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Life x Culture Lifestyle

How To Find Your Passion And Live Your Best Life Every Day

Ever feel like you spend your work days going through the motions, but not feeling emotionally invested in your tasks? You’re not alone—only about a third of American employees feel engaged or enthusiastic about their work according to a recent Gallup poll. Even if your job is comfortable, you probably fantasize about finding something more fulfilling to do from 9 to 5. But before you can pursue that dream, you need to figure out what you’re even passionate about—which is a big challenge on its own.
Portland-based personal branding and career coach Robin Cangie has some first-hand advice about how to find your passion. Before building her coaching business—a career she thrives in—she spent more than 10 years feeling less than satisfied in software marketing jobs.
“While there were things I liked—I had the chance to be creative and opportunities to write—it wasn’t authentic. It always felt like I was serving someone else, and I just wasn’t that interested in business-to-business software marketing,” she recalls.
However, the jobs did help her discover what she was actually passionate about: coaching others. She noticed that colleagues needed a bit of help building credibility with the public and the media, so she led coaching workshops to give them more confidence. Not only did she enjoy coaching others, she also discovered she was good at it—and eventually turned that passion into a business she devotes herself to full time.
“It sparked something in me I had never felt in a job before,” she says. “It was rewarding and valuable.”
Through her personal journey, as well as the journeys of her clients, she has developed some strategies that can help anyone discover their true calling. From learning the difference between a hobby and a passion to building a personal brand based on the things you love, here’s how to find your passion—and live it every day.

Learning the True Meaning

From an early age, you may have been encouraged to “do what you love.” But is “doing what you love” at work the only way to live your passion? Not necessarily, according to Cangie.
“Passion manifests itself in all kinds of ways,” she tells HealthyWay. “We tend to talk about it a lot in terms of career, but that’s a bit misguided. I like to think of passion as your life’s work. If you can find a career that leverages your passion, that’s great, but if you can’t or don’t want to do that, you’re not a failure.”
Passion can mean different things to different people, depending on where they are in life. For some, it might mean raising a family or giving back to the community. For others, it’s about pursuing a lucrative career or developing skills in the creative arts.
Cangie says when thinking about how to find your passion, you should consider pursuits that bring joy, connect you to a higher sense of purpose, and fill a need in society. But also be open to finding your passion in areas you wouldn’t expect.
“We tend to treat finding your passion like finding a perfect pair of jeans—try on enough of them, and eventually one will fit. But we’ve got it backward. We don’t find our passion so much as our passion finds us. It’s about doing good work and staying open to opportunities that arise from that, and it’s good news for those of us who don’t know what we want.”

Life’s Biggest Challenge

Many of us fall into one of two camps: We either have so many things we love that we don’t know how to narrow it down to one true calling, or we have no idea where to begin looking for our passion. Why is it so difficult to discover your passion?
“There are lots of reasons why people struggle with this, and a lot of it has to do with our society. We set expectations that everyone should find a passion before they graduate college, then go to a corporate setting and do it for someone else. It sets you up for disappointment, especially as you start your first jobs and don’t immediately find that one passion out there for you,” Cangie shares.
Figuring out what makes your heart sing can be overwhelming at first. To help you get started, Cangie suggests asking yourself a few questions:

  • What do I really want?
  • What am I good at?
  • How can I best serve others?
  • How can I meet my financial needs?

You could plot your potential passions on a Venn diagram (like this example from Cangie) to explore the ways in which they overlap. An idea that intersects two or more circles will serve as a starting point for pursuing and getting to know what you’re truly passionate about.

Could your hobby be more?

Hobbies give us the opportunity to pursue things we love or explore things that interest us. But are hobbies the same as passions?
“Hobbies can be a great outlet for pursuing passions, but they’re not necessarily the passions themselves,” says Cangie.
Wait, what? If I love photography, and spend my weekends shooting beautiful images of my neighborhood, wouldn’t that also be my passion?
“It’s a matter of [the] degree to which it’s fulfilling to you and serves others,” Cangie explains. “The difference between a hobby and a passion is that passion connects to a higher purpose and the outside world in some way. I love crafting, but I do it for me. But one of my passions—telling stories—brings me joy and provides a service to the world. That’s the difference.”
Don’t write off your hobbies as you work to find your passion. Instead, explore the bigger picture of what they bring to you and the world, and work to transform those realizations into a deeper understanding of your life’s purpose.

Hidden in Plain Sight

Sometimes your passion is right under your nose. It was for Cangie—she was already offering career and leadership coaching to colleagues at her company when she realized that’s what she absolutely loved to do. But how can you shine a light on something that’s hidden in plain sight?
“Start paying attention to things that bring you joy,” says Cangie. “Joy is a fertile ground for finding your passion. No matter what situation you’re in, there’s always an opportunity to feel joy and that allows passions to come in.”
You could also think about a time in your life when you felt you did your best work, she adds. A key moment of pride, like the time you threw an amazing event or produced an insightful report, might offer clues that point to what you’re passionate about.
“Think about what it was tapping into within you,” Cangie says.
However, finding your passion isn’t just about focusing on the positive. Your frustrations might also hint at a problem you’d be passionate about solving. For Cangie, her passion for coaching was tucked inside her frustration that the people she worked with struggled to see their own value.
“The people I was coaching at work couldn’t see how awesome they were. Through discussions with them, I helped them find a story that felt empowering, allowed them to reclaim their sense of agency, and see their own brilliance,” says Cangie.
In short: “Stop chasing your passion, and instead seek opportunities to do what brings you joy and follow your frustrations,” she says.

