Stuff to Say to your Reflection
Hi Everyone, I hope you had a great weekend!
Starting the week with the not-so-glam Monday, as always.
This is a fun, practical post which involves mirrors and simple soliloquies! Too much fun for a Monday morning, I know.
It also involves learning a new good habit that might help get through Mondays...... and the week and maybe even life!
The New Habit: Talking to yourself, out loud
Studies show that talking to yourself is awesome! People who talk to themselves tend to be more productive, get things done faster, are able to motivate themselves right into achievements and might even be smarter.
Finally! What took science so long to vindicate us? I have been talking to myself for as long as i can remember, i survived the 'anyone who talks to himself/herself is crazy' era. Now, we can all safely come out of the closet and sing Hot Chocolate's 'Sexy Thing' to ourselves in the mirror.
People who talk to themselves always stop us in our tracks and evoke strange looks on our faces. I'm not sure why, it's really only strange because a bunch of people said it was. It's also believed to be a stereotypical habit of mad people scientists. Mad scientists, usually ARE geniuses anyway, so no harm.
Studies also show that the best way to talk to yourself is in second person as in, 'Ike, pick the orange as your snack, not that caramel-y thing.' Instead of thinking it, saying it stimulates a more favorable, positive response.....in most cases. In other cases, the caramel-y thing just finds its way down our throats.
Being vocal about your goals and plans, as well as saying them repetitively to yourself (a habit, christians refer to as confessions) actually motivates your mind and brain into accomplishing them.
Therefore, speaking to yourself, in second person, about your goals is a pretty handy lifestyle tip. Politicians, athletes, artists and a great bunch of achievers do it, so why let them and we, the pioneers of the habit have all the fun?
The Fun, Practical part: Get a mirror or go to the office restroom. Look at your fine self and say these words:
"*insert name*, You are remarkably brave and full of potential. You are talented and smart. You are not easily frightened. You care. You don't ignore the homeless and poor. You are creative and successful! Your thoughts are beautiful not ugly. You assume the best and not the worst. You are discerning. You work hard. You enjoy working hard and working out-- Ok, not really, but you will........eventually, this year (take deep purposeful breath). You drink loads of water. You eat healthy and live healthy. You make better choices. You do not spend money that you don't have. You invest wisely and save adequately. You are faithful and principled. You are successful and generous! You believe in miracles, where you from? You sexy thing. 🎶
Drumroll on the sink or wall. Then slowly back out (or moonwalk) and give yourself a little wink!
Gosh I need some chill!
p.s Insulting or berating yourself and saying things like 'I'm so stupid', 'I'll never amount to much', is a bad idea and can not be found in the lyrics of Hot Chocolate's 'Sexy thing'.
Any takers on this habit? Do you talk to yourself? How's Monday treating you?! What's your Monday morning theme song? Remember to share!
How to Make your Monday's Fly By
I only know one person who loves Monday's and she's from another planet. Moving on. Everyone dreads Monday's; in fact, I've often wondered why there hasn't been a collective agreement on moving the weekdays back just a little. Wait....there actually have been talks about that but the talks are more about lumping Friday with the work-less weekends and making Thursday the last day of the work week. You know, even if the weekend started with Friday, it still doesn't solve the MONDAY morning problem.
Clearly, we are stuck with Mondays for a while, we just have to make it work till that collective agreement we talked about comes to fruition.
Below are 10 practical ways to make your Mondays seem more bearable and maybe even lovable. Enjoy!
1. Rearrange your workspace
2. Do what you love!
3. Use up your entire lunch hour
4. Dress up for work
5. Make work as fun as possible
6. Notice people you wouldn't normally
7. Go to bed early on Sunday night
8. Spend the weekend planning new, exciting meals for the week (#foodies)
9. Set goals for Monday and ensure they don't get carried over to Tuesday
10. Make someone's Monday fly too (buy them lunch or tag them in a meme and send them this post)
How do you enjoy your Monday's? Have a great Monday and look out for post #2 later today!
