Thoughts with Ky

Howdy, I’m Kyra, an observant person who likes to write occasionally.

  • Harnessing Emotions Through Journaling

    The vast and murky ocean of human emotions is extremely easy to find yourself ruled over and capsized under when you don’t have the proper tools to master them. Some days, you may find yourself fighting a losing battle against the waves of anger, dealing with someone you find particularly irritating, later sinking into regret after possibly making a bad choice in that moment.

    Other days, you’ll be drowning under a tsunami of suppressed and unprocessed emotions at the end of what felt like the worst day of your life. 

    It is imperative to find ways to work with and traverse the flow of emotions in our daily lives before we are overtaken and wrecked by them. I find that journaling has given me a way to acknowledge and understand my emotions in a healthy manner. Here are some ways journaling can improve your life. 

    Improves mental and emotional well-being 

    Journaling offers a place to release the flood of your feelings from being bottled up inside. Instead of letting them build up pressure and clog your mind and thoughts, you are able to put them onto paper and properly identify them, lightening the mental load as you are allowing yourself to say and properly acknowledge your feelings. 

    You will find that having them splayed out in front of you chips away at any building sadness, resentment, irritation, etc, giving you the opportunity to regulate yourself back to a neutral standpoint in your internal world. This leaves you with a clear mind and more stable emotional well-being to properly approach the rest of your day.

    It can heighten self-awareness

    After a while of documenting and observing your thoughts and feelings, you begin to develop a sense of awareness of things that cause you strong reactions, which you may have missed before. You are writing down and actively observing patterns in your thought process, making constant connections to times you may have felt the same way in the past.

    Once this connection is made, you can make the proper changes and adjustments necessary to lessen the frequency of you finding yourself in similar circumstances that cause said reaction, or come up with a plan to handle the feeling should it come up again. 

    This will help you grow on a personal level as you come to better understand yourself, your boundaries, and alternatives to better approach any situation.

    It offers a judgement-free space

    One of the best things about journaling is the fact that there are no rules to it. There is no right or wrong way to go about it, and you have the freedom to do whatever you want. 

    The societal pressures/expectations to perform and act as if everything is okay, even when you feel terrible or upset, are nonexistent when it comes to journaling. It offers a sanctuary to be as raw or as unfiltered as you need to be. There’s no one breathing down your neck, judging you for how you feel, or tone policing you for saying something in a way that may not be socially acceptable.

    It’s your space, you have control over what you want to write or say, and you can do so freely without the fear of backlash for it.

    It’s good for accomplishing goals

    People are more likely to pay attention to and work towards a goal that they write down and plan for. 

    When writing out your goals, you are creating a solid vision for what it is that you are hoping to achieve. This vision strengthens motivation because you have now created a clear objective to work toward. With this end goal in mind, it tends to be easier to set up smaller tasks you can take over time to move you closer to what you hope to accomplish.

    It also places a large amount of responsibility on you. Setting your intentions this way will act as a visible callback to your commitment, pushing you to want to achieve it and not give up on yourself.

    Can act as IRL memory storage

    Humans are forgetful creatures; it’s a fact of life. However, instead of being caught off guard by an event or beating yourself up because you forgot about something important, journaling can offer a place to document important things to remember. 

    It’s been stated that people are more likely to recall what they’ve written down. In fact,

    When you write down information, your brain is actively processing and summarizing it. And because it works with the information this way, you are better able to retain it.

    Also, as previously stated, writing it down physically means you have a higher chance of seeing what you wrote down and recall it that way.

    Yes, there will be times when it feels like going against the current of emotions is impossible, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. It won’t be easy, and by no means is picking up journalism going to offer an immediate fix. However, if you are willing to put in the time and effort, I can say that progress will be guaranteed over time. 

    Thanks for reading!

    —

  • Why Continuous Learning is Key to Personal and Professional Growth

    In our world today, a flexible person tends to be considered more successful and valuable when compared with those who are not, often carrying the ability to adapt to different or changing circumstances and requirements quickly, and many times having a smoother transition. They have this advantage many times because these types of people leap at any given opportunity to learn something new, promoting their knowledge.

    lets get into 3 benefits of continuous learning!

    Being a better candidate for employers

    When amidst the process of looking for new hires, employers will often gravitate toward and pay more attention to people who are listed as having a lot of skills or certifications.

