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The Freeze Is Coming
By: Stefani Vader
Tags: Growing, Homesteading, Life Lessons, Gardening, Orchard

The Freeze Is Coming

photo by author

At the very beginning of 2020, we bought our first orange tree. It is a Red Navel Orange, and we had no idea what to expect. Doing the research, we knew we wouldn’t have anything to harvest this first year, and we were okay with that.

Then the weather started warming up. Flowers started popping out all over the tree and if you’ve never smelled orange blossoms you are truly missing out. They are so fragrant, I wish I had an orange tree growing inside so my entire house would smell that way.

Confused but thrilled, we checked the tree every day as one by one the blossoms dropped off. When all the blossoms were gone, there were five little oranges growing.

Obviously not fully fertilized, two of them dropped to the ground still small and dark green. It was a bummer, but we reminded ourselves that we didn’t think we were going to get any.

Then Hurricane Sally hit a few months later. One of the oranges about the size of a baseball fell off and it was a huge disappointment. We had already waited almost seven months for it to get that big.

Now we are down to two. We’ve been watching the weather, knowing that the longer we can let them ripen the better, but it’s a race against nature.

The time has come.

Tonight it is supposed to drop down into the twenties. If the last two oranges aren’t picked, they will be a lost cause. I think they’re not quite ready, but there is no choice.

photo by author

I worry that the freeze will kill the tree. These two oranges may be the only fruit we get. What if they aren’t good? What if there wasn’t quite enough time for them to ripen? What if after all this waiting, these two oranges are disgusting and the tree freezes and dies? It will all be for nothing.

Or will it?

Some of the best things and hardest lessons come through a period of waiting, watching, and worrying.

If the tree dies, I will learn a lesson and get a dwarf variety that we can pull inside during times of freezing weather.

If the oranges aren’t good, perhaps it is because the tree is young and perhaps next year will be better.

The waiting has been hard, but at the same time, it keeps the anticipation and excitement of all the possibilities with you.

It’s all an experiment. You hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and you learn lessons along the way. That is why I love gardening. If things don’t work, learn from it and try again the following year.
Shocking Reason Why You Should Start Gardening
Tags: Terrace Gardening, Gardening, Kitchen Gardening, Gardening At Home, Home Gardening

Indeed.

if you are shocked to read the title. I am not joking.

Gardening can seriously impact on one’s health mostly because it is like Meditation.

For all those people who think meditation to be something as sitting in an enclosed space without getting disturbed by any noise.

Your idea of it is very wrong.

Meditation simply means having no thoughts at all.

And when you are indulged in Gardening, your state of mind is exactly empty.

You are far from the worries and troubles of your daily life and all you are interested in watching the small butterflies hopping from one flower to other.

I highly recommend everyone and anyone to start gardening at home and feels its magic touch.

I have seen people get totally attached to it, who started with a few pots of plants here and there and now there whole terrace is full of it.

If you are one of those people who think you don’t have the optimum space for it. Well this is 21st century and you can start gardening even in the tiniest of the places.

If you have a terrace you can start gardening there, even a balcony will do fine.

Start gardening on terrace.

All you need is:

Containers (Pots or grow bags or recycled tub or bucket)

Potting Soil, which by the way you can make at home as well.

A few tools like, watering can, scissor, trowel etc.

Find out which vegetables are consumed the most in your family buy some seeds and get started and I’m sure you will thank me later.
Gifts of the Season Come in Many Forms
By: Marilyn Flower
Tags: Health, Women, Menopause, Gardening, Wisdom

Gifts of the Season Come in Many Forms

Photo by Karolina Badzmierowska on Unsplash

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope this finds you well and safe! Please continue to be extra specially careful as the holiday season unfolds — especially as you go out and about making things merry and bright!

Each one of our wonderful writers brings gifts galore to you, our readers. Though it may not look like it at first blush, dig a little deeper and you will find the nuggets of wisdom, experience, and charm.

Sharing who they are, what they’ve been through and any lessons learned are treasures to be cherished. Our writers put a lot of loving attention into these stories. Our editors took time and care to polish them into the gems you’ll enjoy here.

Show your appreciation by reading and if moved, commenting and clapping. We thank you in advance for your support.

If you haven’t yet checkout out our podcast, STOMP! by all means do so. If it’s valuable, please share it with friends and family.

And now, without further ado, the stories…just for you!

When You Find Just the Right Gift, You Unleash Magic — Marilyn Flower

‘Why would the menopause hurt? It’s perfectly natural’ — Helen Clare

I Killed My Basil Plant — Can I Still Call Myself a Gardener? — Mary Gallagher

Tinnitus Can Feel Like a Wicked Form of Torture — Daniella Mini
Rebranding the Buddy App into Bambu
By: Carlos Arellano
Tags: Interaction Design, Apps, Visual Design, Gardening, User Experience

Starting the design process

For this project, I applied the Double Diamond structure, which is a framework that segments the design process into four stages: discovery, define, develop and deliver. It helped me to organize my work into logical steps.