6 Environmentally-Friendly Tips for your Wedding
It's 2016 and we all owe it to our planet to be environmentally conscious and 'green', right? Loving the earth every day and taking care of it is our responsibility, even on our big days! Many people give it very little consideration because we are a little preoccupied with the perfect cake, perfect flowers, the 9-foot chocolate fountain and the ice sculpture of you and bae standing under the Eiffel Tower or some other landmark of considerable importance. No one cares about the earth on their wedding day! I definitely didn't care. I didn't think my own event contributed to any environmental degradation, but it probably did, for one, the cooks in the backyard cooking with firewood so we could get the authentic jollof rice taste and aroma may have made a little contribution. That rice though....😍
Now seeking ways to right my wrong but Earth, you and I know jollof rice ain't jollof rice without firewood. So we have to find a middle ground. A "smoky-flavored jollof rice" seasoning might be the solution; Nestle, Unilever, I just dropped a product development pitch in your lap. BAM!
Ok, things went jollof-centric suddenly. Back to the reason for the post; here are a few things to consider when planning a "green" wedding.
Electronic invites
Paper wedding invitations are pretty (most of them, anyway) and are tangible, which are their main selling point. Although, thought should be given to electronic invites. They are instant; no wait times and are paperless. You and I know where paper invites end up; fending off soldier ants in the rainy season- ablaze; as make-do dustpans and in less dramatic parts of the world, I guess they just end up in the shredder. I know how long it took for me to make a decision about my paper invitation cards, to think that's how they ended up, lol, yup, I should have done the e-invites. Two e-invite platforms that make very pretty, chic invites are paperless post and labellecarte.
Wedding dress(es)
Do you really need two dresses? If you do, Make sure your second dress is beautiful and practical enough to join your wardrobe subsequently. Reuse makes the earth happily green.
Bridesmaids dresses
To all the bridesmaids out there, I got you. Let your bridesmaids choose their dresses, there's a higher chance they'd pick a dress that could be reused for other occasions with little or no modifications. Pretty Dresses= Happy bridesmaids= Reuse= Green wedding
Favors
Are your favors useful? Yes? Are they useful short-term or long-term and unique? Honestly, if I could trade in all the plastic fans favors that accumulated in my house in 2005 and the wall clocks in 2008 for a kobo, i’d be writing in my beach house somewhere on the Pacific. Favors are given with the right intent; to honor the bride and groom while giving out a gift to the guests. Give out favors and souvenirs that are useful and unique.
Gifts (registry)
Get people to spend wisely by setting up a registry with things you actually want and also to avoid duplicity. Many-a-wall-clock strewn around the homes of newly-weds, when they actually would like a pressure cooker.
Flowers
Use fresh flowers from the bouquet as potpourri. Even though the bouquet falls apart after the toss most of the time. If you have them all around reception area, potpourri is a good idea! Here's a link on how to make potpourri!
Here are more tips for the hard-core nuptial environmentalists.
Have a wonderfully green wedding and if you are throwing rice as confetti, remember to sweep it and eat it for dinner!
Lol!!! I'm kidding! I'm kidding! I just had to.
xx
The Green-Eyed Monster (featuring Kermit and Thor)
Envy stems from a dissatisfaction with the present circumstances of our lives, in light of the progress of someone else's.
One minute, we love our jobs, our cars, our engagement rings, our apartments and houses, the next minute not so much, because that other girl's job is so much more glamorous, it takes her to places with names you can't pronounce, her engagement ring breaks your screen when you see it on Instagram, her boyfriend looks like Thor, her car looks like the Jetsons', her apartment must have been fork-lifted off of @InspireMeHomeDecor. Suddenly your stuff looks so raggedy and ancient. Suddenly, your boyfriend looks like Kermit.
Envy starts with that subtle conscious or unconscious comparison of what we have with what belongs to someone else. Then we begin to wish it was ours. We wonder what makes her so special. We wonder why we are so unlucky. You wonder how a girl like that gets all that stuff and a girl as hardworking and morally superb as you gets.....this.
Why in the world do we spend time comparing our lives with that of others? Why do we let the good fortune of others so easily upset our state of contentment? Why do we let it ridicule all we have obtained and worked so hard for? We let it exhaust our effort and cloak our accomplishments.
