Alena Moon

Theres a saying 'don't take things for granted' well today I want to say 'don't take yourself for granted'. We try to appreciated things like our family, friends and moments we are experiencing so on and on. But have we ever thought about appreciating ourselves? 

Up until now I always took myself for granted. Whenever I make dinner for myself, when I manage to wake up early to do work I never thought much about them but instead I thought it's something what i'm 'suppose' to do and told myself it's nothing special. 

Some people say you will never be able to escape from yourself so that is why you need to learn to enjoy your own company. I'm not saying it's wrong I do agree but the truth is "you" right now won't last forever. You change over time. Your passion or motivation might burn off, your health might get bad, you will get old and you will lose your youth and you will die eventually. I'm not trying to make you feel depressed but that could be the case. 

So the point is ourselves won't last forever. So why take ourselves for granted? We should appreciate ourselves for coming this far in life and praise ourselves for all the good things we do or achievements we make no matter how small they are. From now on start appreciating yourself for the things you do. Praise yourself for doing things like finishing a novel, cleaning your room or walking your dog, whatever it is you do.

So right now really be thankful for yourself and for the things you did and give yourself a big hug! 

Alena

There are so many days when I feel lazy. I know in my head I need to be productive and get my designs done but in the end I get nothing done. It makes me feel bad about myself, unmotivated and guilty. I tried using a daily to do list note pad, went for a walk to get back my motivation, clean my room to have a new "fresh" environment setup. Typical right? While sometimes they work, none of them really worked effectively. 

One day I realized I'm just burning myself out from stressing about being unproductive and never giving my mind a moment of rest. So basically before I even start anything I was already exhausted. I'm the kind of a person who need my whole week's schedule planned because I don't like confusion and plans getting ruined. While they do work time to time, it stresses me out too much. Planning everything before hand never gave me any freedom to do anything spontaneously and made me feel bad about myself when I don't get things done. You got to have a calm, relaxed and fresh mind to get anything done properly and effectively and filling my head up with stressful thoughts was not one of them.

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”
— Bruce Lee

So how do I do I get my things done now?? 

I know it may sound ironic but I just let myself be lazy without feeling guilty. Feeling lazy and unmotivated might be a sign that you are burned out. So having a rest might be the perfect thing that you need right now. We live life so fast and we fill it up with busy schedules never allowing ourselves to be lazy. 

So even if it's just for a day, don't plan anything for that day. How amazing would it feel knowing you have no plans for that day. You can sleep in an extra 2 hours or put on a nice music and read some books. Don't feel guilty about it. It's just for a day. Plus, it's the calm and relaxing moments where inspirational ideas pop up in your head. My creative juices starts to flow when I'm doing random things. It's never the moment when I force myself to come up with something. Ideas pop up in the moments like when I'm doing my dishes, when I'm playing with my puppy or when I'm washing my face. 

I noticed, whenever I stress out and worry about things, I get nothing done but it only adds more stress and bitterness towards myself. When I fully let go of the controlling and the guilt, I get things done without even knowing. Ideas pop up unexpectedly then I get motivated to do something which result in me actually doing something. Because I have no more stress about getting things done, for some reason I end up enjoy doing my work!

So why not just be lazy and accept the fact that we need a rest? Maybe there are some people who really can't pull off any time for themselves. If that is the case, take a 10 min break and just do nothing. Relax and let your body and mind recharge its energy again. 

Don't feel guilty, just be lazy and have some good rest and maybe in this way you might be able to get some work done!