Hobbies To Try In Your 20's

A soft life requires HARD WORK!!!!

You should pamper and take care of yourselves. HOWEVER, You need more than a pretty face these days y'all to get ahead in life. You see women who are in business, law, and Healthcare. They had to bust their behinds to get where they are now. Endless nights staying up to studying, not worried about men 24/7, dreaming about what will be on the other side to motivate themselves. Some of y'all want to be babied. Yes, not every woman thinks the same and wants to be a rich housewife. How do you think women become rich housewives? Networking, Education, volunteering, Hobbies, etc.

Some of these girlies on tumblr are selling a fantasy and I'll let them have it but this is not a Wattpad fanfiction. WAKE UP and get up and do something!!!

where to start

introduction:

self-improvement looks very simple on paper. eat better, workout, have a skin care and hair care routine. lower your screentime, study, be organized, have hobbies. but trust me i know how difficult it is to actually DO the things you talk about doing. how hard it is to even know where to start, and how to stay consistent. roadblocks also happen, things out of your control. but ultimately you can make change in your life, just little by little.

planning:

during this stage you need to think of what you want to accomplish and creating an action plan full of steps that can get you there. i've provided my own example too :)

prioritize your physical and mental health. when those things are improving then pretty much everything else in your life will start to follow. just look at yourself now and think 'what can i do better? how can i be happier & healthier?'

write down your goals.

create an action plan for each goal. what steps can you take to achieve this goal? make a step by step plan.

come up with things you can do everyday to reach that goal. what adjustments can you make in your everyday routine that'll help you get there? for example, i want to make an etsy shop so i sew for 20+ minutes a day on weekends, and sew 30 minutes on weekdays.

excecuting:

the most important part is slowly easing into your new habits. look at your goals and think 'what steps am i taking to reach it?'

meeting your basic needs. before you even think about self improvement make sure you're taking care of your health and hygeine. this means eating enough, being hydrated, taking care of your hygeine. always make sure that your core needsre met consistently before you even begin.

start small. once you've gotten consistent with meeting your basic needs then start making small changes. (ex. exercising for 10 minutes, reading for 10 minutes, start small with the habits you planned) dont overwhelm yourself!

have a fluid plan. be open to change- if something really isn't working then adjust it! and, when you continue to do something for a while, start doing it longer- i used to walk around 1.5 miles daily for almost a month and then started doing 2.5. keep increasing until you're at a healthy point.

having a good mindset. as always make sure your mindset is good. remember that progress isn't linear- you're going to screw up sometimes and get off track. just make sure you learn from every experience.

conclusion:

no matter what there ARE going to be problems or things that don't go your way, things that aren't in your control. since my 15th birthday i've been applying to jobs left and right, over 30 or so, and it's been 5 months of rejection due to my age (15 year olds can only work 3 hours in a row and most places need more). since i can't control that i just keep applying and in the mean time i focus on the other aspects of my life! it can be really frustrating but you just have to keep pushing.

How I have improved my routines and consistency

Hello girlies! This first week of my vacations period I have been using it as a test for my ideal routines and schedule, identifying what goes right and wrong and what changes do I need to do to be consistent and have an efficient systmem. What you'll be reading next are all the things I have done and learned to apply to have a calm, healthy, fun and fulfillling routines and daily schedule, overrall improving my lifetyle.

Identify

Energy levels: Are you a morning person or a night owl? Do you identify when do you have the most energy and when it goes down? What would be my ideal time to sleep and wake up?

What negative habits do I have? And why do I have them? With what habits I can switch them?

Why do I procrastinate? In which ways I procrastinate and distract myself?

How I want my lifestyle to look like? What habits, routines, hobbies and activities are included in my daily life? How do I act on a daily basis?

Creating my schedule and routines

Set a sleeping schedule that fits you based on your energy levels.

Create a morning, night and pampering routines that you enjoy doing, that you are comfortable with and makes you feel fulfilled.

