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Days like these #oldtown #mangomagarita (at Old Town Tequila Factory) https://www.instagram.com/p/BvIEW1GgTLXrtEZpC4yfY7wRaLUUs0uRKnwaEI0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=7sh2iba60dx4

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Fall lover

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Vegan Chocolate Chip Banana Bread with Peanut Butter Frosting

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This is the best Vanilla Buttercream Frosting recipe. It’s so versatile, you can use it for just about anything. Made with just a handful of ingredients, this frosting comes together in a snap.

https://www.bakedbyanintrovert.com/basic-vanilla-buttercream-frosting/

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it is! x

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Self-Motivation

I have had a huge amount of people messaging me asking how they can be motivated to revise for exams, or to work when they get home. Here’s a post with some tips that will hopefully help you guys out!

JUST START: Maybe you are lying on the sofa watching Netflix, on your phone warm in bed, or curled up with a great book. The hardest thing to do is to start working when you just don’t want to, but if you ‘just start’ it can really flip your attitude. The process of cleaning up your desk and getting your books out to study can focus your mind, and get your head in the right place ready to work and revise. I often find that if I just start, it immediately becomes a lot easier to keep going.

SET GOALS AND FOCUS: It is really hard to motivate yourself if you have no set goal or aspiration to aim for and accomplish. By setting yourself goals you give yourself a reason to work, and this will immediately increase your motivation. Once you know what you are aiming for, try and keep those goals in the back of your mind all the time, and use them whenever you are feeling demotivated. Don’t be shy or conservative with these goals either - aim and dream big!

TRACK YOUR PROGRESS: Keeping a journal, or just some type of daily reminder of what you are aiming for and what progress you have made so far will really help you maintain your motivation. Being able to write down your thoughts will help organise the things you have to do, and reading through it at times when you’re feeling demotivated will help stimulate you and remind you why you are working so hard. It will also allow you to see how far you have come, motivating you to keep going in the same productive and positive direction, giving you a sense of achievement.

DON’T WORK ALONE: It can be hard to motivate yourself to work sometimes, so having a study-partner to give you that extra ‘push’ on the days you don’t feel so motivated can be invaluable. You don’t have to necessarily work with them, as you may work more efficiently alone; but having that person that you can rely on to tell you when you are procrastinating will really help just get you going.

FIND YOUR MANTRA: I have found that you can really get yourself motivated a lot, just by telling yourself that you are good enough, and that you can and will accomplish what you are aiming for. Make yourself a mantra which you can say to yourself to motivate yourself. It doesn’t have to be long or complex at all, just a little phrase or quote that you can write down, think in your head etc. to get yourself wanting to start studying.

SPLIT UP TASKS: If you sit down at your desk with an absolutely huge project to complete you will feel demotivated, and it would be easy to just think that there’s no point in starting to attempt the huge task. Instead, split up larger pieces of work into small chunks. This will make each individual task a lot more manageable, and it will mean you can ‘tick-off’ more tasks from your to-do list, which will give you a greater sense of achievement, motivating you more.

REWARD YOURSELF: It can be really hard to just study or revise all day. If you set rewards for yourself then these can be used to motivate yourself to work through the things you have to do, and finish all your tasks. These rewards can be anything; from allowing yourself to go out with friends in the afternoon/evening, or having a piece of chocolate cake if you finish all your homework.

HOLD YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE: You can do this by making a public announcement of your goals/aspirations in a big way, or just by telling your parents that you are going to be revising for the next 3 hours. As long as you tell someone else, then you will be held accountable. The people you told know that you are meant to be studying/working and will be expecting you to be doing so, this will therefore make you motivated to work and stick to what you said you were going to do.

LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES: Everyone makes mistakes - it is completely normal and expected/ The key thing to do is not to lose motivation and feel bad for yourself. You need to accept the bad result/outcome, and choose to learn from it. Analyse your actions leading up to the mistake/bad test result etc. and see what you can do better next time. If you are feeling bad about it, then let yourself really feel it, and use that as motivation - to never have to feel like that again. 

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                                      Work hard in silence

Sometimes you get so excited when you start a new diet or workout program that you want to tell everyone, assuming they’ll be just as excited for you.

It can be shocking to find out there are a lot of critical people out there who will plant seeds of doubt in your mind with negative comments. They might pick at you for saying no to processed foods like cake and pizza or complain about your time in the gym.

This is why it’s often better to remain silent about your efforts to develop new habits. Your results and success will speak volumes – so much so that critics won’t have a leg to stand on with their negativity.