A Word on Advice 

You look around and it seems like everyone has already found their passion. Your best friend is a successful wedding photographer who looks forward to every shoot; your mom is a nurse who feels fulfilled healing others; your sister, who recently gave birth to her second child, thrives as a mother and embodies it as her true calling. Should you ask them for advice on how to find your passion?
“Getting a really clear picture about what you are good at is difficult to do on your own. So, ask friends and family, ask a manager, ask a colleague, or even a good career coach—there are lots of people who can help you find what you’re really great at,” says Cangie.
An outside perspective gives you the chance to talk about things that are meaningful to you and dive into the deeper reasons that energize those feelings of purpose. For example, when one of Cangie’s clients told her she excelled at project management, the discussion led to a breakthrough realization about what she’s passionate about.
“We discovered that project management was a label that didn’t fully capture what she was really great at. Her real talent was getting groups of people together from different functions to achieve a common vision,” shares Cangie.
Keep in mind that everyone pursues a different path to their passion. While your loved ones who have it all figured out might be able to explain how they got there, only you can forge your own journey toward deep personal fulfillment.

Building Your Brand

Branding isn’t just for businesses—it’s a useful tool that can help you focus on your passion.
“Personal brands are a kind of story you tell about yourself. It changes over time as you do,” says Cangie.
A strong personal brand can unite all of your passions under one umbrella. While coaching and storytelling serve as the foundation for Cangie’s personal brand, she also ties in another passion: her cats. They even inspired a recent Medium post she wrote about what cats have taught her about building a business. Including this quirky passion in her personal brand has helped Cangie honor something that’s truly important to her heart and has allowed her to spark meaningful connections with others.
“Having multiple things you’re passionate about, whether or not it has to do with your job, helps build credibility as you try new things. It shows you’re a whole person, and can help integrate what you love into your life, even if you’re just starting to find your passions,” she shares.
Embrace the unusual side of yourself. If you have a passion for collecting sneakers, creating collages, birdwatching, or anything else that grounds and connects you, but feels random—harness your enthusiasm and tell others about it.

Face Your Fears

Once you figure out your passion, pursuing it takes guts. If you decide to change careers, you may have to leave the security of a high-paying job. If you decide to dedicate your nights and weekends to writing a book, learning a foreign language, or designing costumes for a community play, there’s always the risk of failure. How can you overcome this fear?
“No one bats a thousand, no one is perfect, and everyone has setbacks. And when you find yourself in the midst of a failure moment, it’s painful—but know that it is normal,” Cangie advises.
If things aren’t going to according to your plan, give yourself a little space to process the situation. Then, when you’re ready, journal about the lessons learned from the experience and develop a new plan that prioritizes moving forward with grace.
“Think about how this will fit into the larger story of your life. Six months from now, how will you look back and see the crucial thing you just learned that helped you move forward? The failure then turns from a crappy thing into a necessary thing that gets you where you’re going next.”
The most important thing is to pick yourself up and keep trying.
“You have to persist anyway. It’s not that the people who are successful haven’t failed—they’re successful because they persisted in spite of their failures and consistently showed up until it paid off,” says Cangie.

Take the plunge.

So, you’ve found your passion and have an idea of how it fits into your life. How do you move to the next stage, and actually take the plunge?
“Look at the situation right now and think about where you can start living your passion. You might not be able to make major changes right away, and that’s OK. Start every day by looking for opportunities in front of you to put these things into play,” says Cangie.
For example, let’s say you love writing and you’re passionate about making it part of your job, but your current position doesn’t require much writing. Don’t sit around waiting for a writing assignment. Instead, get creative and look for ways you can start doing it right now.
“Maybe you can do a side project with the marketing team to write emails, or write a guest blog about your role, or maybe ask a friend at another company if they need a volunteer writer,” Cangie says.
Taking immediate steps toward your passion, even if they’re just small projects at first, makes the pursuit more achievable, and will allow you to pick up key skills along the way.
“Looking at your life as it is right now takes you out of this overwhelming idea that you have to make all these major changes to pursue a passion. It’s OK … not being sure where everything leads to next … that’s liberating. Just start where you are, and create more joy and purpose there,” she says.

Let it light up your daily life.

