F.O.C.U.S

Focus has always been one of my favourite words but not because I like two-syllable words or photography but for the various layers of meaning in it. What is more, after having read Paul Dolan’s book about designing happiness, I started to get to understand more about what an important role focusing plays in our lives.

picture: Pinterest

Prof. Happy simply says that your happiness depends on how you allocate your attention; i.e. what you focus on. He also claims that “if you are not as happy as you should be, you must be misallocating your attention”, therefore, if you want to maximise your happiness you need to make sure that you give attention to things that actually make you happy. It sounds so simple and easy to follow; so why are most people so unhappy and unsatisfied with their lives?

The answer to this question according to Dolan is that we are trying to be happy with thinking about it too hard.  In our busy lives, we are surrounded by so many distractions that we simply forget that it is actually possible to control how we feel.

Our behaviour is influenced by the environment, the context in which we exist, e.g. by other people’s feedback. However, instead of others’ opinion we better turn to inwards to find the answers. Besides, we tend to either pay too much attention to the past or worry about future events and eliminate present from the centre of our attention. With simple affirmations, we can easily bring our focus back to the present, making our life easy and happy. One example is one of Lousie Hay’s mantras: 

All is well. Everything is working out for my highest good. Out of this situation, only good will come. I am safe.

If you want to know what is the key to happiness according to Paul Dolan and what this expert on wellbeing suggests us to pay most attention to, come back to the Rhythm Blog next week. In the meantime, follow our facebook page for some extra inspiration.

The 3D-Secret of Happiness

About six months ago I read a very well-written and positive review about  Paul Dolan's book called "Happiness by Design", so I decided to buy it. As I not only enjoyed reading the book but found it extremely useful as well, in this article I would like to share one of the many smart and easily applicable strategies that the writer introduces to the readers of this handbook about creating your happiness.

Paul Dolan says that we could be much happier if we paid more attention to the “Three Ds”; namely Decide, Design and Do. According to the author:

"Decide will help you answer whatever question it is you have about your happiness, design will make it easier to implement the answer, and do will ensure your attentional resources are running smoothly."

picture: http://www.designzzz.com/

As soon as you are inspired, take the time and effort to brainstorm a bit by doing some research, dreaming, meditation, etc. Simply, just let yourself go with the flow: read, draw, write, take pictures, ask questions, listen to music, exercise; do whatever makes you feel good and use your energy to create a bunch of ideas that you could use for finding your passion and purpose in life.

Once you have plenty of plans, try to organise them and select one aim that you want reach first. Be specific, go into details and make a strong and determined decision; if you want, you can write down a similar sentence to yourself:

“I want to … by … (a date) in order to …”

Now, you need to plan or design the process that will lead to the successful and efficient completion of the task. Ask yourself what you can do today, tomorrow, next week or next month to reach your goal. Write down the steps that you want to take in order to carry on with your project. If you think that you need some help, do not hesitate to contact other people who can help you realise your dreams. 

Finally, just do it! Take actions to your aim every day. Create new habits, certain routines that make you work towards your goal regularly. Start small, do not overwhelm yourself with too difficult tasks or extreme changes in your lifestyle. Be realistic but do not give upon your dreams for a minute!

Silk Skirt (1)

picture: Pinterest

Fresh, light and sweet spring air came into her bedroom when she opened the windows. She suddenly felt happy and energetic. The gentle breeze lifted up the white lace curtains and the room was now filled with good energy. Her mood now reflected only positive thoughts and feelings. After months of darkness, she finally experienced the light; she felt easy, content and motivated.

She closed her eyes and started to visualise beautiful things: she saw the secret garden; the white, yellow and purple crocus appearing early spring time; the rare off-white daffodils in the corner, in front of the evergreen bushes. Then, she was looking at the tiny, brown, dotty birds dancing around the little pond. She wished she could just get up and walk into the garden and see whether anything had changed at all.

She took a deep breath, held it for few seconds. Then, she exhaled, panting loudly for a long time. She repeated the practice several times, until finally she felt relieved as she let go all the problems through her nostrils.

--to be continued--

Tool-Kit to Surviving Crisis

On the way to living the life of your successful and happy self, you will experience critical moments from time to time in spite of any careful planning or preparation. Every day is a new one and your circumstances may change occasionally. The weather, a bad-hair day, catching the flu, your period, your colleague’s remark, your friend’s unexpectedly long call, an e-mail with bad news, etc. might all affect your mood; it is up to you in what way. It is hard to resist and stick to your newly created habits/diet and daily/weekly routine if some unpleasant events appear in your life. However, it is not impossible, especially if you saved up some motivation and willpower from the times when you kick-started the whole process and felt energetic, powerful and unbeatable.

