(Smiling. Best and easiest mood enhancing trick for both you and the people around you!)
Like I said before, if you don’t start using what you read about, reading self help books is more self distraction than actual self helping. It’s good to read: It’s fun, what’s on the pages that resonates with you is bound to spill over in your behavior eventually, but it’s actively applying what you read that actually creates benefits.
Self helping sounds a little dorky, but it’s basically a bunch of daily behaviors that make me happy, healthy or productive. Which brings in other good results. Here’s what I do in terms of self help (almost) every day.
1. Gratitude Lists. I write down what I am grateful for in my Paperblank or in my iPhone Notes (those I post on Instagram). This is good on normal days, extra special on great days an d on bad days it is a welcome perspective shifter. You can click here for a really cool article that tells you all the benefits AND backs it up with some research.
2. Green juice & Healthy Food. Drinking at least half a liter of vegetable juice gives me extra energy and mental clarity, that helps my work and writing flow. My favorite (really green) combination is spinach, kale, cucumber, celery, green apple and lime with a shot of spirulina. Healthy and delicious. Also, I don’t eat healthy to lose weight. I eat healthy (green smoothies, salads, fruit) because it ensures me high quality energy. If I really keep a clean act*, I experience an euphoria and lucidity that I didn’t know possible until two years ago and that is well worth the hassle of juicing, blending and preparing!
3. Jessica Mullen’s Worksheets. I know, I know, mentioning them for the umpteenth time, but I just love them. The power of these worksheets: They are fun to do, and because you actively work it, it really works. I switch them up, but I make one every couple of days usually. My favorites as of late are the 60 Things I Love About and the Gathering Momentum one.
4. Exercise. Doing yoga relaxes me, makes me more mindful, and happier. I’m trying not to be a crazy obsessive person about it at the moment, but my minimum exercising for optimal functioning throughout the entire week is 4 times a week. The energy and endorphins work for me. Don’t know what your most optimal schedule might be, but finding it can really enhance your continuous quality of life (and it’s probably not zero, so start experimenting).
5. Reiki. Because I had some wondeful experiences with reiki/energetic healing myself, I got my Reiki 1 certificate in September. Can’t tell you how or why, but it’s special. It works for me on multiple levels and I couldn’t imagine my life without it anymore. I give myself a reiki treatment almost every night. Makes me sleep like a baby at night and keeps me balanced during the day.
6. Love and respect. I treat everyone as nicely as I can…and as they let me. I try to show love and kindness to people, from my best friend to the janitor at work to my family members to the woman who makes my coffee. I am only a hardass if I have to be. I work on not harboring negative emotions by using the F word as said by Gabrielle Bernstein: Not ‘Fuck’ (well that too) but ‘Forgive’. I try to forgive. It’s good for the soul.
7. Spend time with the right people. I am as cutthroat as I can be about the people I surround myself with. I look for people who give me energy and who make me buzz. I like people who inspire me and who makes me excited and happy about life. That doesn’t mean I only hang out with super successful crazy party people: It just means there has to be some sort of connection between me and the other person. And I spend as little time as possible with people who get on my nerves or who get me down. I’m not unpleasant or obvious about that, but that discrete form of selection makes my days better.
8. To Do Lists. As anyone who knows me in real life can testify, I am not an organized person. I am chaotic, forgetful and easily distracted. To Do Lists fix 75% of the issues that come from that. It clears my head, sorts things out and gets shit done. I become a 100% times more focused and productive if I have a list to work from: Items to cross off one by one. I explain how I work with to-do lists in this article.
9. Music. I listen to summer songs, raging guitars and catchy pop music when I’m riding my bike to work or to the yoga studio to inspire me. I listen to techno or classical music when I have to get my productivity on. Chris Liebing’s podcasts and Classic.FM! Click here for a really cool YouTube video explaining the power of music: I love this Science shit.
And that’s the daily components of how all my dorky self helping has translated into my personal life. Got any tricks up your sleeve you want to share with me? Kisses!
*I don’t do this nearly enough because I love my coffee and Tony Chocolony, but I should start again. It’s worth it.
All great tips! I like/try to do something productive within an hour I get up (doing a choir, eat something healthy, work out) so it sets the tone of my day and I don’t turn into a slug for the rest of the day, feeling like the day is ‘already wasted’.
That is a really good tip, I try to do that too!
Smile to strangers until they smile back, I love to see when their eyes sparkle 🙂
Last week, inspired by the workshop, I made the ’60 things I love about’ worksheet about one of my friends. He was really happy, he was having a tough day and I could really see him lighting up from the inside out when I gave it to him 😀 yay for worksheets ^^ keep mentioning them!
Also, just yesterday, I cancelled an appointment with him + another friend for tomorrow. He reacted really sweet, and I think the positive energy from the worksheet may have had something to do with that 🙂 like it just made our friendship even more positive.
De Gratitude Lists zijn geweldig, ik schrijf ze op in een boekje. Fijn om terug te lezen. Green juice & Healthy Food maakt me gewoon blij, voel me er goed door! Reiki, een ervaring waarvan ik eerst niks moest hebben, maar vind het erg fijn.
would you say you’re a supporter of forgive and forget? i know that bad relationships bring people down but is it worth trying to repair relationships or rid yourself of a bad friendship?
~alana