    It demonstrates that they have to opportunity to work with someone who can pick up on new tasks and work positions fast, as well as showcasing that the candidate is teachable and receptive to new information. These types of people are highly sought after, coming across as extremely appealing, on many occasions, more likely to secure a job position.

    Heightens leadership skills

    To be a leader, you have to be able to guide and inspire others to work toward a common goal.

    Leaders who actively make an effort to continuously learn about and stay on top of today’s rapidly changing trends—social and technological!—remain relevant, relatable, and effective. They are able to better communicate with wider groups of people, young and old, often times bridging the gap between them to create a functional and cohesive team.

    These people also end up developing and establishing a learning culture amongst their group. By making continuous learning a priority, leaders encourage those who work with them to learn and grow alongside them, bettering the group in the long run.

    Helps personal growth and fulfillment

    Continuous learning aids your personal growth by strengthening your self-worth, cognitive-function, and communication skills.

    Engaging in ongoing academic expansion and skill development provides a feeling of deep fulfillment in addition to achievement, positively impacting a person’s self-esteem. By setting and completing personal learning goals, they reinforce their belief in their capabilities/competence, along with enhancing their perseverance. People gain more comfort after finding that they do have the ability to comprehend and use what they learn.

    It helps cognitive-function by preserving/enhancing function in your brain as you age.

    As we grow older, the production of myelin, an insulating layer that forms around our nerves, helping the brain and other bodily functions, decreases, along with already existing myelin deteriorating. This is a natural occurrence as our brains age and is associated with declines in cognitive function. (I.e, memory, attention, and processing speed.)

    Constantly learning can help push back against this by engaging in mental stimulation that promotes the formation and connection of new nerve cells (neuroplasticity), helping increase as well as aid the already existing myelin.

    Lastly, continuous learning helps a person’s communication skills by enabling them to boost knowledge around a topic, which promotes a sense of comfort when it comes to explaining what they want to talk about.

    Thank you for reading!

    —

  • What I’ve learned about motivation

    For a long time, I used to struggle with getting myself to do things, even if it was something that I liked doing. I always found myself waiting, pushing things off because I was waiting for motivation to finally strike.

    That sudden surge of energy that would propel me into action and take me out of stagnancy for the rest of my life. If you’ve ever found yourself doing the same, let me tell you, it’s never going to happen that way, sorry.

    Sure, there were times where energy seemed to come to me in short bursts, but that’s the thing, it never seemed to last long. A few days where I would get whatever it was I wanted to do done, eventually returning to that feeling of being stuck.

    And If there’s anything that I took from that time, it’s that motivation is hardly ever going to simply appear on a random Tuesday afternoon, no.

    Motivation lies in being purposeful and taking action each day.

    This realization came to me a few months back on a Friday. It was a calm and beautiful morning, with the sun peaking in through the window and illuminating my bedroom with its soft morning glow.

    Normally, I would have rolled over to check my phone before getting up and continuing on to start my routine, but this particular morning, I was overcome with an enormous wave of tiredness.

    I felt tired of my life and the way in which I was living it at the time, tired of wondering when the time where I would get to be the person who I imagined I would and wanted to be would finally come to pass.

    I ended up staying in my bed for an extra 30 minutes, letting the sunlight shift away from my face.

    And I vividly remember thinking, ‘The sun doesn’t wait until it feels like rising to do so, it just does it.’

    The thought ended up sticking with me for the entire day. From there, I had similar thoughts spurred from things I saw outside that I would usually overlook. ‘Trees don’t need permission to create oxygen or grow, they just do’, or ‘That old lady jogging down the street isn’t waiting to take charge of her health.’

    The more these kinds of thoughts played in my mind, the more the questions of ‘what are you waiting for’ and ‘what’s stopping you from taking charge of your life’ popped up.

    Those questions became more and more frequent and increasingly loud as the days passed, until I eventually grew to be irritated with the person I was at the time, someone who was waiting for permission to be who I dreamed.

    I knew I wasn’t satisfied with my day-to-day and that something had to give for anything to change for the better. I decided to just go for what I want, to practice my hobbies and whatever I liked, even if I didn’t feel like it in the moment.

    Once I started doing such, it was like a switch had been flipped. I began to notice just how much more accomplished I began to feel, even if I only did one thing I wanted to do, it was still progress and better than nothing. I noticed how much more willing to stay and finish the projects I had started I was becoming

    I felt more energetic, more motivated and incredibly happy.