Discovering and Sinthetising

How do the competitors look?

To kick things off, research had to be done. I focused on similar apps on the market. For that, I compared 6 of them and ran a feature Competitive Analysis, to find trends, common features and the missing ones. Finding that:

All of them use a lot of white space.

All of them include green in their colour palette.

All of them are easy to navigate through.

This already gave me a broad idea for the visual design of the app.

How can I make the app appealing to users?

Afterwards, I decided to ask the targeted audience questions related to the functionality and visuals of similar apps they were using, as well as how they feel towards their values.

From the insights gathered, I establish the brand values of this new app:

Inclusivity.

Nature.

Exploration.

Community.

Expertise.

As they liked apps that fostered communities and provided them with plenty of useful information.

Brainstorming ideas to unlock more features

Having enough insights from the market and users, I started to synthesise them into a Mind Map and Mood Board.

A Mind Map, a technique where you create a hierarchical diagram of information, to see how it’s organized and related

What you see here is a mind map, I wanted to know how some of the words that kept coming up in my research, were related, and the level of its importance. Green circled words, the words I put in, raspberry ones, words I found had many correlations.

I understood that in my design, I had to implement concepts such as a forum, posts, colours, taxonomy, resources, etc.

Getting inspiration
A 5-Day Sketch challenge: Growing a gardening app from the ground up
By: Louis Pattison
Tags: Gardening, UX Design, Apps

Our third project as part of General Assembly London’s 12-week UX Design Immersive course was all about honing our visual design skills using the graphic design tool Sketch.

While our second project also found us using Sketch, this week’s work saw us take a much deeper dive into visual design and branding strategy, taking in mood boards, brand affinity, personality traits, mind mapping and typography in order to create polished high-fi prototypes.

This is the story of our week’s work.

Assessing the brief

This week’s brief was to build a visual identity for a mobile app optimised for iPhone 8 screen dimensions.

We were given three options for the type of app. I decided to build a gardening app, which would allow ‘budding’ gardeners — pun intended– to network and share pictures and tips through blogs, forums and picture uploads.

For this project, we used the double diamond approach, dividing the process into four phases — discover, define, design, deliver.

The Discovery phase

Following a day spent introducing ourselves to core visual design principles, we kicked off our app by selecting some brand values that would give our app a ‘belief system’.

Noting that many gardening apps had a quite traditional feel, and wanting to reach out to a younger generation of keen, internet-savvy gardeners working in sometimes limited urban or suburban space, I went for the following: Modern, Growth, Sharing, Network and — this last one with the grow-your-own gardeners in mind — Harvest.

With this in mind, I created a mood board. I’ve worked in the branding space, so I was familiar with the concept and aims of a mood board — but I’d never built one myself. The board went through several iterations, but after a few reorganising exercises, some common themes started to present themselves.

You can see a curated selection from the mood board, along with some descriptors below.
Things to Do at Our Libraries — Online Edition (December 2020)
By: Public Libraries Singapore
Tags: Cooking, Parenting, Photography, Gardening, Life

A Parent’s Guide to Young Children’s Learning Through Discovery Play | Zoom

5 December 2020 (Sat)

2.00 pm to 3.00 pm

Play has a far more significant role in a child’s development than most adults realise. Play may appear simple, but it is complex and closely intertwined with learning. It gives children the opportunity to explore, practise and make sense of the world. Through play, children build cognitive, social, emotional, literacy and physical skills. How can you as a parent support your child in harnessing the power of play?

In this Zoom seminar, Dr Cynthia Lim and Dr Yang Weipeng will discuss the benefits of play and provide tips and strategies on how you can help your child develop his or her thinking and learning skills through active play. Learn how to use observations and questions to facilitate open-ended discovery play, and apply these strategies in a follow-up play session with your child.

To participate, register here to receive a link to the virtual programme on Zoom.

Inspired to further enrich and improve your child’s learning experience? Check out these programmes on the creative process behind illustrating picture books, and how you can keep your child safe online.
What is a garden?
By: Push Garden
Tags: Lawn, Garden, Gardening, Soil Health, Lawn Care

There are two main ways to look at the gardens:

Habitat gardens: These are great for a lot of things, but they are mostly used to grow fruit and vegetables, and that’s pretty much it.

Perennial plants: When your garden is out of control, I tend to buy perennials. So if I see something beautiful like an Asparagus Fern I can make an attempt to sell it to someone. It is very cheap and if you’re lucky you might get a good price and if you’re unlucky nothing will happen.

When your garden is out of control, I tend to buy perennials. So if I see something beautiful like an Asparagus Fern I can make an attempt to sell it to someone. It is very cheap and if you’re lucky you might get a good price and if you’re unlucky nothing will happen. Annuals: I tend to buy annuals, I think that it’s better to have a couple of years of good crops before moving to annuals to avoid a huge loss of income in the future.

