledge Your Accomplishments 🏆
Start collecting email messages 📩, notes, and performance reviews where someone is singing your praises. Every time someone sends you a message that makes you feel good about yourself and your work, save it. Each time you start to feel down about work or wonder, “What am I doing here?” open up that folder and re-read all of those notes as a reminder of how much you’ve accomplished 🤗.
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And how do YOU practice self-care at work? 😚
Source: https://www.forbes.com
Tag: work
Don’t be a chicken!
Don’t be a chicken 🐥 and leave your comfort zone 😁! If you want to achieve something extraordinary (and you probably do as all of us 😅), if you want to be successful (as all of us 😅) or reach your goals you need to leave your comfort zone!
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Comfort zone is where you feel safe, where you do everything automatically without any extra thought 🤔 hence when you’re in your comfort zone you don’t learn anything new, you don’t grow! 😏
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Do you know that people used to think that human can’t run the distance of 1 mile (1609m) in less than 4 minutes? 🏃♂️ So this is what used to be believed as minimum time impossible to get. Best runners in the world have been finishing races with a result of 4 minutes + couple seconds until a British athlete called Roger Bannister left his comfort zone and run that distance in less than 4min in 1954 😎
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There are plenty people who are stuck at work doing what they hate but they don’t look for a new job because they’ve been doing it so many years that they can keep doing it 🙄. The truth is they are stuck in their comfort zone. They are scared of changes, of new challenges, of meeting new people and starting from the beginning so they stay where they are.
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They prefer to be stuck in a place where they know the people, where they know what to do when they come in to the office, where they no longer have to learn anything 🙄.
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They want to be stuck there even though they hate it. 😏 That is not right. You need to overcome this fear of changes, you need to overcome your weaknesses, you need to leave your comfort zone, go out and do what you want! 🤗
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Believe me, everybody wants to be in PJs in front of tv, being chilled and not stressing about anything whole day, week, month 😉
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But this is not the way to achieve great things.
You need to grow to achieve success but you won’t grow without leaving comfort zone 😉
What goes around comes around
You know the saying ‘What goes around comes around’? 🤔 I totally believe in it! 🤗 And it’s not only about Karma and receiving some good energy after you give it 💫, this rule works in every aspect of our lives 😉
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In order to get good energy and get help from others you need to send good energy and help others as well 😊! I doubt that anybody would help a grumpy person that never helps anyone 🤷🏼♀️
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But also in order to grow and to be better you need to give something too – work and time 😎. The more work and time you’ll put in something (in your passion, project, dream) the quicker and better it will get back to you ☺
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There’s no shortcuts in it. You can’t expect to grow and to reach your dreams/goals if you’re not doing anything 🤷🏼♀️. You need to work to get results 💪
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Even if something does not work out you still get a lesson, an experience – that’s also your results! 😊
Stop waiting for the world to change and go change the world! 💪🌍
Nothing will happen itself 🤷🏼♀️. You need to ‘help’ it make it happen! 😉
SELF-LOVE: Work on your dreams no matter what vs rest no matter what 🤔
You need to listen to your body and rest when needed 🙏
I have been working too much + had too much stress in November and December and I still ‘feel it’ in my body 😫. Even though i’m not working that much now in January, I have finally lazy weekends and sleep well 🛌, I still feel tired and don’t have that energy to jump into spiral of work 🤷🏼♀️ and have been taking it slowly so far in the 1st half of January and that’s ok 😉. I’m still moving forward, just taking small steps.
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Don’t push yourself if you don’t feel like it ⚠️. Don’t say “I’ll do it no matter what!” if you don’t want to do it ⚠️. It may seem contradictory to me pushing you to follow your dreams and to work on yourself but it’s not, you just have to find that balance ⚖.
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If you’ll be pushing yourself and not feel like it not only your body will give up and you will feel tired all the time but you’ll drop that dream/project quickly as forcing yourself to work on it won’t make you happy 🤷🏼♀️.
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Create a healthy, individual routine for yourself 😊. Try what works for you and what doesn’t. I work 8h at my full-time ‘normal’ job, then work 4-5h on my projects/dream and always need those 3-4h of rest in the evening when I watch Netflix with my husband 🤩, workout and/or play PS4 🕹. And as for weekends I work on my projects for couple hours on Saturdays (but not each Saturday) and always leave Sunday fully off to do nothing and let my body and mind rest 🤗.