One thing I know is that envy needs your permission to do all these things. Another thing I know is envy puts a cap on your capabilities! I can't decide if that is a corny line or if it sounds good. Lol. It's the truth though, it puts a cap on it, air-tight and all. It limits your achievements to the standard of the person you envy. You'll never do better than that person. Think about it, what if we are destined for more than what that person has? What if we are destined for an amazing ever-after with Kermit-bf or a way more fulfilling job? What if Kermit-bf hooks you up with a nicer ring eventually? What if?
In Ancient Greece, envy was frequently associated with illness. The Greeks compared envy and jealousy with liver disease, during which bile is overproduced in the liver, turning the patient a little green. They may have found envy so ailing and debilitating that they came up with the expression "green with envy".
I agree that envy is a disease. Your immunity to it, however, is contentment and realizing your path is unique; that your life's plan which God drew out is the most optimal plan, any other plan would be substandard.
So do you have that friend who has it all together; great job, smart, talented, stylish, Thor-Idris hybrid of a boyfriend and all the things you wish you had? If you don't, you should get one. It's a great opportunity to learn to be delighted for another person's good fortune, a chance to overcome the green fluorescence of envy. When you finally do, you'll be a better person than you ever were.
Have you hacked envy? Please tell us how!
Don't forget to enter for the give-away!
The Secret of the Unengaged Bride-to-be
4 years before Ed proposed, I went on a mock wedding dress hunt with my sister. It was entirely her idea and i had all the possible imaginable reservations about it. For one, I didn't want to be the "crazy" lady who made wedding dress appointments and wasn't engaged......... but then again, why let all the "crazy" people have all the fun! So I booked an appointment with a local wedding store, over the phone, avoiding the question "When is your wedding?" ever so skillfully with a grunt, an "a-hem" and the word "Soon." At the appointment, the woman was definitely really, really interested in the date of the wedding, so i said it was "inconclusive" for now. I guess at this point she really just thought i WAS the crazy lady who made wedding dress appointments and wasn't engaged; the one her manager always told her about.
In retrospect, i think this was the most important part of my wedding dress hunt adventure. From the trip, I was able to understand what styles looked best on me; I knew I preferred mermaid gowns and off-shoulder neck styles (I always thought i'd be a Cinderella ball-gown-kinda girl). I knew lace it was and always would be. I knew my veil had to be a statement. I also became aware that sometimes when you don't know what you want some style managers try to force dresses on you. It was a real eye-opener for me ......and an eye-slanter for the suspicious style manager.
How to pull this off...
Let's get it out there; yes, you do require some level of nuttiness for this escapade and who isn't a little nutty, huh? Apart from the benefits of acquired knowledge, it might also set things into motion if you tell your almost-fiancé about the appointment (not with the intention to manipulate him into proposing but just so he's aware and doesn't stumble on your photos one day on your dropbox account and has a heart attack); might get him thinking about the next move too.
You can make it a girls' outing! Get a couple of your girlfriends, engaged or not and do a mock hunt (each of you could book appointments in different stores to avoid being thrown out into the streets, after buying absolutely nothing). My friend, Eki and I did it once on Oxford street. We ran around in the rain, ducking into shops soaking wet, much to the dismay of the preppy shop assistants. Then we ate street crêpes in-between the appointments and after it all, ended up in wasabi eating a spicy bowl of sweet chili chicken bento while flipping through photos of the dresses on our phones. Fun!
It helped me streamline my wedding dress hunt. I also went for my real fitting very informed and confident. I knew exactly what I wanted which made the job easier for me and my style manager. Not knowing what you want is the bane of every wedding-dress style manager's existence. I got a lot of "Thank God! You know what you want! That's impressive!" remarks.
If only knowing what i wanted got me a discount, lol.
It also gets you thinking about themes, flowers, your hair and jewelry. It gets you planning a shopping budget and helps with being realistic with the numbers. Best of all, it's fun and a great way to spend an afternoon with your girlfriends without looking like the lone crazy woman who tries on dresses.
Now when you start taking photos like this with no intentions of buying anything, you probably will get thrown out! Lol! Thank you Eki for letting me use this photo. mmuah!
What are your thoughts on mock hunts? Do you know what styles you would like? Share with a friend who is nuts enough to try this with you...and then book some appointments!