    I began to feel more comfortable with my life and who I was as a person.

    And the key point that I think you should take away from what I’ve said so far is: whatever it is you want to start, you need to start it today. Don’t wait for that surge of energy to come, more often than not, it won’t, and don’t wait for anybody else’s approval to start.

    The sun will always rise and fall, and life will continue to move forward regardless of how you may be feeling.

    Take initiative and work toward the vision of the life you want to create and the person you imagine that you could be.

    Thanks for reading!

    —

  • Transform Your Life: The Power of Daily Reading

    In this digital era, reading seems to have been place on the back-warmer in exchange for other ‘more interesting’ mediums like YouTube, video games, etc. Most prefer the player/viewer interactivity in addition to the visual and auditory stimulation they offer over books. However, even with considering this, I still firmly believe reading is a fundamental practice that should be incorporated into one’s daily life. Let’s talk about a few benefits that daily reading can supply!

    1. Better vocabulary

    Reading daily can enrich a person’s lexicon through exposure to a variety of different words you may not get the chance to hear or see anyone around you use. Frequency elevates the chances to learn new terms without having to go out of your way to search for them. Once you encounter the new word, you can use context clues around it to grasp the general meaning or look it up in the dictionary, making a note of its definition and how it was used for future references, incase you want to give the word a try for yourself

    2. Knowledge expansion

    For any topic you may need or want to learn about, there’s a book, or multiple of them, that contains a widespread of information on it. While I know nobody wants to hear this, and as much as I hate to admit it, no, a thirty-minute YouTube video is not going to provide you with an in-depth explanation on the topic you need to know about. As convenient as they are, the most you are likely going to get out of those videos is the basics and general information on your topic of choice. Compared to this, books are written by experts and people who have studied what you want to know about for long periods of time. They promise you knowledge beyond surface-level statements and have more accurate, reliable information. Yes, it may take you hours to get through a book, but you are guaranteed a comfortable grasp on your subject.

    3. Helps imagination

    A lot of our media today is visual, giving you pictures or videos to look at so you don’t have to go the extra mile attempting to visualize what they are talking about. Books, however, typically don’t have this option. Often foregoing picture media, books will give descriptors of the area or objects that are being called into focus instead.

    Ex: The car was a deep red, similar to that of an apple, with shiny rims and a sleek black interior.

    Things like this, exercising your mental imagery and creative thinking by setting up a clear visual of what the object in question looked like, over simply showing you.

    4. Stress relief

    Books can help with letting go of stress by allowing you something else to focus on instead of your stressor. By prompting your brain to interact with the setting and imagery in the story, it gives you an adequate distraction. Studies also show that reading for prolonged periods can lower a person’s heart rate and release tension in their muscles.

    5. Improves concentration

    With a huge proportion of the content people consume today being under five minutes, our attention span and ability to concentrate have decreased. Reading can help reverse this decline due to it being an activity that requires your complete, undivided attention in order to comprehend what’s taking place in the story. Thanks to books telling stories in a chronological sequence, one event commonly causes a chain of reactions that spark another event, not paying attention fully can lead to readers getting lost and missing information. This encourages your brain to fully immerse itself in the text and block out any distractions. Therefore, strengthening your ability to concentrate and focus.

    While there may be times when reading can seem boring next to other alternatives, it still can bring huge improvement to our everyday lives that should not be overlooked. So, if you are ever in need of a reason to get back into reading, may you find it within this article

    Thanks for reading!

    —

  • Why Rainy Days Make Us Feel Tired

    You ever wonder why it feels harder to get up on rainy days? Why it seems to take forever to shake off the drowsiness or to convince yourself to get out of bed? Well it turns out you’re not just feeling extra lazy on those days, and there are actual reasons for this phenomenon. Let’s get into why this happens.

    1. Rain is pink noise

    Yes, you read that correctly, rain is a natural pink noise. Now, what is pink noise you might ask? Pink noise is a category of sounds that contains a mix of high and low frequencies, all the frequencies that the human ear can pick up on, spanning over 20hz-20,00hz. Characterized by its lower, more soothing pitch, pink noise can help slow down brain-wave activity associated with deep sleep, causing you to feel more tired. It’s pretty neat.