Living a passionate life requires effort that goes beyond the Monday to Friday hustle. Living your passion means identifying with your mission without reservation and finding ways to do it and live it every day—a feat that demands more energy and stamina than you might expect. It means pushing through when you’re tired, or when you’ve recently failed, or even when you think you can’t achieve anything more.
“When I am having a bad day, I ask myself: ‘Do I still want this?’ As long as the answer is yes, I know I can keep going,” says Cangie.
Just as you should reflect on moments of failure, you should also celebrate your successes. Being realistic about the negative and especially the positive will motivate you to keep living your passion, says Cangie.
“If you’re in the thick of it, you can forget how far you’ve come. When this happens to me, I pause and ask myself, ‘What do I have more of in my life right now that I wanted back then?’. The reminders of my progress help keep me going.”
It’s not going to be easy, says Cangie, but it will be worth it. Nothing nourishes you in quite the same way as finding and living your passion—so don’t hesitate to let it define, inform, and inspire you.

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Happy x Mindful Wellbeing

Understanding Body Image And Learning To Love Your Body (Just The Way It Is)

I’m not sure when it hit me that I cover my mid-section when I’m alone. In the car, fully clothed, I still grab for a sweatshirt from the back seat and drape it across my lap. I sit in the living room with a pillow against my stomach.
I’m 35 years old, and I’m as uncomfortable in my own skin as I was as a 12-year-old still learning to make sense of hips and breasts and stretch marks. I want to love my body.
I want to.
But the words “positive body image” leave me gasping for breath.
The first time I made myself throw up, I was 14. That was more than two decades ago, and yet I carry bulimia around with me every day, a devil perched on my shoulder urging me toward the toilet. I am healing, but I don’t know that I will ever be healed.
And I know I’m not alone.
In a 2009 University of Central Florida study of girls just 3 to 6 years old, half already worried about being “fat.” A third said that if they could, they’d change at least one physical attribute. The numbers hardly improve from there.
In a Dove-sponsored survey conducted in 2016, 85 percent of women and 79 percent of girls said they opt out of day-to-day activities (from sports to spending time with family) when they don’t feel good about the way they look. Nine in 10 women said they’d keep themselves from eating if they weren’t feeling good about their looks.
For some, it stops there. For many, struggles with body image take them into dangerous territory. The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD) estimates that at least 30 million people suffer from an eating disorder in the U.S. That’s people of all ages and genders.
ANAD’s statistics show that eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.
So how do we combat that? How do we face a society rife with photoshopped models and fat-shaming tabloids only to come out on the other side with a happy, healthy mind and positive body image?
Can you be that mom on the beach rocking a bikini with her tiger stripes out there for all the world to see—or the woman in the mall wearing a tank top, her upper arms bare and tanned?
I’d like to be her one day. But learning to love my body just the way it is has made me face one salient fact: I need to understand body image before I can form one that’s positive.

What is body image?

It seems self-explanatory, right? Body image is the image you have of your body. But according to Lauren Smolar, program director at the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), the concept is much more nuanced than that.
“Body image is how you see yourself when you look in the mirror or when you picture yourself in your mind,” Smolar tells HealthyWay. “It encompasses what you believe about your own appearance, how you feel about your body, how you sense and control your body as you move, and how you feel in your body; [it’s] not just about your body.”
In other words, our body image isn’t just visual. It’s mental. It’s emotional. It’s physical. And it’s ever changing.
“We hear the idea of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ body image quite often, but in fact, body image isn’t that simple,” says Ashley Solomon, psychologist and executive clinical director of Eating Recovery Center. “It’s never all good or all bad, and it’s not static. It’s constantly evolving, even as we move throughout our day.”
Studies have found that the way we look at and feel about our bodies can be complicated by everything from the way different manufacturers cut clothes to the images in the media. And it’s not simply what we see in media but how the world around us responds to that media.
In one study performed in Nicaragua, for example, a group of 80 men and women who lived in a small town that had little exposure to Western media were shown images of thin and “plus sized” (the term used by the researchers) models. The study determined that exposure to the images shifted the participants’ perception of ideal female body size. The women internalized it, but the men also had their views skewed by the imagery. Feeling judged based on impossible standards only exacerbates the problem.
Writer Roxane Gay has long been a vocal opponent of fat shaming, all while sharing her own body image struggles with the world in frank and poignant essays. In her recent New York Times best seller, Hunger, Gay wrote, “This is what most girls are taught—that we should be slender and small. We should not take up space. We should be seen and not heard, and if we are seen, we should be pleasing to men, acceptable to society. And most women know this, that we are supposed to disappear, but it’s something that needs to be said, loudly, over and over again, so that we can resist surrendering to what is expected of us.”
Bucking those expectations is not easy. And yet, for all the bad news, for all the statistics, there are the success stories. There are the people who love their bodies or at least accept them. There are the people who have struggled and have come out on the other side. So what’s the difference between them and people who tear themselves down?
It may come down to how our brains work, says Kimberly J. Ujcich Ward, PhD, a professor in the department of psychology at Middle Tennessee State University who specializes in body image and children.
“Research with individuals with anorexia and bulimia suggests that certain brain areas seem to be negatively impacted in those who inaccurately perceive their bodies and/or are dissatisfied, especially the parietal lobe (somatosensory cortex),” Ward explains. “Recent research across medicine and psychology (especially neuropsychology) [has] been working to try to more clearly define the brain–behavior relations and to evaluate the neuropsychological and body image connections over time.”
Other risk factors for body image concerns include biological ties to someone who has struggled with mental illness, especially an eating disorder, and living with conditions that are diet controlled, such as diabetes. A parent’s difficult relationship with their own body image—particularly a mother’s—can also heighten your risk, especially if they are vocal about it in your presence.
Your risk of developing an eating disorder also jumps if you identify as LGBTQ, have a history of dieting, have suffered from weight-related teasing or bullying, or struggle with an anxiety disorder.