I tend to buy annuals, I think that it’s better to have a couple of years of good crops before moving to annuals to avoid a huge loss of income in the future. Small plants: If you’ve got a few things that are small and easy to grow you’ve got some options in terms of planting them in your yard

If you’ve got a few things that are small and easy to grow you’ve got some options in terms of planting them in your yard Perennials: I think that pines are the obvious choice. They’re pretty easy to grow (except those pesky red ones you may hear of sometimes) and they can produce a fairly good amount of harvest and can do a decent job of keeping pests away and providing you with a steady income year over year.

If you’re struggling to get into gardening

Now I’m not talking about becoming a farmer or something, I’m simply saying make all planning for and thinking about your gardens a priority. This really isn’t very difficult, but sometimes you just might not be as good a gardener as you think you are. As an example, this article will hopefully help you out and help you get your garden into the best possible shape that you can.
Turnip The Heat!
By: Stefani Vader
Tags: Cooking, Vegetables, Recipes, Gardening, Food

In our quest to grow our own food, we’ve come to realize that we really haven’t tried a whole lot of the things we can grow.

Recently we went to a neighbor’s house and they started talking about what they were growing and harvesting. We looked at each other like they were talking in another language.

Turnips? Mustard greens? Beets?

We hadn’t tried any of those.

So then I was watching one of the channels on Youtube that I follow, and they were talking about kohlrabi.

What?

When the neighbors found out we had no idea what any of those taste like, they took it upon themselves to share their bounty with us.

Now I have a sink full of turnips and mustard greens.

I have to use them, right? I don’t want to waste them.

At the same time, I’ve never cooked them, and never even heard anything about them so it’s a little daunting even trying it out.

We’re going to do it though. In a world full of viruses and uncertainty, we are not going to back away from free food. You can’t be scared of it, right? We have enough to try several different recipes, so if we don’t like the first batch, we can try again a different way.

Sometimes I curse technology these days. Things are so easily found at the tips of your fingers, it has taken away a lot of creativity from children growing up. Right now though, I’m very pleased to see that there are hundreds of recipes to try out without having to go to a book store.

Who knows? Perhaps we will love them and I’ll have to grow them myself next year. That being said, tonight we are going to bite the bullet and try them out.

Roasted Turnips. On the bar-b-que. Hmmm.

Hopefully we won’t die.

If you have any tried and true recipes that you swear by, I’d love to try them out!
Swiss chard 🌱 References: @jessicafishes
By: Vegetarian Way
Tags: Garden, Vegetables, Gardening, Vegan, Vegetarian

Welcome, We love vegan food! Hope everything is well, thanks. Vegetarianway
How to Grow Gopher Plant
By: Gardener'S World
Tags: Gopher, Gardening, Gopher Plant, Garden

Brief Description

Family : Plantae Order : Malpighiales Family : Euphorbiaceae Genus : Euphorbia Scientific Name : Euphorbia rigida

How to grow, care, prune a Gopher plant? Are they poisonous to pets like dogs or cats? Learn here

Gopher Plants are succulent plants that means these plants have thickened, fleshy, and engorged body parts, these are to retain water in arid regions [A region with a severe lack of water].

Succulent word is derived from the Latin word ‘sucus’, that means ‘sap’ or ‘juice’. Gopher plants can store water in their body.

The length of a fully grown gopher plant can vary in between 20 to 30 cm and can spread up to 150 cm (diameter).

Light yellow colored flowers appear on the floral branches during early Spring.

It requires full bright sun light to grow properly but sometimes you are in need to shade the plant partially. Too much watering is not required as it is succulent.

It should not be exposed too much in the warm weather because it can’t grow properly in warm weather.

If it is taken care properly it can grow fast.

Are gopher plants poisonous? Yes, these are poisonous if it is eaten. So keep it away from domestic animals, pets and children.

CLICK HERE TO CHECK THE PRODUCT!!!

HOW TO GROW GOPHER PLANT?

If someone is in search of a toxic plant like Gopher or any of the members belonging to Euphorbia genus it is usually due to beautify his or her garden or due to some other uses like keeping the rodents away from the garden.

For gardeners the crucial question is “How to grow a Gopher Plant in my garden?”

Plant the seed in soil

Gopher Plant is tolerant to a large varieties of soils types such as clay soil, loam soil, chalk soil and sand soil. It is better to plant it in rock gardens because there it looks better.

pebble-mulch garden can also be used as a good option because applying mulch on the garden soil improves its fertility, helps in retaining the soil moisture and reduces the growth of weeds in the garden.

Watering the seed and plant

As we said earlier that plants belonging to Euphorbia genus are succulent plants i.e. they are highly draught tolerant and can survive in arid environment, it is not required to water the plant frequently.

You can weight for monsoon.

But, Watering once a month or a week is better. But why?

This is because the cuticles of there leaves are very thick and a lot of leaves had converted into thorns during the span of evolution.

Due to the decreased amount of leaves and conversion of leaves into thorns, only a very low amount of water can evaporate from there leaf’s surface and the major amount of water is stored inside its body, therefore less amount of water is actually needed just like cactuses.
Further on those Petunias …
By: David Wade Chambers
Tags: Puerto Rico, Australia, Invasive Species, Gardening

Perfect response! I wasn't going to tell you this, but when my partner Paul read my long screed on invasive species, he (perhaps jokingly) opined that I may have just lost my new best friend. I told him not a chance, but then I got a little worried.