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How to deal with Negative people (1)
Everyone has suddenly gone snobby with management of negative people! The general rule is to avoid them like a plague. Do not relate with them, everyone says, they spoil our own good vibe, our crystal aura, they disrupt the sea gulls that squeal around in our bubble of tranquility. They distract our unicorns from drinking from the burbly, shimmery brook, they ruin our day with their thunderous, dark clouds. Spot the negative people and then weed them out. I like this rule because its convenient and frankly i don't have to deal with anyone's bad aura. I have things to do and I have a calendar full of tasks and deadlines. I need to be productive and we all know what they say about productivity (*insert abstract Productivity quote*).
Nevertheless, i can't agree with this rule. It belittles my ability to impact others positively and i'm also at risk. You see, sometimes, i could be a little negative myself and I could very well be excluded from the unicorn islands of the "positive people"! And who wants that? No one! There's no way i'm passing on unicorns. So i have decided to deal with the bigger problem, bigger than dealing with negative people - dealing with negative me.
How to deal with negative people me
1. Think positively (but you already knew that)
Everyone knows this, but we only begin to chant "Think positively" when stuff has gone crazy and our negativity has gone crazy wild, biting at our heels and trying to ruin our lives. Thinking positively is a life style. It's everyday, every night, every waking, blinking second; not a magic wand. Whatever you think up in your mind or whatever ruling thought dominates your heart is what will spill out. Yes, your thoughts eventually spill out. It's like burping. If you had sea food gumbo for lunch, your burp 3 hours later will be nothing short of epic. So, think positively, ruminate on the good thoughts and burp rainbows.
2. STOP HAVING COFFEE AND DOUBLE-CHOC MUFFINS WITH FEAR
Honestly, i think at some point, fear was my best friend. Interestingly, she was always there. I never could complain that she ditched me....always there, in my bed, in the dark, in the car, on my run, on the plane. I literally would entertain fear unconsciously, until one day, she decided to take over my life. "She's part of the human response", you might think. True, but she is also NEGATIVITY in the flesh. So we broke up. Yup, we had bad blood. Definitely had bad blood. We could not be friends anymore. No more hanging out and catching up, started snobbing her and ever since, it has been coffee with God instead.
3. New habit: Choose not to complain
Complaining signifies a state of helplessness and constant dissatisfaction. It's not healthy for you or the people around you, so Shake it off! Shake it off! (I am on a Taylor Swift roll today). It takes a while to train yourself to stop complaining. On the average, it takes 66 days to acquire a habit (sometimes a little more). Try not complaining about traffic, the driver that just cut in, your commute, your boyfriend/husband/wife, parents, kids, work, the weather, lunch, the neighbor whose food smells like locust beans for 66 days. It will be the best 95,040 minutes of your life!
4. The gratitude plug
If you know anything about change at all or about quitting, you'd know a void appears in the absence of a past habit. So what to do with this gape left by complaining? Stuff it with gratitude, most especially to God. I don't know anyone who cares so much about anyone else as He does about us. There are so many things to be grateful for. That locust-beans neighbor for one, is something to be grateful for. Loads of people will kill for a neighbor of any sort but they don't have the opportunity (think Syria).
5. #NOTEVERYTIMEDEVILSADVOCATE
Encourage others! To encourage means 'to give confidence to.' People need confidence and its completely in our power to inspire. Speak words that encourage, not words that cut down. Encourage people to dream...dream big and to achieve those dreams, even if the dream is to sell a wide variety of colorful sequins for a living, just be supportive. Sometimes people in our lives do things we can't relate to and then we get stuck in our lack of understanding and do nothing. It's not about us, its about being a form of support #noteverytimedevilsadvocate #Justsupport #butonlylegalstuff .
6. See the good in people
I know. Some people task your optic nerves trying to see the good in them but it's there. Seeing the good in people requires you readjusting your perspective. Just a little more to the right. Yup, there it is.
7. Say Good things about people
Sometimes the words fall out of our mouths, but do they.....really? Every word that comes out of your mouth is actually passed along an interestingly complex neural circuit in your brain. It didn't just fall out. It was thought through and then it deliberately stepped off the ledge of your tongue. The fact that it's conscious and calculated means its controllable. We can actually CHOOSE to say good things. Speaking good about people is a necessity for the health of your mind. Trust me.
Do you have any tips on dealing with inner negativity? Please share below and remember to love on a negative person today! Unicorns are so in!