Create (if neccesary) other routines that you need:There are probably other things you want to do that you need a routine for! For example, I have a mini manifesting routine and a weekly spiritual healing routine. I also want to create a language sudy routine too.

Include non-negotiable healthy habits: this habits are the ones that keep you healthy in body, work with your mind and give you peace. For example, some of mine are: eating 3 healthy meals, tidying up my space for 30 minutes, listening to a podcast, don't use my phone for more than three hours, etc. Also, include fun habits to help you romanticize the day and feel good.

Have time to do things I love: I have noticed that if I don't do the things I love after long period of time, meaning productive only days, I get burned out and more prone to procastinate and get distracted when I get the chance. Make sure you have time to yourself, either be it hobbies or fun activities, you will keep your mind, heart, body (if it's physical) and soul healthy!

Have time to rest and be still: We need to understand that we need rests, so we have to respect it and let us be. Also we need some minutes in silence to connect with ourselves, body and creativity out of all the noise and stimuli.

Maintaining consistency

Plan my day: I plan my daily tasks and my daily schedule, this to not procrastinate overthinking "what I'm going to do?"

Add a place and hour: For any routine, habit or activity decide "Where am I going to do it? At what time or after what habit?"

Habit stacking or multitasking: If I have a "listening habit" (podcast, subliminal, listening to high vibe music) with a "not-thinking alot habit" (tidyin up my space, do the dishes, cooking) habit I do them both at the same time. If I need to do a habit that needs my full attention then it will be done that way.

Include timers (if needed): This helps me know how much time do I need to do my habits and to know if it's taking me more or less time to complete them. I use an app where I have my routines (morning, night, weekly reset, mini manifestation and spiritual healing activities) with each habit having a timer.

Have a habit tracker: In here I write a daily log that includes filling boxes of my daily non negotiable habits and extra habits (that romanticize my life or keep me healthy). Also includes two questions: "What progress did I made today with my goals? Is there something I need tom improve or change in my system?'.

Romanticize! Your habits and activities, routine sets, daily schedule, romanticize your days your way! It's different for everyone, so find out how to add magic into your life.

Wasted day? It's never too late to do something useful. Keep going or journal about what went wrong. I like to remind myself my motivations and ideal lifestyle to mantain myself going forward.

Let's be healthy and organized together! 𑄽𑄺ྀ

Becoming "that girl" and the trap of materialism

Work on your inner self before making any external changes.

It's easy to believe that the next new thing you acquire, whether that be clothes, beauty procedures etc will be the thing to solve all your problems in life. But, it probably won't. All it will be is a drain on your resources and you will still be insecure, just with more stuff. This is not to say you can't buy those things, but to be mindful of the reason why you're buying them. Do you actually want it? Or have you been led to believe you want it, by marketing, social media or what other people are doing?

Even if you don't necessarily like what you see in the mirror, it's important to have love for yourself regardless. At the end of the day, all our bodies are is a vessel for us to inhabit. Despite our best efforts, we are not always going to be looking 100% because life constantly throws stuff at us. There will be times we are so busy we don't eat as well as we should, or stress may impact our appearance through weight gain, acne or bloating. If we go seeking validation for this vessel from the outer world, we make ourselves vulnerable to attracting bad people/energy into our lives. If we are mentally in tune with ourselves, this reflects into our outer appearance and we cannot be shaken by external influences.

You can love yourself and think you'd look objectively better with a certain procedure or a different weight. You can love yourself and want to be different than the person you are currently. A desire for improvement that stems from your love of self is stable and patient. This is important because real change doesn't happen overnight. If you lack this self love, you cannot be objective about yourself and will end up in a never-ending series of 'quick-fix' changes in the impossible pursuit of perfection that will leave you worse off in the long run.

Things you can do to develop your inner state:

Shadow work - Your unresolved tensions from past events will repeat themselves until you address them.

Read/listen to podcasts about things that interest you - Don't you love seeing the way a person's face lights up when they talk about something they find fascinating?