Your attitude to the problem sounds just about right. I think the magic piece of info that lets you off the hook is that in PR Cosmos sulphureus doesn't regenerate on its own, going from strength to strength. In other words, they apparently don;t demand a major niche in the ecosystem driving out natives, etc.

I did plant Cosmos one year in a front flower bed here and stragglers continued returning for about ten years thereafter. In Oz I could only find the yellow, white and red versions, whereas the orange were the only ones I really loved. Anyhow, being on the edge of the National Park means we are “forbidden” to grow any noxious weed (invasive species) on the list, other folk who live in towns, etc, are merely “enjoined” to avoid them.

I do have several plants that reseed every year and would expand their territory if I didn’t fairly rigorously weed them out each year. (see above) I admit that occasionally one comes back in exactly the ‘right’ place ornamentally, and I usually give it the nod just for the sake of beauty. You are quite right that boneseed posed a different level of threat. Also, I saw somewhere that Cosmos was first officially spotted in PR in the 18th century! Having originated in Mexico and spread a distance into the Carribbean, and both S. and N. America.

There is a great book (They All Ran Wild by Eric Rolls) on early invasive animal species in Oz, over a hundred of them, including camels, horses, foxes, cats, dogs, and of course famously rabbits, (which we still get and ruthlessly destroy the sweet little things). At the moment, the worst threat is a terrible toad slowly working its way south from Queensland. Cane toads became pests after being introduced into Australia to control destructive beetles in Queensland’s sugarcane crops. They are capable of poisoning native predators that try to eat them.

Well, perhaps that;s enough for the moment on invasive species . . . among friends, LOL.
TO THE POINT DISCUSSION OF PHENOMENAL BOOKS
Tags: Napoleon, Books, Hill, Short Story, Self Development

TO THE POINT DISCUSSION OF PHENOMENAL BOOKS

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Hello my dear friends, I am here to give you very short and simple paragraph on very famous international books.

I will write in short and simple format of every single chapter of the phenomenal books. So you don’t need to give your precious time in reading the complete books, i will provide brief of very important topics.

In short i will not give summary of complete book but summary of each chapter of book.Therefore you get the complete knowledge of that particular book in very little time.

so without wasting your time let’s start……..

Today we discuss about the great self development book

THINK AND GROW RICH BY NAPOLEON HILL

· By reading title, the first question arise that,

‘Is it possible to JUST THINK and grow RICH??!!!🧐

and answer is YESSSS, How???? Let’s see

· The Author, Napoleon hill studied not just 2 to 5 successful person of the world but studied 500 successful person and even more like

THOMAS A. EDISON, ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, HENRY FORD, GEORGE PARKER, KING GILLETTE…… it means he combine all the knowledge of the great personalities.

So it is not novel, the statement given by author is based on REALITY and FACTS, yess facts. Now let’s go to the first chapter,

INTRODUCTION: THE POWER OF THOUGHT

The man who THOUGHT his way into partnership with the great THOMAS A. EDISON.

‘truly’ thoughts are things, and when they mixed with purpose,persistence,burning desire their translation into riches.The man Edwin barnes wanted to work with Edison, not for him.

Psychologist said ‘when one is truly ready for a thing,it puts in its appearance’. But Barnes didn’t get partnership with Edison in first interview, but get a chance to work in his offices at normal wage though he didn’t disappointed for this,he was still thinking about partnership with Edison.

Finally the opportunity came, Edison prefected a new office device, Edison dictating machine.His salesmen were not enthusiastic over machine but Barnes was.He knew that i could sell and he sold it extremely successfully and Edison gave him CONTRACT for distribution and marketing.

Slogan was ‘MADE BY EDISON AND INSTALLED BY BARNES’. Barnes succeed, Initially he had no money to begin partnership with Edison,he had just THOUGHT, little education,purpose and great faith and will to win.

Thank you so much for reading, I’ll post brief of every chapter daily.I hope you all enjoy it and comment me on which book you want next post.
Why You Should Listen Charles Darwin?
By: The Despicable Hippie
Tags: Personal Growth, Self Improvement, Personal Development, Self Development, Self

Especially at a time like the one we are living in at the moment.

Photo by Joshua Woroniecki on Unsplash

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, it is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Covid-19 showed us how life can change quickly, how our economy, and life is fragile, we see merchants, who once had a good livelihood, from one moment to another, it’s over. Manifs take place in the streets all around the globe, because they are against the closure of the establishments and are left without money for food. But whose fault is it?

Over the years we have been witnessing several world crises, crises that brought poverty, hunger, death, but for some reason, we humans, continue to not change the way we live, until, a virus that we cannot see in the naked eye, “attacked”.

