Category Wellness

Are we to blame for limiting our own growth? Chances are — we are the sole reason. We are all guilty of having several habits that prevent us from success. Certain habits that we practice every day might just bring us a step back from achieving our goals.

Successful people maintain good, successful habits. Once you realize what are the bad habits which seem to be bringing you down, you are on your way to becoming a better version of yourself.

With that being said, here are the 5 habits that are limiting your self-growth:

1. Negative self-talk

We may not realize it, but we tend to self-bully ourselves on a regular basis. We don’t have much self-confidence, we don’t believe in ourselves enough to realize how much more capable we are.

One thing that you would have to accept in the long run is that — failure is inevitable. We fail, we learn from it, and then we try again.

The most successful people have very high self-worth. They know their value. They know what they are worth.

The successful CEOs and entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, they had confidence in what they do, and most importantly in themselves.

Stop telling yourself that you’re not skilled enough, or whether you’re too dumb to understand something.

If you want to start your own business, just do it! Give up the habit of low self-worth and have some self-confidence.

2. Comparing yourself with others

Unconsciously, we will admire our friends having fun, travelling to amazing places, driving a new car — and we wish that we could be them instead. Your colleague gets a promotion, and you’ll envy them.

Instead of focusing on our own growth, we are too busy trying to reach their level. We are struggling to get ahead or be equal to them.

Why not spend the time to focus and work on your own dreams? The only person you should compare to would be your past self. Not others, but yourself. Be better than who you were yesterday.

3. Not stepping out of our comfort zones

More often than not, most of us tend to stay in our own comfort zones because we are comfortable where we are.

We tend to shy away from change as much as possible, all because we are too afraid of change.

If you always stay where you are, you will never be able to grow. Keep challenging yourself daily, life is all about how you make it.

Your growth is in your hands. Not your employer, not your parents — yourself. Go out there and do something different from your every day-to-day life.

You’ll be surprised, that might be the best decision you’ll ever make.

4. Talking about your dreams, but not doing anything about it

Nothing in life comes easy. Success will not immediately just fall into your lap.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, slept in the office and poured in hundreds of hours to get to where he is today.

We procrastinate because we are unsure of ourselves. We talk about our dreams, but dreams are just dreams if we don’t take the necessary steps to achieve them.

Stop talking about it, and start doing!

5. Not accepting criticism or feedback

I get it, sometimes you feel like you know everything. You think that you’re doing well, you know your stuff, and ego gets in the way.

We have to be able to accept feedback or criticism, as that is the only way we can improve ourselves.

Be more aware of the things people are saying about you. Bill Gates once said,

“We all need people who can give us feedback. That’s how we improve”.

If we are so closed off from other people’s opinion about yourself, we won’t realize what we are doing wrong. We can’t tell what are our strengths and weaknesses.

We have to learn how to be okay with receiving feedback. If not, you won’t be able to grow and improve your skills, or work on your weaknesses.

Work on yourself every day, because you are your own greatest investment. Learn a skill that you never thought you would try before.

Challenge yourself. Live life in a way that you are always growing. You don’t have to stay stagnant, unless you want to, of course.

Self-growth is something that everyone should take the time to work on. When you start focusing on your self-growth, one day when you look back at yourself, you will be proud of how far you’ve come and what you have achieved.

“What makes you happy?”

Someone asked me this question a few weeks ago.

At that moment, I couldn’t answer. Maybe I didn’t expect a question like that.

I thought I knew what is happiness – but I guess I don’t since I couldn’t give a straight answer.

Recently, I discovered the “Brahma-Vihara”, which is the four states of the mind taught by Buddha, when I read the book called “A CEO, an Entrepreneur, a Tourist, and the Monk: Finding the Balance Between Success and Happiness” by the author Alex Butt.

I’m born a Christian, but to me – religion is there just to guide us. You can be labeled a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu but if you’re not a good person, your religion means nothing.

All religions teaches the same thing – love.

The four sublime states are love (metta), compassion (karuna), sympathetic joy (mudita) and equanimity (upekkha).

