Self Care Ideas 3: Do
INSPIRATION - Do What You Can’t I Cookie Monster’s Life Coaching I Ikigai
CREATIVITY - 642 Things to Write About I Stream of Consciousness Writing I Colouring Books I Plants and Gardening I Music I Passions
PRODUCTIVITY - Living for a Theme, not a resolution I Mind Mapping I Setting Goals
Do What You Can’t
Keep your head down. Follow the rules. Do as you're told. Play it safe. Wait your turn. Ask permission. Learn to compromise.
This is terrible advice.
YouTuber, content creator, Casey Neistat says if you've got ambition, passion, curiousity and ideas, the only other thing you need to realize your dreams, is a deaf ear to all the haters and naysayers - including your own inner critic.
The world is full of people who tell themselves, and others, they can’t. Stand out, believe, be true to yourself and be the one who can.
Do what you can't!
Make One Day Happen
We all have things we’ll do “one day” but one day never happens, unless you make it happen.
We’ve all been told “you can’t” -either by ourselves or others, but you can… if you make it happen.
Write down everything on your one day list. Ignore the haters. Clear Your Way. Make the plan.
It’s time to make one day happen.
Cookie Monster’s Life Coaching Advice.
Life is full of questions, curve balls, choices and cookies, and some advice and a different perspective can help, because we don’t always know what to do.
Facing big life questions?
Looking for direction?
Need help evaluating choices?
Is your cookie just crumbling?
Or do you just need a break and a laugh?
Simple, real, insightful and friendly, take a bite of Cookie Monster’s advice.
Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long Happy Life
Ikigai combines two japanese words
iki, meaning life
and
kai, meaning the realisation of hopes and expectations.
Combined
Ikigai = a reason to livE.
Having a purpose in life - following passions, feeling socially connected, planning goals, achieving and growing - gives us meaning, and a reason for getting out of bed every morning. Purpose and meaning have a positive impact on all aspects of our health and well being, and they refuel our energy and drive to do more.
Having purpose and meaning are so valuable that losing them can have negative impacts on not just our mental health, but also our physical health and all aspects of our lives.
Your Ikigai is at the intersection of what you are good at and what you love doing. Ikigai is seen as the convergence of four primary elements:
What you love (your passion)
What the world needs (your mission)
What you are good at (your vocation)
What you can get paid for (your profession)
Discovering your own ikigai is said to bring fulfilment, happiness and make you live longer. It’s a powerful concept for creating change, goal setting, finding meaning and purpose or even just looking at new and different ways to live a more satisfied life.
Learn more and find your Ikigai here:
642 Things to Write About
Spark your creative thinking and have fun by challenging yourself to become a storyteller and writer, inspired by the book 642 Thing to Write About.
A collection of 642 outrageous, playful, challenging and witty writing prompts that open the mind with no boundaries, and plenty of space to write it all down. Brimming with entertaining exercises, this writing prompt journal is sure to get the creative juices flowing.
From crafting your own obituary and penning an ode to an onion, to telling a dying houseplant why it should live and making a case for your favorite fruit, writers of all levels will stretch their imaginations and put pen to paper.
642 Things to Write About prompt journal will appeal to novice and seasoned writers, and anyone who wants to challenge and stretch their imagination.
For more creative storytelling challenges, try the The Amazing Story Generator
Stream of Consciousness Writing
The idea behind stream of consciousness writing is to capture all your thoughts - positive, negative, old, new, weird, wild and unexpected to clear the mind, remove the noise, sometimes it can even feel like bearing your soul.
Ever had a thousand thoughts flood your mind as soon as your head hits the pillow, have your head full of noises of stress, anxiety and doubt, feel the darkness of depression, need to calm your mind so you can think clearly and focus, or wanted to start a journal or blog - but stuck on how and where to start, or even what to write?
Next time your mind starts streaming with thoughts that get your way, whip out a pen and paper and try stream of consciousness writing .
Stream of consciousness writing is simply writing down the flow of thoughts and ideas as they come to mind, whatever they are - until the stream stops, there are no thoughts left, or you feel like you’re forcing it. Ignore punctuation, style, grammar, format… anything that stops you from writing. Don’t think, stop, edit, bypass thoughts, judge or re-phrase them in any way, write as they are.
It can be a powerful tool for creative thinking and to Calm and Clear the Mind of Negativity - Writing the negativity out can make it easier to be objective about it, and see the thoughts for what they are - unfair bias and concerns that don’t really matter. I usually read it, reflect - disregarding the thoughts that don’t matter and noting the ones that do to start change, then burn it, writing it all out is literally just to clear your mind and stop them circling.
How to Use Stream Of Consciousness Writing to Clear Your Mind
Colouring Books
Coloring books designed for adults are not what you would typically buy for a child.
They’re made of higher quality of paper, are crafted with more intricate, thoughtful, playful designs and based on a wider selection of themes and interests - from wallpapers to Doctor Who, Harry Potter, cities, swear words, flowers and plants, animals, or mandalas, there is a colouring book for every adult.