Positive or Negative?

The facts and figures sound daunting, but body image can and does go either way. There are hundreds of thousands of women (and men) out there who love their bodies.
Nor is every single bad thought about yourself proof that you’re doomed. Simply feeling like you don’t look good in a v-neck shirt at the mall is not a sign you’re going to have an eating disorder. Nor is it symbolic of “negative body image.”
“Negative body image is a distorted perception of your shape—you perceive parts of your body unlike they really are,” NEDA’s Smolar explains. “This can mean you are convinced that only other people are attractive and that your body size or shape is a sign of personal failure, you may feel ashamed, self-conscious, or anxious about your body, and you feel uncomfortable and awkward in your body.”
Positive body image, on the other hand, is what Smolar calls a “clear, true perception” of your shape.
“You see the various parts of your body as they really are,” she notes. “In addition, you celebrate and appreciate your natural body shape and you understand that a person’s physical appearance says very little about their character and value as a person.
“You feel proud and accepting of your unique body and do not spend large amounts of time worrying about food, weight, and calories and you feel comfortable and confident in your body.”
Clinicians tend to speak of the two sides of the coin in terms of satisfaction. There’s body satisfaction and there’s body dissatisfaction. Treating the latter means helping someone find their way toward the former. But as with anything else, there are degrees.
“It’s really important to note that even people with an overall positive body image can have plenty of critical thoughts or negative feelings about their bodies,” Solomon points out. “What’s more important is how much those thoughts and feelings take a front seat.”

Is there a better way for us?

It’s the push for overall positive body image that’s led to the body positivity movement, a grassroots effort that’s been gaining steam on the internet in recent years.
Linked to the fat acceptance movement, the trend dates back to the 1990s, but it’s social media that’s amplified voices from people who were long ignored by traditional media, people who don’t fit into the ideals once favored by mainstream magazines.
Instagram is now home to hashtags such as #LoveYourBody and #EffYourBeautyStandards. Bring them up on your phone, and you’ll find not dozens or even thousands but millions of images from people working out, showing off bodies in a variety of sizes and colors, and proudly proclaiming their confidence. Alongside them are photo sites like the 4th Trimester Bodies Project that allow women to celebrate their changing bodies in the wake of pregnancy.
Simply looking to them may be a way to find our own sense of peace with our bodies, Solomon says.
“We can learn some wonderful things from people who have a good relationship with their bodies,” she explains. “Our research has started to pay more attention to these people in recent years to determine just what we can learn. People that have a positive body image tend to see their bodies as functional—they help serve a purpose and a greater good. They tend to treat their bodies well by fueling them with regular meals and water, getting enough sleep, and moving regularly. They are grateful for the gifts that their bodies give them, like carrying a child or running a race.”
Another key facet of body positivity comes in embracing change. People who have high rates of body satisfaction tend to recognize that their bodies will change, be it over time or through different experiences. They accept it and often embrace it.
That is important, Solomon says.
“Body acceptance doesn’t mean loving every nook and cranny of our bodies or always feeling happy with the way that we look,” she points out. “It means deciding that you will stop fighting against yourself and actively commit to treating your body well.”
Solomon calls it body peace—making a truce with your own body and accepting the status quo.
“We don’t have to like each other, but we have to co-exist and show respect!” she says. “Body peace starts with some important basics—dropping the punishment and nourishing your body well. For me, just getting enough rest is an important way that I cultivate body peace. Practicing gratitude can also be an opportunity to build a stronger awareness of all that your body allows you to do.”
Author Lindy West is known for fighting the internet’s body shaming and calling out the concept of the perfect body as a lie. Coming to love her body, however, is not a perfect process either.
As she put it in her memoir, Shrill, “I hate being fat. I hate the way people look at me, or don’t. I hate being a joke; I hate the disorienting limbo between too visible and invisible; I hate the way that complete strangers waste my life out of supposed concern for my death. I hate knowing that if I did die of a condition that correlates with weight, a certain subset of people would feel their prejudices validated, and some would outright celebrate. I also love being fat. The breadth of my shoulders makes me feel safe. I am unassailable. I intimidate. I am a polar icebreaker. I walk and climb and lift things, I can open your jar, I can absorb blows—literal and metaphorical—meant for other women, smaller women, breakable women, women who need me. My bones feel like iron—heavy, but strong.”
There’s no magic pill to get us to that point. But Solomon likes to say that our bodies are vehicles for our values.
“How can we show kindness to them so that we can do the things we love and be the people we want to be?” she asks. “It can be easy to fall into the trap of believing that we’ll love and appreciate our bodies a few less pounds from now, or if we were a few inches taller, or if that skin cream works a little harder. I see my patients fall prey to a lot of the industries that profit off of all us hating our bodies and selves. It’s hard not to, especially when they invest billions in convincing us that we are not quite good enough. But we are good enough, even without any special creams or diet foods.”