In the beginning of your lifestyle changing project you are armed with a strong and solid intention and due to this, your motivation levels are above the clouds. Yet, they can easily drop, especially in case of some unfavorable happenings. Whenever you feel stressed, overwhelmed and are about to give up, stop for a second or two. It is so easy to get lost in the rat race. Due to the challenges of your job and/or private life, you are likely to forget about what you really want in life. You need to slow down sometimes and ask yourself, what makes you really happy? Take your time to remind yourself of the reasons of your aims.

• Why did you want to change?
• Why did you start the whole process?
• What have you done so far in order to reach your goal?
• Were your efforts successful?

Be objective and make a list of all the successes that you have gained since you started to put your plans into action. Try to overcome failures quickly knowing that these are just part of your development. Show gratitude; accept what you have reached so far and what you have got at the moment; no matter how few you think you own. Being impatient and greedy will not help you. On the contrary, appreciating the moment and practicing self-love will support you in surviving the difficult periods when you lack motivation. Actually, a small inventory of your recent successes, a quick reminder of your original plans and a little revision of your strategies can keep you going. Relax, take a deep-breath, think a little bit and don’t forget to re-charge your batteries and Voilà: Welcome, my good old friend, Enthusiasm.

Now that you are freshly inspired by your own happiness about your recent results, keep in mind what Maria Brilaki suggested in her latest article. She presented some of the features that differentiate successful people from those who will never succeed. The essence of this video could also be related to this subject. A short summary of the main characteristics of successful people based on these two sources:

1. they stick to their passion
2. they never complain
3. they avoid being negative
4. they don’t give up

Easier said than done, right? Yet, this is their secret, it is so simple and you can do it too.

Until you reach this level where you are in the flow of happiness and success, you are going to work hard on yourself day by day. You can choose the difficult way with fears and insecurity by setting up unrealistic goals and overwhelming yourself with complicated tasks OR you can try easy: you can create a motivating, supporting and loving environment with using positive and inspiring triggers that help you stick to your goals. If your plans are realistic and you are willing to start with small steps, you just need to follow your strategy but don't forget to be flexible and adaptable in case of inconvenient conditions. Now, all what you need is to be social. Share your ideas, plans and latest results with friends and family, so that they can act as mentors or supervisors and can celebrate with you as well. To get you going, you can actually “use” human triggers apart from the tools mentioned above. They can check-in on you regularly and give you some support in the most critical moments.

Summary: Accepting what you have, being patient and showing gratitude can increase your motivation levels in difficult times when you are about to give up. If you create a supporting environment and always choose positivity, success is guaranteed. Prepare for the worst: when you are enthusiastic, spare some motivation for times when you are close to throw in the towel. Finally, ask your friends or family members to help you when you need some extra inspiration. That’s it! 

Sources:
Brilaki, Maria: Surprisingly Unstuck              Kaiser, Shannon: Find Your Happy!

Finding your Rhythm

It happened many times in my life that I really struggled with making choices and my things were not quiet right at all. I strongly felt that I needed to change but didn't know what and how to start at all. What is more, whenever I arrived to a major crossroad, and actually had to decide about something , I became confused, started to panic and worried about the consequences of making “wrong” decisions. I already envisioned myself living an unsuccessful life, suffering, making mistakes and failing continuously, thus I really did all of these. Due to my ego, my heart and head was filled up with fears and negative feelings and I just became my own worst enemy. I did not know that I can control my thoughts and am able to choose not to listen to those vicious voices in my head.

It was not until three years ago when my approach to life changed dramatically; I slowly started a kind of awakening that is still in progress. Today, I still have lots of questions and am confused many times but the difference is that I know where to look for the answers. I really enjoy this whole process of creating myself. Finally, I managed to accept my weaknesses but turned to developing my strengths. I already know that I can make better choices by listening to my calling instead of my ego. By simply loving your life with all its positive aspects and downsides you can also start this beautiful journey to find your rhythm, your true self.

