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Laura
Hi! I'm Laura, a 23-year-old millennial girl discovering who I am by sharing my life experiences on my blog. You'll find me writing about me discovering my personal style, my growing wanderlust or giving any sort of style, uni or mental health advice.

If you ever have any questions, notes or other things that you want to know, feel free to email me

styleandsushi@outlook.com

From July 2012 all items marked with a (*) are gifted items or PR samples. Posts on this blog may contain affiliate links or sponsored content. Please read my disclaimer for more details.

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LIFE

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TRAVEL

FINDING PLEASURE IN LIFE

Life as an adult can be quite busy and overwhelming. Sometimes we are in such an overdrive that we lose sight of what brings us pleasure in life. You’re basically living your life on autopilot and not really living life to its fullest potential. I always find that this time of year, where you’re slowing coming to the end of another year, is always busiest. It’s the time of year where I personally go into the fast line and survive my days by jumping from deadline to deadline. That’s not really pleasurable to be fair. It’s why I am really trying to be more mindful about discovering what brings me pleasure to make life more enjoyable and full all year around.

Decrease bad habits

One of the first things to make sure you can improve to live life to its fullest is to start decreasing bad habits. You can take this however you would like. For me personally decreasing bad habits consists of trying to decrease being very harsh on myself, talking myself down and doubting myself. All throughout this year I have been trying really hard to not pick on my body or myself as much as I did the years before. Instead of focusing on the negatives and the things I don’t like about my body, I give myself a little pep talk instead. We tend to all talk ourselves down as insecurities get the best of you. But like Tabby from Take Heart always says: why would you say those negative things about your own body or skin when you would never say it to others. How can we be kind to others but not to ourselves? This always hits hard whenever I think about it and makes me really want to work on being positive and kind to myself.

Whew, that was deep. There’s another bad habit I want to decrease though. I spend a lot of time on my phone before I fall asleep. I honestly think this affects the quality of my sleep, which is why I am trying to put my phone down more and just live in the moment. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s day or night, as I think living in the moment is so important. Currently I am really trying to enjoy my night-time routine by embracing all the autumn cosiness to its fullest.

Helping others any way you can

One of the things that always make me feel satisfied in life is to help others. I am a major caretaker; it is a personality trait of mine, which was confirmed in a personality test I took earlier this year. There’s no greater feeling than seeing someone with a smile on their face after you’ve helped them. I feel this way whenever I help family or friends with something, when I help friends with reading through their uni work and it has been like that ever since I was younger and helped pupils learn how to read at my former primary school. Helping others find their happiness is one of the things I think most of us find very rewarding, which it’s so lovely to help others. It doesn’t matter if you help someone by being mentally or physically being there for him or her, helping people to learn how to read or if you donate to a food bank or a charity. It all contributes to making someone else’s life a bit happier, easier and more enjoyable. It doesn’t have to be a big gesture every time, it can be as easy as calling your nan once a week to ask how she’s doing or by taking over cooking dinner tasks from your parents or roommates one night a week.

Try to be more spontaneous

Another thing I have only recently started to try and do is to be more spontaneous. I still struggle with being spontaneous myself, as I am such a homebody, introvert and can sometimes get panic attacks when I don’t know what to expect. I think that’s why it’s could be a great exercise for me to be more spontaneous. So whenever my friends randomly ask me to hang out in the evenings, I always try to be spontaneous and say yes. Another way to be more spontaneous in life is by breaking your normal routines; you could for example try to meet new people by taking on a new hobby. Meeting new people while you’re in your twenties or older can actually be quite difficult, as there just aren’t that many ways to find new friends. I think being spontaneous can be achieved by going out more, seeing new people and trying to open up to having conversations with strangers. All easier said than done, because all of that sounds like an actual nightmare to me. But I am slowly trying to push my boundaries by doing things like that, that I don’t feel 1000% comfortable by doing.

Navigate negative thoughts into positives

My final thing to find pleasure in life is to try and navigate negative thoughts into positive ones. Channelling your thoughts has such a big impact on your mood. Some days I can wake up feeling tired and it’s easy to immediately switch to negative thoughts. A few things that help me navigate negative thoughts into positives are taking a couple of deep breaths and by putting things into perspective. I also find gratitude journaling to be such a great tool for that. Yes it can be super annoying to write a dissertation, but you’re doing it for a great cause: a degree. We can all complain every now and again, but if you’re constantly complaining about everything in life it can really affect your own mood, but also the moods of people around you. It’s something I have realised after slowly falling out of touch with a toxic friend years ago and ever since I have been trying to steer away from negative thoughts and when I had them, I will always try to channel them into positives.

What are some of the things you do in life to find pleasure when life seems to be going in the fast lane.

Reacties

  1. I loved this post! I think it's so easy to get caught up in autopilot and not fully treasure or appreciate life. I think being kinder to yourself and being spontaneous are perfect ways to find more pleasure in life. xx

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    Reacties
    1. Thank you so much Hannah! It's so true. Being kind for yourself definitely is the most important thing to find more pleasure in life, but also the hardest to do as it's easy to put yourself down. xx

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  2. I love this post especially the third bit of turning positives into negatives... I’ve yet to master this.

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