What if I don’t love my body?

Okay. So loving your body is good, even when you can’t do it all the time. But if you’re not there yet, that doesn’t mean you need to feel left out in the cold.
“Being an advocate of positive body image doesn’t always mean loving your body 100 percent of the time,” Solomon says.
Instead, it means creating an environment in which all body types are embraced and valued. To that end, she advises people to:

  • Stay away from discussions that talk about food or weight in a negative light, such as avoiding discussions of food as “bad” or “good”
  • Refrain from talking about calories
  • Not comment on weight loss or gain for yourself or others
  • Engage in “media literacy,” thinking critically about the appearance-related media messages you see, hear, and read

Finally, don’t buy into the hype that a “perfect” body type will solve your problems.
“Everyone is different, and genetics can influence one’s body shape, weight, and size,” Solomon says. “One’s ideal body weight is the weight that allows you to feel strong and energetic rather than the size the media thinks is acceptable. If someone is struggling with their body image in a society that promotes an unattainable ideal, we encourage them to celebrate all the good things their body allows them to do and recognize that their self-esteem and identity comes from within.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with body image or an eating disorder, there is help available. Please call the National Eating Disorders Association’s toll-free hotline: 1-800-931-2237. 

Categories
Life x Culture Lifestyle

How To Create A Vision Board To Achieve Your Goals

Having a grand plan for your life is a really good thing. Actually, it’s a great thing! With every goal you work toward, you’re defining your purpose in life for yourself and the world at large.
But a dream without a plan isn’t going to get you anywhere. We (among the likes of Oprah herself) are big fans of using vision boards to focus our aspirations and inspire us to achieve our dreams. Using vision boards may sound a bit like wishful thinking, but they really can help you focus your goals and work your way toward achieving them.

What is a vision board?

A vision board not just a collage. It’s a collage that follows a formula to serve a very specific purpose. Instead of pinning up your favorite images at random, the images used in a vision board are assigned meaning. Vision boards are a collection of images used to help you maintain focus and visualize an explicit goal.
Physical vision boards can include images taken from magazines, newspapers, or otherwise printed materials. They can take many forms, from images stuck into a shadowbox frame and positioned on a desk to a full poster or cork board with images glued or pinned on. Artsy individuals might draw a vision board out by hand, whereas those who are less driven by art and imagery might opt for a vision board dominated by a collection of quotes with fewer images.
When it comes to digital vision boards, many people are unknowingly familiar with them, since many social media websites serve as unintentional vision boards. A digital vision board is a collection of images stored on websites, your computer, or your phone. The top social media platforms for curating vision boards are Pinterest and Tumblr, but you can also get creative and use a document, a folder on your desktop where images are saved, or even the collection feature on Instagram.
Aside from the obvious differences between physical and digital vision boards, digital vision boards generally feature cleanly lined up images. Physical vision boards, on the other hand, usually look like collages. People who prefer a clean-cut look may be drawn to digital vision boards.

The Science Behind Vision Boards

Manifesting your goals in a vision board isn’t just daytime talk show fodder. The science says that the visualization involved in creating a vision board actually works to help you achieve your goals. But, it’s not all in the pretty pictures. You need to actually use the vision board in order for it to work. This means that besides taking the time to create your inspirational piece, you need to spend a few minutes engaging it every day.
Research suggests that visualizing the action steps that will help you achieve your goals works better than just meditating on the end game. A study at the University of California, Los Angeles found that students who pictured studying for an exam got better results than just visualizing acing the exam. And even if you don’t know what your action steps are yet, envisioning either action steps or an end goal were both found to work better than not visualizing anything at all according a 2014 study from the International Journal of Information and Education Technology.
For those of us who are no longer test-taking students, visualization can still be a helpful tool for manifesting our ambition in the world. Let’s say you have a fitness achievement in mind (who doesn’t?). A study published in Neuropsychologia found that doing “mental training,” namely picturing yourself doing a physical exercise, “drives the muscles to a higher activation level and increases strength.” In other words, visualizing yourself exercising helps you get stronger before you even hit the gym.
The mind is a powerful thing!