You can find out more (a brief version for those that hate to read long texts :P) here.

That’s when I realized that the main causes of what makes us unhappy with our lives are because we are consumed with jealousy, envy, ego, hatred, and all these negative feelings.

I know – we all aren’t perfect. We are bound to feel these negative feelings and emotions. We are human beings after all – we are meant to have good and bad feelings.

With practice, we learn how to react to situations better.

Yes, you can feel angry, jealous, egoistic and everything but you can choose to not be so consumed by it.

Let them go. Let these feelings go.

If you noticed, the times when you’re feeling happy is when all these feelings aren’t present.

Life is a long ass journey – so don’t spend your time being bitter about everything.

What you choose to feel reflects externally as well. Just like a ripple effect. What goes around, comes around.

Just like the saying goes, “You reap what you sow” – the natural consequence of your actions when you give in the present, in the future, someway or another you’ll receive abundantly.

Many of us are seeking for happiness. But in fact, happiness is right in front of us. Happiness is already within us.

The definition of happiness is just feeling love, compassion and joy.

You can find happiness in everything you do – every choice, every decision, every action.

And so, this is my answer to what makes me happy.

p/s: I highly recommend the book that was mentioned above!

8 years ago, I would’ve told you that life doesn’t get better.

You will always feel like shit. You can’t succeed in life. You’re a failure and you’ll always be one.

Life is always shitty and screwed up in many ways.

Today, I’m here to tell you that it does get better. No, it’s definitely not easy and it won’t happen tomorrow.

But one day, you will be able to free yourself from the cage that you’ve put yourself in.

The cage is basically like your mind.

You surround yourself with negativity, self-hatred, depressive state of mind. You have your own key to your cage. It is up to you to decide when you want to use the key and set yourself free.

Coming from someone who wrote in old blog posts on how it’ll never go away – this feeling of hating life and myself included.

Now, I love myself and my life.

Sure, there are many reasons to be unhappy about but you know what? Life will be good if you make it good.

Of course, there are some days when all I wanna do is just stay in bed and never come out of my room to face reality. It’s okay to have those days, as long as you get yourself back up again after that and start over.

I never thought that I will one day accept who I am and life in general. But here I am, reminding and telling all of you reading this that you will get through this.

Whatever hardships, depression and negative things that are going on right now in your life, it will all pass.

Start doing things that make you happy. Do the things you love to do. Not things that make you feel bad about yourself. If you can’t think of anything, get out there and search for it. You will find it.

You will start to see life in a whole new light and live with a purpose.

Find your purpose to live.

Well, it’s been awhile. My last post was on January 1st.
It’s already February now! Time flies…
One of the reasons why I haven’t been blogging (or following my so-called blogging schedule) is because my mind wasn’t in a good state – negative thoughts and all that.
It’s important to take care of yourself first – your mental health. So that’s what I did (you should too!).
I’ll be starting a series called #WellnessWednesdays where I blog about wellness in general on Wednesdays (if I manage to follow….) so expect some wellness posts on upcoming Wednesdays! 🙂
Moving on – this blog post is inspired by a Korean short film. I recently watched this short Korean drama series (and it made me cried buckets of tears) – KBS Drama Specials – usually 1 hour+ short films. You can watch it here. It made me realize how there are other people wishing they could live longer and here we are sometimes wishing our life is shorter.
For those of you that need little reminders here, this post is to remind you to not give up and just keep going.
Here are 4 things to remind yourself when life is tough:

1. You are considered lucky.
   In the short film, the main character was wondering why was her life cut short. She wanted to live longer. She was so desperate to live more.
   You were given birth by your very own mother who went through so much of pain just to deliver you.
   You still have a beating heart. You still have a living soul.
   These little things are what counts – you are so blessed already to be able to live and breath like a normal person would.
   Being alive is a very lucky thing. Embrace it – even when life gets in the way.
2. Pain is temporary.
   The pain you are feeling right now, all the hardships, breakups and struggles – it’s only temporary.
   It will pass.
   No pain lasts forever unless you choose to let it consume you. Don’t let it take over your life – be the change. You can have a good life – if you allow yourself to.
   Be kind to yourself, let happiness into your life. Free yourself from all the negativity and the ones that cause you pain or problems.
   Be good to yourself because you deserve it.
3. You are loved.
   Take a step back and take a look at the people around you.
   I know – it sounds so cheesy and cringy. But it’s true. You are loved.
   You never know – you might be someone else’s happiness. You might be the reason they wake up every day. You can even put a smile on their face daily.
   People are happy to have you. You might not know it – but there are those that are happy to have you in their lives. They enjoy your company, they love being around you. They love talking to you.
   Remember them.
4. It can’t be stormy and rainy forever.
   Maybe you have been constantly been let down, so many disappointments, failures and so on. Maybe you feel that you aren’t good enough for your family, girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband, friend.. or in general.
   Maybe you are struggling to put food on the table, to make ends meet… to build yourself a good career… to make your loved ones proud.. to be good at a job you’re currently struggling with…
   Don’t think that just because your life sucks right now that it’ll suck forever.It will get better.
   I promise.
   Just hang in there for a while longer – and don’t give up. Just keep pushing yourself – and I promise that you will see rays of sunshine and rainbows at the end.
   Just like the weather, rain and storms come and go.
   Just like the struggles and hardships, they will come and go as well.

I hope all of you have a good month ahead!
Stay positive always.
x chelle

Picture taken in July 2017, with a genuine laughter (thanks to my adorable bestfriends)

This is just something random that has been lingering in my mind for awhile. The struggle to stay positive, to be happy and have a healthy mind even when life knocks you down. I guess because I came to realize that this is a daily struggle for not only myself but many people as well.
What really is a healthy mind? 
There was a period of time when my mind was not healthy at all. In short, I was not happy. Smiling and laughing took a lot of effort, it all felt fake. For a few years, everyday felt like a struggle to even wake up every morning. It was like I was physically there, but I’m not really there. It took me sometime to get out of that ‘comfort zone’ that I was in. It was a comfort zone to me at that time because I choose to stay in that zone. I keep going back to it, no matter what.
Some of you may or may not have these kind of thoughts before. What am I living for? Is there a reason to live, what IS my reason to live? No one really cares. Why am I not smart enough, or good enough? I’m not capable of doing this and that. I’m below average, or just average. I won’t be able to cope or handle with this and that.
A healthy mind is when you don’t have all these thoughts.
I think we all tend to look down on ourselves at times and compare ourselves with others. We view ourselves as something so small and we lack confidence in ourselves. I believe that everyone has those moments. Sometimes it just comes unexpectedly, especially when something bad happens that impacts you greatly. Maybe it’s the way you were brought up, the environment that you were in that sometimes cause you to feel or think these thoughts. Or it could be because of some bad events that happened before.
One thing’s for sure though, is that everyone has their own purpose in life, and it’s all in your hands. YOU get to choose what you want to live for. YOU have the choice to create your own path in life. Everybody has their own choice on how you want to live your life. Choose the ones that makes you happy, the ones that helps you to become a better person and cause a positive impact in your life.
On a side note, having positive people by your side also influences your life choices and decisions. If you surround yourself with people that help lift you up, you will one day manage to lift yourself up as well.
I used to think that I can’t control what I’m feeling. That it just comes and goes. To an extent, this is true. But you can definitely choose how do you respond to these feelings or thoughts. When it comes, you can choose to either respond negatively… or seek for help from others. It is all about mindset and your willingness to change or control it.
There will be good and bad times in life, but one day eventually you will learn to see the positive sides of even the bad ones. You will be able to believe in yourself and start seeing yourself as a valuable person. You are definitely not alone in this world. I can guarantee you have AT LEAST 1 person (definitely more than 1 though) that cares about you. Sure there will be times when you fall down, so get yo ass back up just like the saying ‘Fall 7 times, get up 8’.
Your life is like a book. There are a few chapters, some chapters are bad and good. One chapter does not define the whole book.
Be the author of your own book.
x chelle