    2. lack of sunlight messes up internal clock

    The human body has an internal pattern we all follow based on the 24 hour day, Rising and falling with the sun. The lack of natural light, thanks to it being blocked by clouds on a rainy day, directly impacts our ability to wake up faster. When the sunlight shines into your bedroom from the blinds it send a signal to your body to suppress its production of melatonin. Melatonin being a hormone we produce when surrounded by darkness to help us sleep. So when no sunlight gets through, our bodies continue to produce melatonin thinking it’s still more time to lay in bed.

    3. low barometric pressure

    Barometric pressure, also known as air pressure, is the force or weight of the air molecules around us. When it rains, the air rises up to cool and expand, forming into clouds that produce more rainfall. The lower air pressure, as a result of it rising, lessens the amount of oxygen in the surrounding air. Which ends up leading to a reduced oxygen flow to our brains, causing feeling of fatigue and lethargy.

    It rains frequently in my area, and I really wanted to find out why I always struggled to get out of bed whenever it does. This lead me to do some research and bam out came this article. Ultimately I decided to share it for those who may have also struggled to feel energized when it rains and may want to know why. So, here it is!

    Thanks for reading!

    —

  • Unlock Your Creativity: Mindset Matters

    There’s a popular misconception surrounding the idea of creativity, many people holding the belief that it’s either something you are born with or you aren’t. Due to this misguided way of thinking, a large number of people miss the fact that creativity is a mindset, one that can be improved, for that matter, and miss out on the chance to be creative for years. Maybe even their entire life!

    This article will explain what creativity is, ways you could be limiting it, and how to improve it.

    Redefining creativity

    As stated earlier, creativity is not something a person is born with, but in fact, a mindset. Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining others. You have to be willing to adopt a pattern of thinking that embraces new ideas, pushes for exploration, and takes a challenge as an opportunity to grow. Creativity comes when you are able to take multiple ideas and life experiences, drawing a connection between them in new and unique ways people haven’t thought of before. There are times when it may come across as easier for others, but what this really means is that they’ve had more opportunities and gathered more life experience, allowing them to make interesting and captivating connections over you. By no means am I trying to imply that it will be easy to do such, only that this means everyone has the ability to be creative, and boost their creativity. Yes, even you!

    Things that can hold back creativity

    Creativity can be limited or blocked completely due to your internal psychology in addition to the environment around you. A few of those ways may include:

    • Fear: When a person seems to hold fear towards judgment or of failure, it tends to throw a wrench in their creative process. The prospect of other people judging their ideas or them failing at something, especially publicly, can lead to a person either avoiding challenges and risks or imposing heavy self-censorship on their work, possibly refusing to share their ideas in any capacity. Effectively stifling or outright putting a stop to indulgence in creative activities.
    • Being in a chaotic environment: If a person is in an unstable or chaotic environment that has a lot of distractions, they will not be able to focus as their brain struggles to process and handle multiple tasks in a productive manner. Your brain will be focused on filtering out irrelevant information, putting less attention toward creative thought.
    • Having fixed beliefs: People with fixed beliefs tend to think inside the box and stick to what’s familiar to them. They have a difficult time acknowledging differing ideas or accepting new information if it doesn’t align with what they already believe. This hinders their ability to think flexibly, something that is required for creative ideas to flow.
    • Having a fixed routine: By keeping a fixed routine, you create a cycle of repetitiveness that doesn’t allow for you to experience anything new. Over time, you become resistant to change and hesitant to try out things that you are unfamiliar with. This impacts your ability to adopt new ideas, along with becoming less efficient in divergent and innovative thinking.

    Ways you can grow your creativity

    In order to boost your creativity, you are going to have to be willing to make some major life changes. Some of the changes you can make are:

    • Letting go of perfectionism: While this may be extremely challenging, letting go of perfectionism is a must. There’s no other way around it. The obsession with perfecting one’s work, criticizing it for every minor problem, will only make you drop your projects early if you think they aren’t good enough, and can cause you to procrastinate your work altogether because what you create isn’t perfect. You have to accept that sometimes you are going to make things that you hate, that suck, so that you continue to create more. It happens to the best of us
    • Diversifying your friend group: By befriending people who are different from yourself, you open your world up to perspectives and walks of life that may completely differ from your own. Setting yourself up for a range of varying viewpoints and approaches to situations you most likely would have never come up with by yourself. Also, by having a diverse friend group, you are less susceptible to hivemind mentalities, the constant influx of alternate ideas prompting you to come up with more creative approaches
    • Trying out new things that interest you: Stepping out of your comfort zone to try out new hobbies helps in garnering more experiences for you to draw from. You put yourself in a position to combat existing ideas and let in newer, fresher ones. This can increase your problem-solving skills, enhance your adaptability, and enlarge your capacity for innovative thinking.
    • Asking questions: If you take nothing else, take this. Question everything. Deepen your understanding of how things you’re curious about work, and then see if you can make it connect with something completely unrelated. This is the key to improving your creativity. By prompting yourself into deeper thinking, you can break away from surface-level observation and find things you may have otherwise missed.

