Success strategies - Lotte Vesterli

Write a Journal

Lotte Vesterli on January 12, 2021

Are you writing a journal? It has known for centuries that journaling helps you deal with the questions and anxieties you are facing. Many great people through the ages have said that journaling was the most important way for them to handle the pressures of life and improve themselves.

For someone suffering from anxiety, the most important benefit of journaling is that when you write your worries down, some of the energy drains out of them. Negative thoughts about things you have written down will appear less or might completely disappear.

You can journal on your computer, on a mobile device or in a paper notebook. Try it and you will find it improves your life.

Spend Less Time on Your Phone

Lotte Vesterli on January 11, 2021

Are you aware of how you are spending your time? Your phone probably has some kind of “screen time” report – find it and look at how much you are using your phone and which apps.

If you are not happy with the amount of time you spend with your phone in hand, tell yourself you will reduce it slightly this week. Any number lower than the one for last week counts as a success. Simply stating a goal to yourself focuses your attention and affects your behavior. Try it this week and check your statistics next Monday. You’ll probably be surprised.

Send Good Thoughts

Lotte Vesterli on January 7, 2021

Events like those yesterday in Washington D.C. affect many of us, but we can do little about them. Angrily shouting down other people on social media affects you negatively and doesn’t help in any way.

One way to cope is to sit down, close your eyes and think of the people involved. Send them all your hopes for a peaceful resolution. If you are religious, you can pray to your god. Sending good thoughts will help you and might improve the world.

Make a Contribution

Lotte Vesterli on January 5, 2021

Before Christmas, A US policeman was called to a shop to arrest af family that hadn’t scanned all their groceries. They told him they didn’t have enough money to make a Christmas dinner for their children. He let them off with a warning, and then used his own money to purchase them a gift card so they could buy what they needed for their Christmas dinner.

Take inspiration from this story, and improve your life in 2021 by helping someone. Feeling that we make a difference is the single factor that most positively affect our image of ourselves. The effect is strongest if we can directly see the difference we make. That’s why contributing time to a homeless shelter improves your life more than donating money to an abstract cause. Find your way to make a difference.

Practice Media Self Defense

Lotte Vesterli on January 4, 2021

2021 is starting well with more and more people receiving one of the Covid vaccinations. But notice what your media is focusing on: Some rollouts don’t go as fast as planned. Some places faces shortages. One in a million get an allergic reaction to one of the vaccines.

It is obvious that even in the face of a positive trend, the negative messages gets priority. That affects your mental health. Especially if you suffer from anxiety or low self-esteem.

In 2021, you need to practice mental self defense. Every time you are tempted to click on a negative headline, pause for one long slow breath. You will find that most of the time, you don’t need to read that article. Every time you succeed in not clicking, you are winning.

Habit Tracking

Lotte Vesterli on December 30, 2020

If there is a habit you wold like to start, re-start or strengthen, maybe a physical calendar will help remind you to do it every day. Print out a calendar of the entire year and make a checkmark every day you did the action you are trying to turn into a habit. Reddit user Propelissa helpfully created one to print out for your 2021 checkmarks: https://i.imgur.com/7JQNGs9.jpg. Ready, set, go!

Review Your Year

Lotte Vesterli on December 29, 2020

It is a good idea to review your life regularly, and the time between Christmas and New Year is a good time for a long-term review. This year, you will find that many of your plans and intentions from 12 months ago went out the window because of the strange year we’ve had.

Don’t beat yourself up that you didn’t achieve your goals this year. The purpose of a goal is not to achieve that specific thing, but to inspire you to move towards a better future. One of my goals involved public speaking, and I was not able to speak for as many people as I wished. But because I had the goal, I was inspired to seek out other opportunities to get my message out, and I’ve been running online presentations and meetups instead.

Reflect on your year, let go of all the things that weren’t possible, and re-live all the positive things that did happen.

Listen to the Forest

Lotte Vesterli on December 23, 2020

Walking in nature and hearing the sounds of the leaves rustling and the birds singing is good for your health. It strengthens your immune system and decreases feelings of anxiety and depression.

If you don’t have a forest nearby, the next best thing is to take a walk wherever you are while listening to the sounds of the forest. Volunteers all over the world have recorded the sounds of their local forests, so even if you are walking in a mundane suburb, you can still have the sounds of the Sebangua Nature Park on Borneo in your ears. Walk, listen, and dream of the time when we can again roam the world.

See a world map full of woodland sounds here:

https://timberfestival.org.uk/soundsoftheforest-soundmap/

Cook Something This Christmas

Lotte Vesterli on December 22, 2020

Christmas comes with many food traditions – special cakes and cookies, and things you only make for Christmas dinner. You are probably not going to large family Christmas gatherings this year, so that’s an opportunity to cook or bake something yourself. You don’t need to roast a duck – just find an easy recipe for something that belongs to Christmas.

Cooking and baking is a place where you can safely accumulate successes, and success – any success – is the antidote to anxiety and low self-worth. Make something, learn, and feel good. Merry Christmas!