Reducing your social media time - Social media is fake, everyone is just projecting the image they want to project and you have no clue what's truly going on in their lives. Take part but be mindful of this.

Practice gratitude and kindness everyday - To yourself and others. Thing about the simple routines in your daily life, how lucky are you to be able to partake in them? Someone's being a bit rude to you? It's nothing to do with you and everything to do with how they show up in the world, so don't take it personally. A bad personality makes a person look ugly, no matter how attractive their appearance is.

Exercise - It does wonders for mental health. Start small and work your way up. It can be as simple as taking a walk outside or following a YouTube video. Even if you give up halfway, you still showed up and gave something. Something is always better than zero.

Change your diet - Our mental state is impacted by the things we choose to put inside ourselves. If you're eating ultra processed foods like McDonalds, Doritos etc on the daily you could probably feel better than you currently do. You don't have to go crazy and cut everything cold turkey (you'll more than likely relapse), work on making small swaps for healthier versions of the things you like for a sustainable, long-term approach.

DAILY HABITS FOR A HEALTHY MIND ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

Keeping you mind healthy is just as important as keeping your body healthy. Doing daily habits that improve your mental well-being can improve your mood, reduce anxiety and stress, and increase focus and learning.

JOURNALING

As you may know by now, journaling has so many positive effects on your mental health. Journaling could help you express your emotions, relive stress, and find different ways to cope.

RESTING YOUR MIND AND BODY

Giving your mind and body a break after using it all day long is a huge way to improve your mental health significantly. Taking a break from your electronics, moving around, or academic activities could be of good use to your mental health.

GET ENOUGH SLEEP

Try to get 7-9 hours of good quality sleep each night.

PRACTICE MINDFULNESS OR MEDITATION

Take a few minutes each day to focus on your breath and be present and in the moment. HERE is a guide to meditation.

EXERCISE REGULARLY

Engage in physical activity for at least 30-45 minutes a day to boost your mood and reduce stress

READ OR ENGAGE IN MENTALLY STIMULATING ACTIVITIES

Challenge your brain with books, puzzles, or other activities that promote cognitive function.

PRACTICE GRATITUDE

Take a moment each day to reflect on the things you are grateful for in your life.

MANAGE STRESS

Find healthy ways to cope with stress, such as journaling, practicing relaxation techniques, or seeking support from others.

How to Wake Up Early

I always wanted to be one of those girls who would wake up early, go for a run and be super productive with their mornings. The issue is - i really love sleep. Every time i would start a routine, i would eventually fail. I would wake up to turn the alarm off, think to myself “5 mins more” and boom- it’s suddenly 8:30 am and i need to leave for work in less than 1 hour.

Two videos on YouTube really changed my mind. One was Andrew Huberman’s, and the other was Jihyo, a k-pop star.

I came across Andrew Huberman’s video about dopamine, and somehow, it helped me to understand why the difficulty waking up early is so important. Now I’m no expert of neuroscience, but let me explain to the best of my abilities.

Dopamine is essentially the build up to the reward; it is not the reward. It is the satisfaction and happiness you feel (when your body releases), after you have achieved something that was painful/ required you to struggle a bit. In order to receive this reward, you have to feel pain, because pain and satisfaction are directly related to each other. Satisfaction without pain is useless and does nothing for you essentially.

That got me wondering: for me, waking up early is difficult. It’s painful. I dont want to do it. But if I do it, its my first win of the day. It’s the first challenge I have overcome of that day, and I always do feel amazing after. The dopamine release after the struggle of waking up and winning the battle of not going back to sleep is definitely there. I feel more confident because a) I have done the “right” thing b) selfishly, i can do something so simple that a lot of people struggle with c) it weirdly makes me feel more confident and like I’m doing the first step of being an adult right.

Jihyo’s video was quite random - she did some show where it shows her daily life when she’s not working. Parts of it made me feel like she’s unable to just relax with herself (probably because her body and mind are so used to chaos, performing, her girl group living together for so many years) so she busies herself a lot. I took the positives from the video; she’s extremely disciplined which I admired, she gets her chores done, she’s good at ensuring that her space is truly her space.

