You’ve failed? Good!

That means you’ve actually tried something!

Generally, I want my blog to be a place where people find inspiration and hope that the sun is going to shine, even if things get hard. That is just who I am and I really don’t know (or want) to be different. But today I am going to tell you about something that is generally seen as negative: failure.

Usually, we don’t tend to be happy when we fail. But what is failure really and most importantly, is it as bad as we think it is?

As I see it, failure is first and foremost, the attempt in doing something. Be it an exam, a job interview, asking someone out, asking your boss for a raise, attempts bring us forward, even if things don’t go they way we hoped they will. What matters most is that tiny voice in your head that said ‘what if?’. That voice is ambition, that voice is growth and that voice is hope – don’t let failure silence it. Try harder next time, avoid making the same mistakes, learn from every experience because in the end, that is how all successful people started. What they all had in common is the willingness to say ‘I’ll try again tomorrow’ and that means never giving up on the things that you want.

Image from larryferlazzo.edublogs.org

I won’t tell you that it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, of course it does. That’s why they are called ‘winners’ and not ‘participants’ but from my point of view, the only losers are the ones that give up and stop trying.

Even if you cry, even if you feel helpless or misunderstood, find that tiny voice inside of you and build it up – I strongly believe that everyone has it, all you need to do is listen to it. And when you do, you won’t need anything or anyone else to help you reach your goal – all you’ll ever need is yourself.

So… What is YOUR ‘what if’?

Choose to be free

In our everyday lives we are constantly facing situations where decisions have to be made: the black or the white shirt, tea or coffee, tube or bus. These are simple decisions that do not have serious consequences in the long term but how do we act when life throws difficult situations at us and challenges our decision making power?

In such cases I often find myself thinking about my life and my actions as if I was watching a movie – this eliminates some of the emotional attachment and somehow encourages doing the ‘right’ thing – this right thing is not what society considers to be right but the decision that feels good inside each of us, considering each person’s set of values and morality.

Someone once said (possibly just an online quote but still a good one), when faced with an impossible decision, toss a coin – not because of the random result of letting the universe decide your fate but because when the coin is in the air, you find out what the result you are hoping for is. When this happens, even if what you find that you are wishing for seems impossible – do it! It is what you want and what YOU consider to be right and you won’t be able to ‘get over it’ until you make it true.

Life is short and can end in a blink of an eye – this thought should make everything so clear for us. Be brave enough to leave a place or a situation that no longer grows you, be brave enough to finally start that project that you’ve been thinking about, be brave enough to find a new challenging job, be brave enough to tell that special someone how you feel about them and most important: be brave enough to start a conversation that matters. YOU are the only one in charge of designing your life – make it a good one!

Is Optimism the younger brother of Denial?

Usually, most of us try to see the ‘full half of the glass’ and whenever we find ourselves in challenging situations we say that everything is going to be alright, things will work out for the best and that it’s not a big deal. I recently found myself in such a situation and I remembered it’s not the first time I’ve noticed this so I started wondering if maybe this thing that we call Optimism isn’t just Denial in disguise.

Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m a very big fan of the silver lining and you can definitely count on me to see the good in everything but how do we know to differentiate the situations when we are just making a big deal of something small (we have a saying in Romanian that goes: making a horse from a mosquito. Don’t ask.) from the ones when we really need to stop saying that it’s going to be OK and realise that it’s NOT going to be and we need to take active actions towards the result we want?

What helped me was zooming out. Try seeing your life like reading a book or seeing a movie and try to see people and actions objectively, as things that do not affect you. Reading this book, what would you want to discover between the pages? If you were seeing you life at a cinema, would you go ‘Nooo, don’t do that!’? You are the director in your life’s movie – the decisions you make are yours and only yours because at the end of the day YOU are the one that has to live with them and YOUR wellbeing should be your priority.

Sometimes we get absorbed in life’s carrousel or get too busy with our daily routine and we just go with the flow. Personally, I think only dead fish go with the flow. I believe life should be embraced and that we should make each day matter, even if all we did is learning that there are no penguins at the North Pole, only South and some other isolated regions (really, I’m not joking).

From time to time, when we feel overwhelmed or when we realise we have been frustrated with something for longer that we should have, it’s good to take a break, take a step back and ask ourselves if we are actively pursuing our life goals, what we are doing wrong, what are we really good at and then re-evaluate our priorities, give up the things that don’t help us grow and decide to take on more things that do.

As one Pinterest inspirational quote said, you are the CEO of your own life and it is only up to you to achieve success. Don’t hang around waiting for the days to pass by, our time is limited. Make it count.

Happy New Year!

Looking forward to Monday?