How to Define Your Goals

Before you can start on your vision board, you need to specify your goals. Defining your exact goals gives you something to work toward. Research suggests that crafting your goals to be as specific and actionable as possible in the short term is your best bet for making them happen.
This means that instead of choosing an intangible goal (like doing your best or being happy), you should articulate something concrete. If your ultimate desire is to be happy, think of the things you do, places you go, or people you interact with that bring you happiness. Use actionable verb phrases like “Take a walk after dinner three times a week” or “Have coffee with a friend every other Sunday” to inspire your vision board. These more clear-cut ambitions are easier to work with and depict visually.
Keeping your objectives reasonable in the short term will also help you accomplish your goals. You can always create another vision board down the line that expands on your shorter-term goals as you realize them. Naturally, definitions of short term are objective, but short-term vision board goals should play out on a timeline that is longer than one month but shorter than a year.
If your goal is to find yourself in the best shape of your life, start with the small steps. Consider researching trainers in your area or sign up for three group fitness classes to attend each week for the next month. Making sure a friend or acquaintance is in at least one of those classes can help keep you accountable and motivated.
If you’re trying start a business or build a brand, instead of agonizing over when you’ll get to celebrate a million dollars in sales or be invited to do a TED talk, finally get some business cards made (so you can stop jotting down your info on scraps of paper) or invest in a freelance web designer to spiff up your site.
If you want to enhance your morning routine, instead of committing to 30 minutes of yoga, a 15-minute meditation, and 15 minutes of journaling, try setting your alarm to get up 20 minutes earlier and add just one of these wellness-enhancing activities to your morning. Once you’ve gotten into the groove, it will be much easier to incorporate other elements. Setting yourself up to win in little ways—like filling a page in your journal before you finish your first cup of coffee or completing a guided meditation before you suit up for the day—will help you build momentum for your bigger, more ambitious goals.
Each step helps you get to where you want to be without getting discouraged along the way.

How to Create a Vision Board

With your goals in mind, it’s time to start crafting! The first thing you need to do is decide if you’re going to keep it digital or get physical with your board. We’re big fans of the digital vision board for ease, but taking the time to create a physical board that you can see daily is extra helpful in solidifying your goals. Out of sight, out of mind, right? A digital vision board may not be seen as often as having a tangible board you see during your day. If you’re creating a physical vision board, make a specific place for it so you’ll see it while doing everyday tasks. The refrigerator, your closet door, or a spot near your desk are all great places to hang a vision board.
You also need to decide whether you want to make your vision board alone, with a friend, or with a larger group. If you’re making big changes that will require your support system, it can be fun to get them involved in creating your board. But if you want to engage in deeply focused self-reflection, it may be best to execute the actual creation of the board alone and share it later. It all comes down to personal preference in this case.
The images you put on your vision board are totally up to you. Look for photos that show off your end goal, whether that’s a job you’d like to get, a physique you’d love to attain, or a big move you want to make.
While you’re selecting pictures that represent your ultimate goals, think about what steps you can take to get yourself there. These action steps are important for helping you achieve your dreams, so find and include images that convey them, like stretches you can do to prepare for meditating in lotus or snaps of beautifully plated healthy food that will help you eat a more nutritious diet.
Also, it wouldn’t be a vision board without an inspirational quote or two. Add quotes that spark your desire to do the hard work to get to your goal; we suggest picking just a couple of shorter quotes so you don’t get too bogged down in the words.
When you are piecing together a physical vision board, it’s a good idea to have different sections mapped out for your different goals. If all the different imagery gets mixed together, it can be hard to focus on a specific goal. You can section off different corners of your board and work inward, or map out different areas for different goals. Affix your images and quotes however you please. You’ll look at it every day, so spend a little time making sure you really love the aesthetic of your vision board, from the background to the thumbtacks (if you decide to use them).
If you’re going the digital route, keep different files (or tags, collections, etc.) for each specific goal. Digital vision boards are particularly susceptible to overload with too many images and themes as space is seemingly unlimited. Keeping your images whittled down to only the most impactful will be helpful in keeping you focused on your goals rather than being overwhelmed by too much visual stimulation.

Accountability Tips

If you don’t put it to good use, a vision board is just a piece of art or collection of data on your computer or up in the cloud.
Research on the power of visualization consistently concludes that visualizing your goal must be followed by taking actionable steps toward achieving it. After creating your vision board and placing it prominently, take just a couple of minutes a day to meditate on your goals and how you’ll get there—a practice that’s so much easier to keep up with if you keep your vision board highly visible! If you do go for the digital vision board route, pencil in a time once a day to take a scroll through your inspirational images. Once the images are sharp in your mind, you can drop into a couple of minutes of reflection.
To keep track of your progress, it can be fun to keep a mini notebook or journal; even a note on your phone would work. Depending on the goal, check in on a regular basis to evaluate whether you’re making progress and what you need to keep up or consider changing. We suggest a bi-weekly or monthly check in, which is just long enough to see changes, especially when it comes to fitness goals that can take longer to achieve.
It’s also a great idea to get your loved ones in on your vision board. Having your partner, family, or a good friend to help keep you on track is helpful. They can encourage you when you need a push and congratulate you when you get there!