The top 5 benefits of coloring for adults are said to include:
Your brain experiencing relief by entering a meditative state
Lowered stress and anxiety levels
Negative thoughts are expelled as you take in positivity
Focusing on the present helps to achieve greater mindfulness
Unplugging from technology and creating with your hands.
Explore passions and interests from a new perspective
GreenThumbing: Plants, Flowers and Gardening.
Eight health benefits of indoor plants, including
Better Air Quality and Humidity, Natural Scents, Connect with Nature, Home Presentation, Learn a New Skill, Improve Mental Health and Potential Immune System Boost.
Plants, flowers and gardening are much more than a simple way to connect with nature and ( literally) get your hands dirty, having plants in your house to nurture and grow offer a lot of home and health benefits.
Indoor plants don't just look nice — they bring health benefits, too
Not all plants require special care attention, in fact most plants are relatively easy to grow. Some thrive in direct, natural light, others prefer the shade, some need a lot of water, others not much at all.
Happy DIY Home: Natural Fertilisers for Your Plants
It’s just a matter of knowing the best plants for you and your house, and what they need the to thrive… and there are plants that can turn even the blackest thumb into a much more vibrant, greener one.
Learn more about the right plants for you at
https://myplantlifebalance.com.au
30 Gorgeous Indoor Plants That Are Almost Impossible to Kill
Play Music
Some people consider music as a way to escape from the pain of life. It gives you relief and allows you to reduce the stress. Music is a powerful therapy that will make you calm down and in the moment of joy, it will make you cheerful.
What Role Does Music Play in Our Life?
Furthermore, it develops the mind and boosts your self confidence. Music plays a more important role in our life than just being a source of entertainment
10 Surprising Benefits Of Classical Music
Recent research shows that listening to music improves our mental well-being and boosts our physical health in surprising and astonishing ways. If we take a music lesson or two, that musical training can help raise our IQs and even keep us sharp in old age. Here are 15 amazing scientifically-proven benefits of being hooked on music.
Feed Your Passions
Whatever it is that gives you joy, DO MORE OF THAT
No matter what your passions are, embrace them, explore them, make time for them… and don’t let anyone make you feel bad or embarrassed about them.
Spend a year looking for the sneakers
Travel every month
Collect the stamps
Hit the dancefloor
Go to the festivals
Play the game
Live To A Theme, Not a Resolution
I hate New Years Resolutions. They’re well intended declarations of goals but mostly, they’re just wild hopes and dreams without a plan. Aspirations usually forgotten before the midnight bottle of Veuve Cliquot is empty… They lack any real commitment, and we’re free to set new goals, start new dreams and pursue a more enriched life any time of the year. For these reasons alone, NYRs suck.
Instead of resolutions, every year I live to a theme, a word, concept.. or even just a letter, that guides my decisions and actions.
One word you can focus on every day, all year long… One word that sums up who you want to be or how you want to live.
It will take intentionality and commitment, but if you let it, your one word will shape not only your year, but also you. It will become the compass that directs your decisions and guides your steps.
Discover the big impact one word can make.
One word. 365 days. A changed life.
How to choose your theme..
Choosing your theme is actually pretty easy, it may just take some time, inspiration and self reflection to get there.
Gretchen Rubin (Author and thought leader of Habits & Happiness) shares some of her past themes here , and expand your vocab at thesaurus.com)
1. Identify one key aspect of your life that you want to develop, and understand why.
2. Sum it up in one word and write it down ( up to 3 words if you have to).
3. Once you've decided, consider some actions you can take and goals to set to help you live your theme all year.
4. Check in with your theme and goals regularly to stay on track
Mind Mapping
Mind Maps effectively brainstorm ideas around your career development. As well as generating a whole range of possibilities, a mindmap can also allow you to see the situation differently.
Benefit From The Mind Mapping Concept In 3 Minutes
A Mind Map is a diagram which is used to visually represent concepts, ideas or key words and their connections to sub ideas, concepts etc.
Some general principles of mindmapping are as follows:
1. Place a coloured image in a circle or line in the centre of a page
2. Main ideas should branch off the centre and should be in different colours.
3. Main ideas should be in larger letters than secondary ideas.
4. Keep words to a minimum. Each word has an enormous number of associations, and this rule allows each one more freedom to link to other associations in your brain.
5. Where possible use images rather than words as this helps to develop a whole-brained approach, as well as making it much easier for your memory; a picture is, in this context, worth a thousand words.
Behaviour and Habit Change
Behaviour change is challenging, but isn’t out of reach. We just need the right tools and support and help.
What Causes Behavior Change
Building habits and creating positive change can be easy if you start tiny. Could you write a novel by working on it for one minute a day? Could you become a vegan by starting with one vegan breakfast? Could you develop an exercise habit by beginning with one push-up per day?
Tiny Habits and the BJ Fogg Behavior Model
The essence of developing Tiny Habits to create Change, big and small, is this:
Take a behavior you want, make it tiny, find where it fits naturally in your life, and nurture its growth.
Most of us have goals we want to achieve, make it easier to achieve them by creating a plan, and the Tiny steps and habits to succeed.
Learn More >>
https://www.growthengineering.co.uk/bj-foggs-behavior-model/