Since a couple of months, a very good friend of mine has been taking me to different events that happen at the Apple Store in Regent Street, London. As you may or may not know I am a Apple fan but that’s not what this post is about.

The first one I saw was about architecture and design and it had as guests four people that talked about their work in this field, their inspiration and challenges. This week I went to my second one which was about fashion and technology, to be more precise wearable technology, also had three amazing people invited to share some of their thoughts with us. I find it that these kind of events are truly inspiring and I encourage everyone to take part if you get the chance, it was a very pleasant experience for me and my friend, especially after the first one because the last part of the presentation was about the window designs in the shops in Regent Street so we went for a walk to see them and discuss them in real life as well.

As I was returning home after the second one, in the bus I was replaying the events in my head and started thinking about those people, the way they were talking, what they were saying and so on and I realised they all had a very special thing in common: they were passionate about their work. I could see their faces lighten up when it was their turn to speak and I recognised the feeling – it is the feeling you get when you talk about something you love and that is a truly amazing emotion to see in a person. One of the most important reasons that I am so happy and grateful to be living in London is that I very often get the chance to see or meet people that are incredibly passionate about their work and they choose to share that wonderful feeling with others – and I am not just talking about those people that speak at events but also about people I know and appreciate in real life.

I imagine it must be an amazing thing when a passion and a career combine to make something special and I can’t help but imagine how our world would look like if more and more people managed to make a living out of their passions and were paid to do something they would be willing to do for free. Most people see their job just as a place where they spend 8 dreadful hours of their day until it’s time to go home and do the stuff they actually care about. What if, for a change, we were actually looking forward to Monday?

About confidence and self esteem – 10 ways to boost them

To begin with, let’s establish the difference between self-esteem and confidence because, although they are linked, they describe different concepts.

Confidence is the term we use to describe how we feel about our ability to perform roles, functions and tasks. Confidence is not something that can be learned like a set of rules; confidence is a state of mind. The good news is that positive thinking, practice, training, knowledge and talking to other people are all very good ways to improve or your confidence level.

Self-esteem is how we feel about ourselves, about the way we look, about the way we think – whether or not we feel worthy or valued. Interestingly enough, self-esteem has little to do with actual talent or ability, which means that it’s quite possible for someone who is good at something to have poor self-esteem, while someone who struggles at a particular topic might have good self-esteem.

People with low self-esteem often also suffer from generally low confidence, but it works the other way around too, people with good self-esteem can also have low confidence. It is also perfectly possible for people with low self-esteem to be very confident in some areas.

Both of these features are a very important part of one’s character. We can compare them with magnifying glass, if you will, that boosts all the other qualities a person has. That being said, often I find that people with better skills are left behind because they lack confidence or self-esteem therefore they are unable or unwilling to show their value to the rest and other times, sadly, people that have no genuine skills but plenty of self confidence become successful or climb the social ladder faster.

So, Little Miss Sunshine to the rescue, based on the information that I have researched but also personal experience I’ve put together a small set of actions that can help you improve your self-confidence and self-awareness.

Are you really living or just surviving?

I feel particularly inspired these days so I decided to share with you the ultimate secret of achieving a state of wellbeing and happiness. Although these things may not seem like much, practise them for a week and you will start seeing big improvements in your life – I promise.

I’ve put below a few tips&tricks I use and that have worked great for me until now, although I still have much improving to do myself. I hope you will consider them as mind blowing as I did when I discovered each and every one of them.

1. Stop comparing yourself to others. Whoever said comparison is the thief of joy was utterly right – the only person you need to compete with is yourself. Do everyday something that improves the person you were the day before, even if that means learning a word in another language or learning to cook a new recipe, nothing is too small to count because anything you learn makes you better than yesterday.

2. Mind your own business. Have you ever met people that complain about their lives but then after 10 minutes start saying about how much richer/healthier/smarter/fitter X or Y is? Well, newsflash: if you’d spend the time you do bitching and complaining, investing in self-growth maybe you would be the same as X and Y is. I honestly believe that anyone has the chance to improve and become the person they want to. Plus, it is none of your business what X and Y do because guess what: everyone is free to live their life as they please.

3. Set a goal. Reaching a goal makes you feel strong and confident. You don’t have to set huge goals like learning Chinese (although that would be awesome). Start small – set a goal to put 1 spoon of sugar in your coffee instead of 2 and keep it up for a month or set a goal to watch TV only 1 hour a day (or not at all). Anything that seems acceptable to you – track your goal and let me know how you feel after a month.

4. Cut toxic people out of your life. That annoying colleague that is always complaining and everytime you talk he only talks about how bad his life is going – cut him out. Tell him you have stuff to do and stop listening to him. These kind of people ruin your good mood and transmit you negative energy so it’s better to suround yourself with positive, happy, strong people that tend not to let their worries and stress become bigger than their sentiment of content and gratefulness towards life.