First of all, you better drop everything that you feel to be superfluous or unnecessary in your life. I mean literally everything that you think it does not belong to you anymore. Clothes or accessories and any other objects in your home, which do not reflect your personality and might disconnect you from your real self. You might want to change your hairstyle or try wearing completely different kinds of clothes or make-up, something that mirrors who you really are. In my case, one major event that helped me to approach my true self was when I stopped dying my hair. The decision not to be blond anymore was due to an “incidental” fact that I temporarily became allergic to most cosmetic ingredients, so I did not even have any other choice; I had to let my hair grow and wear my natural color after a while. Interestingly, I realized that this color suits me well and does not look as awful at all as I believed it 10 years ago. Apart from things, you might want to say good bye to people who do not really add anything positive to your life. You definitely do not need toxic friends and energy vampires around you. Without friends that are not true to you, you will have to make less effort in order to find your happy self.

image: Pinterest

After you get rid of all the people and things that keep you behind, you can start focusing on doing things that you really enjoy. Now that you threw away all the unwanted objects and stopped seeing the vampires sucking your energy, you have enough space in your home and life to focus on your calling. Try to make some quiet time regularly so that you can listen to yourself. Do things that you love and shortly your questions will be answered. You will simply start making better choices by focusing on seeing who you are and what you really like. Crossroads and decisions will not be major threats in your life any more. You will also understand that you can ignore your ego’s nasty and critical messages and you will learn to turn the volume up when you hear positive and happy thoughts. Brilliant ideas will come and being in the flow will naturally involve moving you forward in discovering yourself. Slowing down and spending time alone does not mean that you are becoming antisocial. Simply, there is too much noise around us and in order to be connected with our rhythm, we need to have some silence from time to time. While you are becoming the person who you really are, you are going to attract likeminded people whose presence and company will fill you up with healthy and positive energy. What else would you need?

Similarly to working out, in case of mindful exercising, you will need to be patient and hardworking. After questioning your abilities, practicing self-doubt and being your own enemy on a daily basis for many-many years, results and positive changes will not come after doing a little meditation or some journaling once or twice. You will have to change your lifestyle, slowly incorporating your calling’s messages into your reality. Make one small and easy step every day to finally create yourself. After solitude and focusing to your inner side becomes a habit, you will notice the changes happening in your life every day.  You will clearly know what your calling is and will automatically go for “MUST”instead of “SHOULD”. Should is all about fears, worries and negative feelings or thoughts; it just keeps you behind. By going for “MUST” you listen to your heart, to the good voices inside your head and do automatically what is best for you.

The spiritual journey of discovering yourself possibly will last until the end of your life, so you better make sure that you enjoy this challenging but wonderful process. Focus on the big picture and get rid of all the fears, worries and unnecessary details that make you stuck in a life that does not belong to you. Surround yourself with positive, supporting and likeminded people but spend some time alone with your thoughts to be able to hear your calling. Finally, choose “must” over “should” in order to feel the rhythm of the person who you really are. Why would you live your life off-track if by doing some extra work you could become your happy and healthy TRUE self? 

Make a Habit of Positive Thinking

Positive thinking is a habit and you can create it for yourself. It will take some time and you will have to practice it regularly until it becomes automatic and part of your everyday life but it is worth as it can really set you free and move you towards your real purpose. There are plenty of experiences, impressions and assumptions that usually influence your thoughts. Other people’s opinions, criticism, feedback from your supervisors, social expectations, media, etc. all affect the picture that you have in mind about yourself.

image: Pinterest

We all have beliefs; however beliefs are tricky because they are just psychological barriers and have nothing to do with reality. Our assumptions about ourselves are mostly based on other people’s reactions to our existence in the world. If you try to be objective with yourself and decide to test the beliefs that you have about your personality, skills or ability, you will see that your true self has not so much in common with that person who appears as “you” in front of your family, friends or colleagues. Remove the “noise” (negativity, fears, false beliefs, etc.) and try to examine your thoughts as if they were another person’s views about herself. It is hard to see yourself as an outsider but this way and with some time and practice it is possible to be positive and objective about yourself.

Fear and false assumptions distract you from being able to focus on the thoughts that can really move you forward. Change your inner dialogue and approve of yourself. Celebrate your results every day, no matter how small or big they are. Give some more support to yourself by letting negativity go. Practice positive thinking every day and create a new habit that will help you to see and enjoy the whole process called LIFE.

How will you start praciticing positive thinking?

Scarred of Difficult? Try Easy!