    Creativity was, is, and always will be something everybody has. It’s not about genetics, talent, or luck, but whether or not a person has the want, the drive to push in the face of adversity and struggle. To be willing to exhaust every approach available, until you reach a breakthrough that makes it all come full circle. You have to have faith, believe that you have the ability to come up with that project, that idea, that view, that reaches out and changes lives, and may this article provide you with that faith.

    Thanks for reading!

    —

  • Breaking Free from Mindless Scrolling: Tips and Insights

    Mindless scrolling is something we’ve all fell victim to. whether we pick up our phones to tkae a break, or to procrastinate doing important tasks, the short time we intended to spend on it often ends up turning into hours as we sift through addictive apps and platforms, negatively impacting our brains.

    Today, we will explore:

    -Why this happens

    -The negative impacts of doing such

    -what we can do to stop it

    Why does this happen?

    Well, if it helps, it’s not entirely our fault. Social media and other apps are made to be addictive with the intent of keeping you on the platforms for as long as possible. When you look through social platforms like TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter, to name a few, they monitor the posts in which you frequently comment on and like, pushing more content of the same variety onto your ‘for you’ page, effectively keeping you entertained and on their forums for prolonged periods of time. These apps can also provide a sense of reward when we make posts that other users on the forums like and engage with, bringing us back every time we get a notification.

    That being said, notifications are also used as a tactic to draw users back onto these apps. With gaming apps, you can get pop-ups to let you know of any in-game rewards you can get by logging in, or, depending on how long you’ve been playing, let you know to keep up your in-game streak by signing in to play. For social apps, they use notifications to tell you when an account you like often/follow has posted, and tell you about topics that are currently trending. Appealing to the sense of curiosity we have, wanting to be in on what others around us are talking about. Extremely predatory in keeping us on these apps in almost any way that they can.

    The negative effects

    Scrolling in excess for hours can cause many problems, such as:

    • Decreased attention span: Mindless scrolling can cause people to experience a decline in their attention span as they become used to short-form content. Most TikTok videos, Instagram stories, and YouTube shorts tend to be anywhere from 10-30 seconds in length, making the content easily digestible for those who view it. This can end up training our brains to seek immediate gratification, expecting quick rewards, which ultimately can cause it to be more difficult to engage and focus on content that requires our undivided attention for longer than a minute to understand
    • Poor sleep schedule: Mindless scrolling can also impact a person’s sleep schedule as they fall into the cycle of ‘just one more video before I go to bed’, often ending up on their phone until the sun starts to rise again. The blue light emitted from our phone at night interferes with our bodies’ production of melatonin, making it harder to fall asleep.
    • Increase in anxiety: Social media often has a lot of negative content being pushed on it. Constant consumption of bad news and negative posts can amplify feelings of anxiety, fear, and even depression, doubly so for those of us who are already susceptible to these problems
    • Damaging personal relationships: By spending tons of time on our phones, we often tend to neglect the world and the people around us. Families and romantic partners giving recurring complaints about their children and dates not paying talking and interacting with them at the dinner table/on a date, instead giving their attention to their phone. (This can go for friendships as well!) This leads their relationships to feel strained, as if there’s a barrier between them which keeps them from properly connecting
    • Fear of missing out: The irrational fear of missing out, also known as F.O.M.O., can arise when we go without our devices for a long period of time. We become worried over not having access to the internet and the ability to check out what the latest new trend is or be a part of the moment if anything interesting. We get this fear of being left out, unable to understand what our friends and other people around us are talking about, causing unnecessary amounts of stress on our minds and bodies.

    How do we fix this?

    Now that we’ve expounded on the why and why not, let’s talk about some things we can do fix this problem.