5. Be thankful. Everyday. I mean it – every night before going to bed be thankful for everything that happened during the day. Even the bad stuff, if nothing else, they thought you a lesson and you’ll know better next time.

6. Work hard. Yes, that is actually a way to be happy. By working hard you will actually get results and by getting resilts you will feel good about yourself, hence more confident. You hate your job? This is the moment to start looking for another one or to start your own business. Life is too short to waste 8 hours a day in a place where you don’t want to be.

7. Give yourself a break. Don’t be to harsh on yourself, as long as you are trying your best, you deserve a break from time to time. After you’ve accomplished something or you passed a hard period, allow youself a moment of reward – a drink from your favourite coffee place, those shoes you’ve been watching in a window or tickets to see your favourite band – anything that will make you want to set more goals and accomplish more. And don’t feel guily, you deserve it!

8. Use your free time doing something useful. I have to admit I am stuggling a bit with this one. I usually spend my free time on Pinterest and although that inspires me in some areas such as home decor, architecture or design, it doesn’t really help me. Procrastination is bad – why not use your free time to cultivate a new hobby, learn a new language, learn how to cook a new recipe or why not, work at a personal project.

9. Suround yourself with beautiful things. Some might say this is superficial but I believe seing nice things all around is good for your state of mind. Maybe buy a new set of curtains in your favourite colour, have a plant that makes beautiful flowers, go to a nice restaurant, spend a weekend in a beautiful place and the list can go on, you get the point – something that will please you eyes and your love of beauty.

10. Observe. Be curious about anything and everything. Look around you when you walk on the street. Observe people, their reactions, animals, trees, cars. You will be amazed how many things you can figure out by just observing the world. I tend to look at the people I share the train to work and try to figure out what they are thinking or how they are like. Ocasionally, my eyes meet someone elses and we both smile – that is when I feel that life is a special gift that has been given to us and that it’s worth exploring.

11. Don’t expect other people to make you happy. Happiness is an inside job, if you are not content with yourself, there is no chance someone else can make you feel different, at least not for long.

12. Stop postponing things. Do stuff when you are supposed to, that way you get them out of your mind and have nothing to worry about. Also, life has a way of surpring us so you never know what tomorrow might bring you, keep a clean page for each day to write on.

13. Finally, decide to be happy. Wake up every morning deciding that today you will be nothing less than happy and do not let anyone else change your mind. Whoever tries to bring you down only means they are below you. Nobody can make you feel bad unless you allow them. You are the only one in charge of your state of mind – what are you going to decide today?

What’s all this sunshine nonsense?

I’ve been struggling for more than 2 weeks now to get my first post out. This describes me very well because I am that person that wants everything to be perfect and there is no middle way for me – if it’s not perfect (or at least the way I want it) I’d rather not have it at all. So this is me pulling my act together to write my first post.

My name is Ioana (from time to time I tell people it’s Joana to save myself for endless spelling and questions, but I kind of like you so I’ll even tell you how it is pronounced in English: Eewana), I am a 25 year old Romanian girl who lives in London.

I work for a small company that makes programs and apps for learning languages, at our cozy and homey office in Fulham, where I am responsible for dealing with our lovely customers (seriously, most of them are very nice and tell us how much they enjoy our products) and also for keeping things under control in the office, as an Office Assistant.

Soon I will have my One Year in UK Anniversary and I have to say this has been a life changing experience. I am not going to bore you in this moment with all that has happened during this year, maybe in a later post but I do have to say that there have been a lot of changes to my lifestyle and routine (I am drinking tea with milk at this point, I thought this was gross a year ago) and so I want to share all my discoveries with you.

Since I couldn’t decide for a single theme of the blog, I just figured it’ll be about me and my interests: photography, fashion and beauty, psychology and human interactions, languages and cultures around the world, basic cooking, design and architecture and last but not least, lovely London. All of these sprinkled with a bit of sunshine because I am a big fan of optimism and seeing the bright side of life. I also stand for being yourself, honesty at all costs, and constant curiosity towards new experiences, people and places – if you feel the same way about yourself, you’ve come to the right blog.

Also, as a disclaimer, English is not my native language and I am kind of a Grammar Nazi in my native language, Romanian, so if you find any spelling mistakes or any kind of mistakes in my posts, please help me improve and let me know what they are 🙂 And if we’re on this subject, I also speak fluent German and a couple of Spanish words I learned from some of my colleagues.

Finally, I wrote my first post! This wasn’t so hard 🙂
Alright so that’s that, feedback is always welcome and I hope we have a long, lasting friendship 🙂

See ya!
Little Miss Sunshine