So I decided to build a relatively foolproof routine; but mind you, it does require quite a bit of willpower.

I’ve developed a habit of waking of waking up at 5 am. I head straight for a 30-45 minute meditation and then at least an hour long workout. I stack my habits that way; right after meditation, I put on my running shoes. I used to really struggle with waking up, even if I had to wake up late. This is the strategy that worked me, see if it works for you.

1. Reset your space the night before

This makes you feel less stressed in the morning and also genuinely makes you feel like you have your shit together. Put your clothes away, keep your bag in its place, clean up your desk, reorganise your make up and skin care products. You’re going to go to sleep and wake up to a clean space.

Make sure you define both your bedtime and wake up time. My bedtime is 9:30 pm - so i manage my chores, reading, dinner, everything around that.

2. Early dinner

I’ve noticed that early dinners help me sleep better. I’ve built the habit of casually walking for 25-30 minutes post dinner (not right after eating, after about 15 mins). I’m not walking fast to a point where I’m sweating and puffing, I’m casually strolling outside. During this time, I don’t listen to music, interact with anyone or my phone. I use this time to connect with myself and think about whatever I feel like.

3. No devices before sleeping

I don’t want to stimulate myself before sleeping, so I prefer reading before bed. If you don’t like reading, you can instead do your skincare, maybe revise some physical study notes, etc.

4. Using Alarmy app

This app is torture and I swear by it. This little thing makes you a solve a challenge of your choice in order to make the alarm stop, like math problems, puzzles, etc. I chose 5 math problems.

5. Keep your phone across the room

Don’t charge it near your reach. Keep it as away from you as possible.

6. Stand for two minutes after shutting off the alarm

Don’t allow yourself to snooze, or go back to bed. This is the part that really requires you to tell yourself: “i am not going back to sleep. I’m going to wake up and do the things I have to do for my own benefit.” Remember - the states of heaven and hell are not outside of you, they’re inside you. They are mental states. You have to fight with your lazy demon and tell him/her/whoever that NO; we are NOT going back to bed.

I charge my phone across the room so that forces me to walk first thing in the morning. To stop myself from going back to sleep, after i have shut the alarm off, i just stand for 2 minutes. I dont sit, or go back to bed. I stand and tell myself, we’re doing this. We’re going to wake up and have an amazing day.

Your mind is like a child with tantrums and mood swings. Your rational self has to discipline your mind the way a parent would to a child.

7. Turn a small light on

Not something that is jarring or overwhelming, but enough to help you start waking up. I turn my phone’s flashlight on and keep it on my desk.

8. Be consistent, even on weekends

The biggest mistake you can make is not being consistent. Your body doesnt recognise weekends, your mind does. Your body doesn’t know that tomorrow is Monday, so its time to wake up early. By staying consistent (yes, I wake up at 5 am on weekends too), it allows my body to develop its own body clock and not wrecking the system I’ve kept in place.

What do I do if I have a late night?

It really depends. Let’s say I come home relatively early (+2 hours around my bedtime) around 11 pm, and im in bed by 11:30. I’ll wake up somewhere close to 5 am, like 6 am instead. The next day I ensure I’m in bed by the bedtime I’ve kept for myself and wake up at 5 am again.

If I come home really late, like 3 am - i keep my alarm exactly 8 hours from that time. I need to get sleep, but oversleeping is an issue and that wont allow me to wake up early the next day. I want to get enough sleep where im rested for the day, but not excessively. Unfortunately, sleeping so late would definitely mean that i wont be able to fall asleep at my dot 9:30 pm bedtime, but i turn the lights off and get ready to sleep by then anyway, and mentally prepare for my 5 am wake up call.

using alter-egos⋆.ೃ࿔*:･🌷

using alter-egos is something that helped me a lot in almost all aspects of my life and rly pushed me to become the best version of myself.

alter ego by definition is someones secondary or alternative personality. successful ppl like kobe bryant, beyonce and more use alter egos in their field of work.

alter egos r a direct way to put urself into the state of ur dream self or the best version of urself and can help u to grow and get out of ur comfort zone.