And right now, these are the main problems:

Having only one source of income is the worst thing, a person can have;

Businesses that do not have a year of expenses aside are the first to face bankruptcy;

The jobs that society said were deplorable, are now well regarded because at least there’s money to put food on the table;

People who didn’t have a savings account are now suffering the consequences.

And, last but not least, materialistic stuff doesn’t matter.

Don’t worry, I don’t blame you, at least, not entirely, you have some guilt, but not all. You and I were educated in an unorthodox way, a form of education that only serves to maintain the economic model, in which we are inserted, for many years, working for 50 (or more), and then go to retirement for a few years.

And, if we didn’t previously believe this, the pandemic came as a white-gloved stoner…but, as Darwin said, anyone who adapts well to change, wins.

We must not blame others for the mistakes we have made, if we are in an embarrassing situation, we must get out of it, and learn not to repeat it again. We should learn from our mistakes, and not expecting others to come and rescue us. We are our own rescue boat.

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Don’t Waste another Year
Tags: Motivation, Self Improvement, 2021 Trends, Motivational, Self Development

Don’t Waste another Year

Get ready for 2021

Most of us always thinking about the time we have wasted in 2020. But nobody thinks about that we are going to enter in 2021. It is a new opportunity to change our destiny. Each and every day was an opportunity to develop ourselves. So please don’t think about your past. We cannot change anything that happened in the past. But we could rewrite our future, by using the time in present.

Today is December 26. Almost we are in the end week of 2020. Let us use this week for analyse the 2020 experiences.

How you have been Worked, reacted for different things.

How did you use this 2020.

How to give you are in this year.

How did you feel in different situations and how did you handle that.

Like this, analyse everything you have faced in 2020, make a journal.

You could know what are the ups and downs of yourself. So use these things for your development in 2021.

My kind request is not to waste another year like 2020. Try something. Do something. But don’t Give up in any situation.

All the best
Influencers of Excellence
By: Tak Poon
Tags: Self Development, Self Improvement, Ascent, Change Your Mind

Influencers of Excellence

Curated with subscription from iStock

Recently, my millennial kids asked me, “Who had the most positive influence on you as a child?” Thinking about it, I felt extraordinarily lucky. I had many.

They seem to belong to one type — people who were excellent at what they did. Ordinary and extraordinary. From laborers on the street to astronauts on the Moon.

I was about 10, walking down the streets in Hong Kong. It was still a third-world level developing city then. There was this line of coolies along a sidewalk, weathered, dark, very thin but muscular and strong, squatting on their heels as if they were sitting on ergonomic cushions, some shoeless, all waiting for work at rock bottom wages.

Each of them had one piece of basic “equipment” — a 6-foot bamboo shaft cut lengthwise in half. The round part would be balanced on their calloused shoulders, the flat part holding rope-tied objects they were hired to carry, held in place by the bamboo ridges. The better capitalized coolies were also equipped with wicker baskets.

Modified from Vintage 1865–1870 Studio Photograph advertised on eBay. Unidentified photographer.

They would balance the loads perfectly, no matter how bulky or heavy, tilted to one side or levelled on both. They could negotiate their ways up and down narrow and dark stairways and treacherous muddy hillsides, swinging an arm out for balance.

Back then, these laborers were the heavy moving equipment for most people. A weak and skinny kid as I was, I so respected their physical labor. I admired how these hard-working men did the most and the best they could with what little they had, for as long as they could and had to.

Almost all of them had no education and no other skills. They did the only thing they knew, with great competence, for a livelihood. I considered that excellence. I still do.

Apparently, some of them had visions of a different future.
Musuh Terkuat
By: Kholisa Intan Rokhmana
Tags: Self Development, Improvement, We Can Do Better

A girl who loves to listen and write. Don’t worry, my life is big and full of surprises 🌃 #BersyukurSekarangAja
My Definition of Happiness
By: The Despicable Hippie
Tags: Personal Growth, Self Improvement, Personal Development, Self Development, Self

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Maybe each person has their own definition of Happiness, that’s fine by me, I don’t want to overlap my definition of Happiness with the other person definition, but maybe, there is someone looking for their own definition, which is why I write this article. That person can take his own ideas out of this, that’s fine by me, he can reformulate it to suit the life he/she wants to live, and that’s cool.

My definition of Happiness is:

What I think + What I say + What I do = Happiness

Even if it goes against the behavior that society says is normal. You are you, not society you lives in. You are in this planet to enjoy your life, not copying other’s people lives.

If you think you can change the world, you can. For example, my goal is, as an individual of universal society, not to repeat the mistake of Alexandria, where knowledge was only available to the Elite, and, because of that, they were unable to defend the library from destruction.

Knowledge is something that doesn’t belong to any social group, or even to anyone, it does belong to everyone. Everyone who lives on this planet has the right to know, with transparency, what has already been discovered, and not just those who have money.

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They call me antisocial…
By: The Despicable Hippie
Tags: Personal Growth, Self Improvement, Self Love, Personal Development, Self Development

…and I wave and smile…(even with mask on).

Photo by Nick Reynolds on Unsplash

But the truth is, I’m tired of small talks.