Vision Board Success Stories

It isn’t just Oprah who finds that that vision boards really work. Anyone can make their goals a reality with the help of a vision board. All it takes is the inspiration, visualization, and dedication to get it done.
Writer Jeannine Morris says that manifesting goals through a vision board totally works. “Throughout the years, I manifested TV hosting gigs, brand partnerships, and even finding the love of my life. Since I started putting that energy out into the universe, I’ve hosted for E!, had brand partnerships beyond my wildest dreams and yes, even got married.” Her vote is for a physical vision board.
“There’s something about the creative process of cutting up magazines that’s so satisfying.”
Yoga instructor Mia Michelle Marie says she rooted her vision board in a slightly different way. Instead of pasting together images, she hand-drew her vision of living in a tiny home in the woods. The path to her goal involved selling her yoga studio, taking a work-trade job, then getting a promotion that landed her a tiny house in the woods as part of her compensation. Total kismet.
Actor Kellan Lutz told Men’s Fitness that he creates a vision board once a year. “It’s great when you get to check off dreams” like his acting career, fitness goals, and his fashion line collaboration with Abbot + Main.
“Man if I didn’t have no vision board, I’d be in trouble” Steve Harvey told Oprah during a 2014 episode of the show Life Class. Harvey keeps his visions in front of him in a most unusual way: He has them sewn into the hem of his pants.
Taking an hour to create a vision board may turn out to be the best thing you’ve ever done. When you begin to achieve your goals, you can work your way toward your life’s purpose. A vision board isn’t just a collection of pretty pictures, it’s a tool to help you visualize and internalize your own success. Believe in yourself and just watch what can happen.

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Life x Culture Lifestyle

How To Be More Productive Through Self-Care

If there were more than 24 hours in a day, the question of how to be more productive might never come up. More time in the day equals more time to get everything done, after all.
But with the clock insisting on giving us just 24 little 60-minute increments before the day flips over, we’re all facing the struggle to fit working out, seeing our BFFs, and whipping up a batch of cookies for the kids’ bake sale into a day that’s already jam-packed with everyday minutiae.
The solution might not be what you expect. Could taking more time for yourself out of an already tight schedule be the secret to increasing your productivity?
A growing number of experts are screaming for us to take more time for self-care, and it turns out there’s a surprising boost in productivity that comes with taking that much-needed time out.

The Self-Care Solution

Self-care sounds simple enough. The directions are right there in the term: You need to care for yourself. But knowing what self-care is doesn’t mean we’re actually doing it.
Aaron Boster, MD, system medical chief of neuroimmunology at OhioHealth Neuroscience Center, puts the blame on society as a whole. “Within our culture, it’s completely acceptable to go to work, to work late hours,” he says. “What’s not acceptable or embraced is taking time for yourself. Words are used like ‘lazy’ or ‘unmotivated.’ We’ve completely devalued taking care of yourself.”
And yet, Boster points out, everything from taking time to eat healthy meals (instead of scarfing down a bag of M&M’s at your desk) to drinking adequate amounts of water to getting a full night’s rest can fall under the umbrella of self-care. They’re all things that common sense would dictate we need to do, and they’re all things that have an impact on our productivity levels.
A whopping 1 million American workers call in sick to work every day because of stress-related illnesses (from depression to heart issues), and that stress costs businesses an estimated $200 to $300 billion a year in lost productivity. Lack of sleep alone is estimated to cost companies more than $63 billion annually in productivity reduction.
Simply put: When we skimp on self-care, our productivity takes a nosedive.
“We have to take the time to fuel our bodies,” Boster says. “If you don’t fuel the machine, it doesn’t work too hot!”
Caring for your body is essential maintenance in the same way that getting regular oil changes and new tires are essential maintenance for your car. One prevents the engine from blowing up, the other prevents us from getting sick and losing the precious productivity time. But if we’re not taking time for self-care because we’re too stressed to get everything done as it is, how are we supposed to put an end to this vicious cycle?
Here’s how to be more productive at work and home and take care of ourselves at the same time.

Get organized.

At first glance, improving your organization may sound like it’s more about your bosses (or even your house) than it is about yourself. After all, good organization skills and time management are an obvious means to boost productivity.
But what we often forget is how much a messy desk or messy house can affect our own stress levels. As much as 84 percent of Americans admit that they worry that their house isn’t clean enough, and 55 percent say it causes actual stress.
Clutter has been solidly linked to a spike in the stress hormone cortisol, and it can challenge our productivity. As Princeton neuroscientists found when they looked at clutter, the more stuff you have around you, the more each item tries to pull at your attention. A whole lot of stuff everywhere won’t just cost you time and productivity; it can completely overwhelm you.
Taking time to get things neat and tidy might be time away from “getting things done,” but in the long run, it will help you improve not only your workflow but your mental health too.

Get moving.

If you’ve been to the doctor recently, they probably gave you chapter and verse on getting enough exercise, right? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends adults get at least 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes) of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity per week.
If you’re not meeting that minimum, you’re hardly alone. Just a third of American adults get up and move enough to hit the recommended physical activity benchmarks every week. Exercise is often the first thing that we cut from our day, because it doesn’t seem quite as necessary as everything else. Your boss isn’t paying you to exercise. Your kids can’t eat your exercise.
But working out doesn’t just help the body in terms of making the muscles stronger, preventing obesity, and boosting the strength of your heart. It turns out scientists have found a direct link between physical activity and job burnout. In a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, scientists in Israel posited that people whose physical activity levels were high had virtually no career burnout issues, whereas those who were sedentary had relatively high levels of dissatisfaction on the job.
It’s not just liking our jobs better that comes from exercise, either. Taking time to work out literally helps make you more productive, allowing you to pack more into less time.
In a 2011 study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Swedish scientists linked exercise to an increase in both the quantity of work and work ability and a decrease illness-related job absences. The scientists suggested reducing work hours for “health promotion activities” to increase production levels. While their recommendations were focused on employers, there’s no reason not to take the bull by the horns yourself.
Boster suggests taking a brisk 20-minute walk twice a week to start yourself off on a new and improved exercise regimen. If you can do more, even better!