What is the connection between small details and great progress? You will see in a minute. You might have realized that whenever you really want to achieve something (=you are extremely motivated to get a certain thing) you can be very creative and are able to come up with several plans in order to realize your dream. Your goal can be either big or small; it does not really matter whether we are talking about losing weight, getting your dream-bag or dream-job. Due to your increased level of motivation, you are enthusiastic and pro-active: you are working on your little project whenever you can; you try to do everything to get what you want.

It is important to catch yourself as soon as you are the most motivated because then you can really work hard and you can save energy and willpower for times when you are not so enthusiastic or are a bit down. For this reason, it is ideal to separate your big aim into small steps. It is always better to start with small and easy because you are more likely to be successful if you have a realistic and achievable mini-project. For example, if I want to lose a significant amount of weight and decide to reach my dream-body in a month’s time with working out 5 times a week and being on a strict diet, I am very likely to give up the whole plan after two weeks because it is simply extremely hard. Especially, if I did not exercise for years and was eating junk food for a while, it is not possible to change my whole lifestyle in one month.

If you want to change something, you need to come up with a detailed plan. Either we talk about losing weight or getting a good job where you can feel useful and appreciated, it always helps if you sit down and think about the followings:

• What do you don’t like in your life and why?
• What do you want to change and why?
• What do you want to achieve and why?

Take a nice notebook and your favourite pen and write down your answers to these questions. You will see, how much a little journaling and self-analysis can help in defining your aims. Break your big plan into small increments and list all the steps that are necessary to reach your goal. It is much easier to focus on small and easy tasks and you are more likely to repeat the steps every day. You are not going to give up exercising or studying after few weeks if you aim to fulfil small and easy challenges. The secret is to do regularly what you planned. If you repeat the steps often, they will become automatisms very quickly and you will not have to use your willpower for these as they are habits already. All the small steps will lead to a huge success in the end. You will be very happy whenever you manage to do what you planned. If you make an exercise-plan, for example, every Sunday, you can easily prioritize and organize your other responsibilities for the whole week. A useful hint: always start as soon as possible because early in the week you are less tired and you are more motivated. As you start using your willpower for duties that you have to do but do not really want to, your level of motivation will decrease and you are more likely to feel too exhausted to exercise or study, e.g.

picture: Garance Doré

So, take a moment to think about your life, decide in what areas you want to change and make a plan. Then separate your big goal into small and easy bits that you can repeat as often as possible. Also, reward yourself and practice self-appreciation! You can be really proud of yourself! You did that 15-min training, wrote the planned 10 pages or read those 5 chapters. Be objective and do not come up whit things that you should have done according to you. Every beginning is a new chance to succeed. It is as good to be a beginner as nice it feels when you achieve your goal. Do not feel ashamed of being a beginner or being fat, slow or unorganized. Guilt and other negative feelings will not help your progress. Be positive and do small and easy tasks regularly. Soon, you will be happy, satisfied and successful.

based on Maria Brilaki’s book: Surprisingly unstuck 

Welcome to the Rhythm Blog!

• Have you ever felt overexhausted, unmotivated or depressed?
• Do you need some motivation or inspiration?
• Do you have a calling but don't know what to do with it?
• Do you need some support in following through the way to your true self?
• Would you like to live a happier and healthier life?
• Are you planning to change your lifestyle?
• Have you ever wondered about the ways to find balance in your life?
• Are you interested in some useful pieces of advice from the best experts in the wellness and fitness industry?

  

  photo: Pinterest

If your answer is yes, read on!

The Rhythm Blog was created to help people who want to live their lives and don't just let things happen to them. I write to you, who -similarly to me- want to change your lifestyle and are listening to your calling but are still looking for your real passion. If you want to live a happy, healthy and complete life but need some advice, you will find plenty on this blog.

In the posts, I share a collection of unique and useful stories of successful, fearless and happy people and introduce their ideas to you through my own experiences and point of view. They all set wonderful examples for us, who need a "kick"; some motivation and support in following through the ways to find our true self. With presenting the world of the best experts, my blog’s aim is to provide you with relevant and appropriate information in order to help you to create a happy, healthy and balanced life.

My posts on the blog will mostly cover subjects related to mental wellbeing. However, if you follow the Rhythm Blog's facebook page you will not only get fresh wellness & fitness tips (motivational and inspirational quotes, exercising, beauty, healthy eating, recipes, etc.) but also some instant soul-candy in the form of short posts including topics that might be covered in a longer article on the Rhythm Blog. 

I hope that you will enjoy reading the posts and find them useful. I am looking forward to hearing your ideas and opinions; please e-mail me on the Rhythm Blog's facebook page.