What works best for you?
How to be productive
There are plenty different tips on how to be productive, some will work on you and some won’t so you need to test them all and see what’s effective on you! 😊
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This is what works for me
🔸️ Planning
➡️ First of all when I set my goal I visualise me succeeding to be even more pumped/motivated 🤩
➡️ I write down a list of steps I need to take to reach my goal. The more you break your goal into smaller steps the better.
➡️ I open my calendar and assign each step to some date. 1 step a day (or even a week if those are bigger steps) should be enough.
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Once I have my goal divided into smaller steps and each step planned for a specific date/period of time I know what and when I have to do 🤓. Focus on that step only, don’t think what comes next.
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🔸️Taking the steps
I work on my projects/goals after my regular work so those are my advices for people who have goals outside their work life/career (or want to make those goals their new career 😉)
➡️ Don’t take long breaks and don’t get too comfortable, you’ll lose whole will to work 😅
The hardest part is to start so once I finish regular job, I eat dinner and go straight to my projects. („I’ll rest, see 1 episode of my favourite show and I’ll get to work” almost never works 😅). I try to stay „pumped” after work to do more and more.
➡️ If you do need a break between work and projects go for a walk or, even better, workout! Physical activity will boost your mind and release endorphins so you’ll feel better and will be pumped to work! 😁
➡️ Tick off every little thing you’ve done from your ‘TO DO’ list. Even if it’s a really small thing that took you 1 minute – tick it off ✔ the more ticks you’ll get the better you’ll feel
➡️ If you haven’t managed to do everything from your ‘TO DO’ list just open your calendar, assign a new date for the steps that you’ve got left 📅
➡️ Once again go throught the list of things you did manage to do, you’ll see how productive you’ve been! 🤗
➡️ Have a well-deserved rest 😊
Smiley Future – Step 35
Next few steps we’re gonna work on what to do when your motivation drops 🤷🏼♀️
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There can be plenty various reasons of losing motivation: difficult time, stressful time, lack of support, health problems, being tired…😔
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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? 🤔
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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 ⚠️.
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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
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Source: @chodakowskaewa‘s new book “90 days – design your tomorrow”
Quarantine sum up
So tell me – how you’ve been lately? 🤗
I gotta say that those last 3 months has been really productive to me and I am satisfied with what I’ve managed to do. Apart from doing 200-300% norm at work I managed to work a lot on my personal projects/dreams too 😊.
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Obviously I’ve spent looooads of time doing stuff for @smileysociety and for you here 😉 – I’ve been posting regularly, working on special stories for you, created Positive Morning Posts 🙂 with good news and Chill Evening Sessions 🌠 to make you feel better during those times, I’ve made #SmileyTravelling Challenge for you on my ig so we wouldn’t miss travelling that much and plenty more.
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Even though working on my blog here took me 60-70% of my free time I used the rest of it to get into shape 💪and to read 📖! I’ve never been working out so regularly as I have now – been working out 3-4 times a week lately and I loved it 💙! I also challanged myself to read 1 book a month and so I’ve read 3 books since April – it is a lot for me as I usually don’t read that much anymore 😅.
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Apart from it all I started serious work on my 2nd novel, planning & plotting, creating characters and ideas for the plot and I am planning to start writing it in October ✒
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Even though it’s been horrible at times, I’ve been scared, I missed my family, I missed my friends, I pushed myself to the limits as if the world was ending 😅! I just didn’t want this time to go to waste and I am so glad I did!
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And even though I am tired and I am dreaming of holidays at last 😅 I am satisfied with my work in 1st half of 2020 and I still believe this will be my year 😉
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So what I’ve been trying to say is that no matter how bad the situation is (and I don’t mean only Covid-19 and quarantine times but anything else too) always try to do your best 💪. We all react to bad situations differently obviously and if somebody was really scared during last months, felt anxious and didn’t do anything productive that’s fine too! But when you look back now to those insecure times forget about all the bad stuff and focus on what you have done and what you’ve managed to accomplish 🤗
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Now it’s all gonna be better! 😊
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
How to be HAPPY 