Meditate on that.

The mindfulness movement has been catching fire in America of late, and it’s not just your yoga buddy who’s pushing meditation anymore. A growing number of companies are adding mindfulness programs to their employee wellness solutions.
The reason? Taking time to meditate can boost your productivity. As Harvard researchers found out when they began to look at mind–body practices, meditation and/or yoga can increase productivity by an estimated $3,000 per employee per year. And the benefits don’t end at the workplace door. In one employer-based mindfulness program, participants reported a 28 percent reduction in stress and 19 percent less pain.
That’s likely because meditation leads to better rest, says Light Watkins, meditation teacher and author of the book Bliss More: How to Succeed in Meditation Without Really Trying. In turn, Watkins says that better rest “leads to a greater ability to focus on the task at hand and prioritize what’s important.”
“I consider meditation to be a ’key’ habit, because it makes you more apt to do the other things that should be a part of any self-care ritual: exercise, healthy diet, rest, philanthropy, and time spent with loving friends and family,” Watkins says. “If stress can diminish our desire to engage in all of those activities, then meditation should increase our desire.”
Like exercise, meditation may seem like something we just can’t fit in our schedules, but you don’t have to take hours out of your day to make it happen. Meditation is often part of yoga practice, which allows you to hit all your exercise and meditative needs in one fell swoop. Even better: Just 25 minutes a day of hatha yoga is considered enough to improve brain function and boost energy levels, which are tied how productive we are.

Sleep on it.

We all need sleep. It’s how the body restores itself. But if you ask a quarter of American women how many mornings they woke up feeling refreshed in the past week, the answer would be a flat zero. A third of us get less than seven hours of sleep every night.
Going to bed late and waking up early can help you steamroll through the six piles of laundry, catch up on bills, and finally fix the broken toilet. But it’s costing you.
“If you’re going to bed already knowing you won’t get a good night’s sleep, you’re doomed from the start,” Boster says. “We have to figure out ways to make time to sleep.”
When we do it, he points out, we feel better, we think more clearly, and we have more energy. And how else do we expect to be more productive?
A study by RAND Europe found that lack of sleep ends up costing the U.S. economy $411 billion a year, while workers are losing 1.2 million working days annually. Scarier still, the study found that getting too little sleep on a regular basis hikes your mortality risk. If you’re routinely getting less than six hours of sleep a night, you have a 13 percent higher mortality risk than someone sleeping the seven to nine hours that the National Sleep Foundation recommends for adults.
The solution is pretty clear on this one: Carve out enough time to get enough sleep, and you’ll be better able to tackle the mountain of projects ahead of you each day. The better able you are to get them done, the faster you can do it, leaving time for well…more sleep!

What about yo’ friends?

Don’t let the number of social media buddies fool you: We’re becoming an increasingly isolated society. The number of people who say they have no close friends has tripled in the last few decades.
One of the major culprits is time. Friends tend to get the shaft when you’re burning the candle at both ends trying to get everything done. Your boss doesn’t pay you to chit chat, right?
Well, maybe they should. Indulging in time with friends has long been considered a crucial part of a healthy self-care regimen. Friends can boost your longevity by as much as seven years. That’s as much of a life expectancy increase as you’d get by avoiding cigarettes! Of course, personal health means fewer work absences and better productivity in and of itself.
It turns out friendship in the workplace also has a particularly positive influence on the amount of work we get done. Being able to turn to our friends on the job provides a safety net and allows us to ask questions without feeling judged, which helps us be more productive at work. Another big benefit to making friends at work: Your mood tends to improve as you feel comfortable, which spills over into positive effects on the work itself.

Waste time.

Can’t imagine sitting around staring at the ceiling tiles and twiddling your thumbs? How about getting up from your desk, walking to the break room and actually taking the entire allotted 15 minutes away from your work?
Try it, Mikey. You won’t just like it…you’ll be re-invigorated and able to get a whole lot more done than you would have if you’d kept your mind hyperfocused on work.
Our brains get a workout when we’re at work, and sometimes they need an old-fashioned break to recharge, according to researchers from Hiroshima University.
Their suggestion is one that’s hard to argue with, especially if you like kittens or puppies. The researchers found that taking a few minutes to watch cute animals on the internet can restore your cognitive functioning, boosting your productivity and helping you get more work done in the long run.
It turns out your mom was wrong: Laughter isn’t the best medicine. Panda cams are!

Just say no.

Can you bake just a dozen cookies for the bake sale? How about coming in the office for just a few hours on Saturday morning? Would you sign up for the office softball team? Come on, they need someone with a strong pitching arm…and it’s just two practices a week!
Saying no to any (or all) of the above is the ultimate in self-care. It’s giving yourself leave to set down boundaries in your life and putting you in the driver’s seat. It’s also a way to reclaim your time. And look at all the things you can now do with that time to amp up your productivity.