You may look at me, isolated from the group, in silence, but I listen what you talk about, and frankly, I prefer get lost in my head. The conversation inside my head is more interesting than the gossip you love.

I don’t think I’m better than anyone else, I’m quite the opposite, and I choose when to talk and with whom, I’m selective, you should try, someday.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a small village where everyone knows about everyone’s life, and I don’t enjoy that, I like my privacy, and this is why I am, like you say, antisocial, but thanks for the compliment.
The One That Succeeds Is The One That Puts In The Work
By: Paul Quinn
Tags: Self Improvement, Just Do It, Procrastination, Hustle, Self Development

Look at the picture at the top.

It’s me, on a black shirt, trying to point at something. Also, I have the 'I don’t give a fuck' look on my face.

Take a moment to think about the picture of myself at the top. Look at it. Think about it- deeply. I’ll give you 1 minute.

Did you see a ghost on the picture?

No?

Of course not. It’s a lie. Nothing 'weird' or interesting is happening on the picture except from the bitch face expression I’m wearing.

I’m telling you something here. There’s an underlying lesson.

The lesson is:

Stop thinking. Stop debating. Stop strategizing. Stop pondering. Stop overthinking.

You are slowing yourself down! You could of have finished reading this article already!

Stop thinking so deeply about things if you want to succeed.

Life is simple.

You want to have power? Money? Fame? A great body? Anything?

YOU already know what to do.

Put in the work. Stop overthinking. Stop procrastinating.

JUST DO IT. ❤️
What I Learned After Joining An INFP Group On Facebook
By: Alyssa Nicole Maaño
Tags: Self-awareness, Self Improvement, Personality, Self Development, Self

I came across the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) right after high school. I took Psychology as my major at a local college and around this time, I was consumed by the concept of understanding your personality and discovering your true self. From Carl Jung’s Archetypes to the Enneagram Types, humanity has been driven for hundreds of years to work for the same goal — to encapsulate the complexity of human personality into simplified models. Basically, a simple and better way to call ourselves.

When I first found out my MBTI type at 16 years old, I was ecstatic, to say the least. I never felt so understood in my whole life! As an angsty (self-absorbed) teenager, it was a huge relief to find a fitting explanation for why I felt everything way too much.

My results showed that I was an INFP. The Introverted (I), Intuitive (N), Feeling (F), Prospecting (P) type.

You’ve probably seen one of your friends put a combination of these letters in their Twitter or Instagram bio:

@mashedpotatoes

ENFP-A ✨ @thestrategist

INTJ-A ♚

Looks cool, right? But there has to be more to it than an interesting way of describing yourself. I’m sure Katharine and Isabel Briggs didn’t create this four-letter naming model just for fun. So what do these really acronyms mean?
This book changed my life.
By: Mind Yourself
Tags: Luck, Happiness, Book Recommendations, Life Lessons, Self Development

1.5 years ago, I found myself in a challenging period. I had just started studying and was surrounded by successful, driven and future-oriented fellow students. Everyone had a passion or a goal. The fact that I had not discovered mine made me feel undervalued and worthless.

I was so dissatisfied with my life and with myself and fell into a downward spiral. I forgot to take good care of myself, my standards and my values. I could not find my way out of this unhealthy lifestyle. Months passed, and the unhappy feeling persisted.

I tried a lot of things to overcome this feeling. I even talked to a professional. Still, I felt misunderstood and doomed.

One day, by accident, I read a review of the book “Solve for happy” by Mo Gawdat. I decided to buy the book and fully surrender to it. As dramatic as this sounds; it felt like my last salvation.

Reading this book was the beginning of improvement. Mo Gawdat shares his enormously personal story about the deepest valley in his life, the death of his beautiful son Ali. The book is touching and heartbreaking, but it gives you purpose and hope at the same time.

Mo Gawdat wrote this book with one mission: to help one billion people become happier.

The book has profoundly changed my perspective on several aspects of life, resulting in me being a much happier person. The book teaches you about the benefits of living in the present. It helps you to live in the moment. It gives you advise on forgetting pains of the past and on how to stop worrying about the future. Whenever I feel down or empty, I read through the book again. It motivates me to start the following week with a positive approach.

I recommend this book to anyone who feels the need to find happiness regardless of the obstacles and burdens of life. It will offer you inner peace, acceptance and happines. Find out for yourself, trust me, you will not be disappointed.
Be Smart or Looking Smart?
By: The Despicable Hippie
Tags: Personal Growth, Self Improvement, Personal Development, Self Development, Self

Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

Do you remember the episode of Friends, where Joey has to write a letter to the adoption service, in favor of Monica and Chandler, and use the dictionary in ALL the words contained in the document?

Welcome to the society you lives in!

It is how much of society behaves, instead of studying to be smart, they prefer to look smart, which is the biggest mistake anyone can make.