HOW TO USE AN ALTER EGO :

write down a list of traits that defined the OLD you (or the you in the ordinary world) and then write down a list of trait that the best version of you or the traits that u wish u had

bring LIFE to ur alter ego. think about who are what inspires you, it can be real or fictional, living or inanimate DONT limit urself to anything

trust the process and put thought into it ~

3. once you've thought of all this for ur alter ego, all u have to do is breathe life into ur alter ego or egos. give it a name, ik megan thee stallion has an alter ego called tina snow.

dont just choose a random name, although u can name ur alter ego anything its important to choose a name that u feel some sort of emotional connection to. and a name that invokes or implies who you are or who you wanna be.

4. to activate ur alter ego use a totem or an artifact. (EX: when u wear a certain accessory or piece of clothing ur activating a certain alter ego) its called enclothed cognition which states the effect that clothes have on human cognition

essential soft skills for personal excellence

+ emotional intelligence: the ability to understand emotions (yours + others) with empathy and how they impact behaviour. without it you are liable to be defensive, self-centred, and experience a feeling of disconnection (from self + others).

+ resilience: how well you react when something bad happens. do you fall apart or can you navigate challenges without setting yourself back?

+ critical thinking: the ability to slow down and approach ideas with rational intelligence so that you can make thoughtful, considered decisions instead of impulsive, reactive ones.

+ adaptability: remaining flexible to the circumstances and cultivating the ability to deal with change (see also: resilience). can be more difficult if neurodivergent; they key is to be gentle + forgiving with yourself.

+ (healthy) self-discipline: doing what you need to do regardless of whether you 'feel like it' (see also: emotional intelligence, so that you're not ruled by your emotional state). remember that you can cultivate healthy discipline with gentle nurture that builds confidence over time, rather than toxic discipline that uses shame, fear, and punishment.

+ self worth: continuously building the foundational idea that you are worthy of the good life. without self worth, most attempts at self-improvement start with grandiose ideas of huge change and result in broken promises, difficulty sticking to goals, and a spiralling shame cycle.

2024 goals & resolutions 🎀

with 2024 right around the corner I figured it would be a good idea to list out some of my 2024 goals in the different areas of my life. I will have financial goals, health goals, fitness goals, academic goals, and relationship goals.

💕 Financial Goals

build my savings account to a minimum of 1000$ by the end of the year

save enough (~800$) to move into an apartment with my boyfriend

pay off my two credit cards, then use them sparingly

begin investing my money

use a monthly budget spreadsheet (loosely)

💕 Health Goals

Follow a semi anti inflammatory diet using the 80/20 principle

get closer to my goal weight range (healthy weight for my height)

only eat out on occasions, otherwise cook at home only

incorporate more whole foods into my diet

stay hydrated on a consistent level

💕 Fitness Goals

walk 7k-10k steps daily

keep a consistent weight lifting/cardio routine

begin attending pilates/workout classes

don't skip any of my yoga classes at my university

work on improving health and reaching my dream physique

💕 Academic Goals

raise my GPA closer to a 4.0

pass spring/fall classes with all B's/A's

keep a consistent study routine

turn in all assignments conplete and on time

increase class attendance as I am paying for my education and should utilize class time

💕 Relationship Goals

join one to two on campus clubs

make a friend or two within my major

take myself on solo dates

weekly dates with my boyfriend

keep in contact with all friends I make

💕 Random Goals

Read at least 3 books in their entirety throughout the year

Move into a new apartment/rented house

Continue regular posts on my tumblr

Get to N5/N4 level of Japanese proficiency

Get to conversational fluency in Spanish

Those are my goals for the next year! Given that there are 365 days in a year, I should be able to accomplish at least 85% of these!

til next time lovelies 🩷