    • Turning notifications off: If you turn your notifications off, you become less tempted to pick it up and check it because there’s no buzz or sound to capture your attention. This can also help prevent the anxiety that getting a notification would typically cause, compelling you to see what it was for
    • Delete social media: Yes, it will be hard, but by deleting social media, you lose the constant, easy access to the platform that would otherwise strengthen the habit of scrolling. When you make it more tedious to get on these forums, you become more likely to actually stop and consider if you really want to use social media, if it’s really worth it to go through the trouble of logging in through Google on another device.
    • Move your phone away from you, preferably where you can’t see it: Putting your phone somewhere away from you and out of your field of vision, it becomes easier to focus on other things you are possibly neglecting to do, and likely to forget about it altogether as the day goes on

    Don’t be ashamed of struggling to combat the addiction of scrolling through gaming apps and social forums. Almost everyone in today’s time also faces this same problem. Seriously, walk through any public space a count the number of people you see on their phone. By being here, you’ve taken the first steps toward reclaiming your life, acknowledging the problem and seeking a way to fix it, and hopefully this article has helped to provide you with that way.

    Thanks for reading!

    —

  • Transform Your Mindset: Tips for Confidence and Positivity

    From the start of our lives, all the way to the finish, the mindset we hold will play a crucial part in whether or not we will be able to look back and say we were happy with it. There’s no one out there who wants to live an inauthentic life in which they weren’t true to themselves, and to prevent that, we must overcome any self-doubt and negative thoughts we may be holding onto. The cultivation of a positive mindset, along with self-confidence, is imperative in enabling us to live the life that we dream of having. Here are some personal tips I use to maintain a positive mindset and increase my self-confidence!

    Start your morning off with an affirmation

    If we want to make lasting changes, we have to start out small. Getting yourself into the habit of starting the day off with a positive statement is a great start. Saying something as minor as ‘today, I want to think positively,’ sets a nice tone for how you want to move going forward into the rest of that day. It doesn’t just have to be a statement either, if you’re not comfortable with that, you can set a little reminder in your phone calendar or leave sticky notes around your room-Make sure you put them where you can easily see them!-with positive readings on them. Don’t complicate it, keep it simple when you start out.

    Practice gratitude

    For how commonly this tip is given out, I feel like people underestimate just how effective it can be. The easy practice of acknowledging the things that are good in your life, instead of focusing on the negative, can boost your mood quite a bit. Take the time to make a list of all the things and/or people that you are grateful to have, read and recall it frequently, and you will begin to gradually shift into looking towards the positives in your life. Repetition matters greatly for this one.

    Stop being your own hater and be your biggest supporter

    If you’re anything like me, then this tip is extremely important. If you’ve struggled with bad self-talk when trying something new, or put your own ideas down when you’re not secure in them. This is most likely coming from the need to protect yourself from having to hear the possible negative feedback from others, or at least it was in my case. If so, you’re not doing anything but shooting down your confidence with this thought process. It’s not going to stop people from, nor lessen the impact of, them saying mean things, it might even make it worse.

    Instead, we must combat this mindset by being gentle with self-talk and allowing ourselves to suck at things. Everyone is going to suck at something they’ve just started. Challenge this by becoming your own greatest cheerleader. Remind yourself that while you might not be where you want to be now, if you keep practicing, if you keep trying, and if you remain consistent, you will see improvement.

    Celebrate your accomplishments

    This tip is a major key to boosting one’s self-confidence. Celebrating your achievements, it doesn’t matter how big or small, emphasizes that your efforts are worth something and can decrease a lot of your self-criticism. It can also strengthen your motivation to continue on your path and take on bigger challenges. Then, most importantly, it combats self-doubt and helps a person gain more trust in themselves, as celebrating puts the focus on the positive impacts of their hard work.

    Keep positive people around you

    Nobody likes a negative Nancy; they drain the energy of the people around them and often destroy the mood. It’s hard to maintain a helpful outlook when your company never has anything good to say. If you have anyone like this around you, you should try to distance yourself from this person. Find people who tend to be optimistic and try to keep them as close as possible. The more positive thoughts you hear and surround yourself with, the easier it is to keep a mindset that’s going to benefit you.

    These are the tips that have allowed me to be true to myself and allowed me to live a life I am comfortable and happy with. Remember, take it slow. Don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to do this all at once, or immediately, for that matter. I hope these tips are helpful to those who are willing to give it a shot.

    Thank you for reading!

    —