So, do not make this mistake, every single day of your life, try to learn anything new, you won’t regret!
Moving with Purpose
By: Erik Kennedy
Tags: New Year, Growth, Self Improvement, Self Development, Focus

Well, it’s official; 2020 is coming to an end. It has been a long year for many and most would agree this year has been notably more difficult than recent times. However your year went, the good news is it doesn’t matter. What does matter is today and everything you do from now on. Living a life where you act rather than react. If you had a second chance at life, what would you do differently? Most likely it would be all the things you are bullshitting or procrastinating at this very second. Living this way only sets our future self up for regret and disappointment.

We are capable of so many great things when we just put in the work. Although what do I know? I currently have no great accolades or achievements to make you believe this statement is true. So why bother listening to me? Well, it doesn’t matter if you do or don’t because the principle is the same regardless of whoever is communicating the message. I may not be able to get you to agree with me now but perhaps in the next 20 years, you will think otherwise. I will allow my actions to speak for myself and I recommend you do the same.

I want to clarify, you don’t need to feel obligated to do something as crazy as running a 100-mile race or starting a world-renowned business. Take notes on where you are currently in your life and what your goals and aspirations are for your future. This new year you could simply make an effort to go to the gym at least 3 times a week or reduce the amount of time you spend on social media and increase the amount of time you spend reading books. Often I feel the path towards bettering oneself can be overwhelming, but this is simply a flaw in our own perception. Starting small and working your way up is more admirable than trying to tackle unrealistic goals or routines. Whatever you want to do, just give it your best effort and don’t lie to yourself. You will thank yourself in the future. I’m writing this just as much for you, the reader, as I am for myself. Every single day is an opportunity to begin moving with purpose.

Thank you for reading.

Connect with me here:
I read 50 books this year. Here’s what I learned.
By: Aden Date
Tags: Self Development, Productivity, Reading, Books

There is no self-development advice less contentious than “read lots of books.” Dense, voluminous reading is a Silicon Valley-inhereted self development hack — Warren Buffett reportedly reads 500 pages a day, Bill Gates reads 50 books per year, and a young Elon Musk apparently read 10 hours a day. Blinkist has turned this obsession in to a business model, essentially claiming to be able to distil ideas in to simple propositions which can be transmitted in less time than it takes for an UberEats delivery to arrive.

I don’t feel any wiser having read a great deal this year. Elon Musk, reading ten hours a day, still feels it appropriate to call people paedophiles and make transphobic jokes over twitter. So — what gives? Does reading work?

If I learned one thing from all my reading this year, it’s that my mind is not a computer. It doesn’t download, store, and retrieve information like a server in cold storage. It certainly doesn’t transfer information in one go. If we want to get benefits from reading, we have to learn how to read like human beings rather than like computers. So, how do human beings read?

We can answer this question by looking for edge cases where reading is actually effective in promoting personal transformation. We can ask: Where and with who do we see evidence of deep learning as a result of engagement with texts and stories? The answer, of course, is in religious practice.

Buddhists not only read but meditate on Sutras through a specified process which involves multiple readings and cultivated psychological states. Aboriginal Australians, though not a written culture, maintained their stories through intergenerational processes connected to place, kin and meaning making — they also enacted their stories multimodally through movement and song. Christians read basically the same book over and over, and often spend hours discussing a single passage. They also have specific people who help them implement the book’s lessons in real life.

Reading works best when it is relevant to and applied within and through a shared lifeworld, repeated across time and enacted across different mediums, and done with cultivated attention and awareness. Christians called it Lectio Divina, but Deep Reading will do for secular purposes. You can think of Deep Reading as trying to read through a book, rather than simply read a book. Books are lenses on to which we can see our own lives and communities differently.

I was partly right with the old chair and the timeboxing, but otherwise I spent a year playing in the shallows.

No wonder that I don’t remember that the main theme of The Memory Police — which I read just three months ago — was about the importance of books for maintaining our history and memory.

My goal next year — read fewer books more deeply.
6 Things to Tell Yourself Every Day
By: Penelope Banks
Tags: Motivation, Self Improvement, Self Development, Self, Mental Health

6 Things to Tell Yourself Every Day

@thoughtcatalog

Every day when we wake up we have the chance to start over. Every day is a new day. A new beginning to do whatever you want. Not only that but, it’s also a good chance to program your mind to think better thoughts.

It doesn’t matter what you believe in, there is power in our words and in our thoughts. And I believe that small changes such as these can make a big difference in our mental health and everyday living.

Here are six things to tell yourself every day to help change your habit of thought:

1. Things Are Always Working Out for Me

Whether you believe this to be true at this moment in time or not, things are always working out for you. The more you tell yourself this, the more you believe it, and the more it shows in your experience.

2. I Am Worthy of Love

Everyone is worthy of love. Love doesn’t exclude you. And you need to remind yourself of that every day.

3. Don’t Try So Hard

Sometimes we think the harder we try, the more we can make things out to be just the way we want to be. But sometimes that effort is exhausting. Remind yourself not to try so hard and that it will all work itself out.

4. What’s Meant for Me Will Find Me

No matter where you are, what’s meant for you will find you. Say it out loud before you go to bed.

5. Money Will Meet Me Where I Am

Even if it doesn’t seem like it right now. There’s money out there for you. You just have to let yourself have it.

6. I’m Right Where I Need to Be

It may not be the most ideal situation, but you are right where you need to be. Even if it takes a while to see that. Sometimes we have to go through things, so we can grow through them.
It was just me.
Tags: Mistery, Self-awareness, Selfdevelopment, Selfcritical

It was just me.

The eyes of the people observed me as I walked towards my goal. Everything I did was not good enough for them, every step I took was a mistake. I listened to their voices, all of them making fun of me because I stumbled over the same stone again and again.

I started hating the people, they would never leave me alone. I made everything to prove them wrong. Every action I did was to that end. Until I realized that I was living for others and not for me. And it didn’t matter what I did they never changed, they were the same hateful bunch of individuals that paid more attention to someone else’s actions than their own. Their words were always like heavy rocks that I carried onto me and made my path incredibly hard.

However… one day, I was tired of all of the trash I had to take with me, and I did it… I threw the stones that I had on me to the people, so I could see their bleeding faces and mouths suffering after all I received from them. So when I turned around to taste my victory, I saw daylight coming from the areas I’ve hurled the rocks to. That light was being reflected by mirrors that formed some sort of dark cave I was walking through without even noticing it up until now… I was always alone… there was nobody around. The judgmental eyes, hateful faces and annoying voices were mine, and at that moment I realized it for the first time… it was just me all along.
Take What Works + Leave The Rest
By: Serena V Amoroso
Tags: Mindfulness, Spirituality, Self Development, Intuition, Mindset

Only you know what is best for you.

If I listened to other people’s opinions I wouldn’t have moved to Bali, started my business, risen in love or experienced most of the magic in my life.

SO it’s not about your mom, your boyfriend, me, your neighbor, the store clerk or the famous author.

It’s about you.

You listening to you.

That is the magic that will transform your life.

x Serena

@serenavamoroso

PS — learn how to connect with your own inner wisdom + intuition in Feminine Magnetism Course. DM for info.
Who Is In Your Inner Circle?
By: Louie Rahil
Tags: The Inner Circle, Success, Mastermind Group, Invest In Yourself, Self Development

Who Is In Your Inner Circle?

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

If you want to grow faster, you need to start investing in yourself. Investment in your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual growth is a must. Most people spend a lot of money feeding their bodies junk food and feeding their brains garbage. These habits block their personal and professional development and drain their mental energy.

Investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make. Investing in yourself can take different forms: learning a new language, mastering a new skill, taking a walk, visiting a museum, reading a book, hiring a coach, or repairing a broken relationship.

Improving your skills does not mean investing in another degree or another course. It could be as easy as reading a book or meeting a mentor. One of the most effective ways to invest in yourself is to surround yourself with people who are not afraid to hold you accountable. Engage in meaningful conversations that inspire you to rethink your position on some issues.

If you want to grow faster, we have a great community that I would like you to join, Action Taker Inner Circle. It is a mastermind where high performers go to get to their next level. They get access to a community, accountability, and resources. Join Now

Do the Work.
Are you tired of proprietary IT tools?
By: Debesh Choudhury
Tags: Open Source Software, Software Engineering, Technology, Self Development, Linux

Are you tired of proprietary IT tools?

Then, my friend, we are on the same boat. Adopt GNU/Linux, Free, and Open Source Software (FOSS) as early as possible. You won’t repent, I guarantee. I had adopted GNU/Linux and FOSS as early as 1999. I seldom (or never) use a single piece of proprietary software. My computing life has become so smooth and secure. I never experience malware and virus attacks. And I spend zero dollars on software!

Source: lewing@isc.tamu.edu Larry Ewing and The GIMP (GIF animation is by the author)

If you are interested in joining me on this learning journey, please don’t hesitate to write a comment or ask me any questions here, on Twitter or LinkedIn. Cheers, Debesh Choudhury.
What I’ve Learned From My Mother
By: Cindy Christella
Tags: Single Moms, Parenting, Self Love, Self Development, Mothers And Daughters

What I’ve Learned From My Mother

Take a step back and realize how much mother has already done in the family. My lovely mother is 40 years older than me and I am very positive she has learned her fair share of lessons and she knows me very well. Though I‘ve never really said this out loud, she had sacrificed a lot for my well-being.

Laugh hard because it is the best medicine. — Mother

Appreciation

Life can feel unfair, trust me. The worst thing I can do is to blame anyone, but no one is to blame. I’ve grown up in a broken home family since I was 4 but I had the best childhood memory. Have I ever missed a father figure in life? I don’t think so. It was not because I had an issue with my father but simply just because I had good people around me.

It feels easy to take out all that pent-up anger on my parents to whatever things turned out. But before I do that, I ask myself constantly whether I should take my parents for granted. After all, they are normal-human-beings who are putting big effort to take care of me, and instead of taking them for granted, don’t you think they deserve to be treated better or the same just like how you treat everybody else? Seriously. Be. Thankful.