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50 Things to Do When You Feel Down

Everybody has the right to be a little sad sometimes. It’s only human. But it’s also important to make sure you have some sort of backup plan when you fall into a bad mood that you can’t get out of. Here are 50 ideas for what you can do:

1. Watch a funny movie.
2. Drink some well-brewed coffee.
3. Cuddle with your pets.
4. Dress up and go out with friends.
5. Have a good cry.
6. Have a good laugh.
7. Talk to your mom.
8. Read a book.
9. Take a walk in the park and feed the ducks.
10. Take a warm bath with bubbles and candles.
11. Stalk #kittensofinstagram (or #puppiesofinstagram).
12. Watch some Love Island!
13. Order in your favorite food and have a feast with an episode of Friends.
14. Have a solo dance party (a la Cristina Yang from Grey’s Anatomy).
15. Go for a nighttime drive.
16. Complain about how life sucks with your bestie.
17. Go to a café and people-watch.
18. Get a massage.
19. Spring clean your space and chuck the negativity out (followed by #19).
20. Redecorate!
21. Sing along to Disney songs.
22. Get some fresh flowers for your apartment.
23. Plan a holiday.
24. Watch funny YouTubers (Dan Howell, Emma Chamberlain, Community Channel).
25. Paint, or draw.
26. Buy a journal and write out your thoughts.
27. Volunteer at your local soup kitchen or animal center.
28. Try crazy makeup and hairstyle looks for fun.
29. Have a sleepover with your friends!
30. Treat yourself to a nice dinner and a movie at the cinema.
31. Play some video games to get that anger and frustration out.
32. Grab a cup of your favorite drink and watch the view from your nearest roof.
33. Read quotes that motivate and inspire you.
34. Go stationary shopping, because who doesn’t love stationary?
35. Play board games with your family.
36. Plan for your next day to be the best day ever (what you’ll wear, what you’ll do, where you’ll go).
37. Have a picnic in your balcony.
38. Watch NASA’s livestream.
39. Give someone a gift.
40. Try aromatherapy.
41. Cook your favorite meal.
42. Research and set a new goal.
43. Go to the beach.
44. Create an extravagant meal and eat it all.
45. Go for a run with your favorite workout clothes on.
46. Read your old journals or look at your old pictures and have a giggle.
47. Browse Bloglovin’ and find a new blog you love.
48. Listen to an album or a podcast you love.
49. Swim in your nearest ocean, pool, or lake.
50. Sleep.

What do you like to do when you feel blue?

10 Wishlist Destinations for Every 20-Something Girl

I love traveling. And I know pretty much everybody says that, but I’m one of those people that is so travel-obsessed that I avoid movies and TV shows where the character gets to travel a lot because I get jealous of them. Sad, but true.

Unfortunately, since I am only in my early twenties and bound by this little thing called “getting an education”, I don’t really get the opportunity to go to very many places. My finances are limited and my parents are strict about me wafting off alone to somewhere I’ve never been before. So to tame my wanderlust, I often daydream about the places I’d love to go to someday. Here is a wishlist of my top 10 places I would kill to visit and I think every girl in her 20’s should go to at least once (in no particular order):

1. New York City, United States of America: it’s weird when you haven’t ever been to a place but you feel like you belong there. That’s how I feel about big cities, and The Big Apple is no different. The tall, glassy buildings; the busy streets; Central Park…everything about it seems so appealing. It seems like the sort of place that you’re always exploring and never getting bored of, because there’s always something new to find. And being an avid Gossip Girl watcher doesn’t help my wanderlust either!
2. Paris, France: when I think of Paris, I always think about visiting it with my mom. I don’t know why, but it just seems like the kind of place we would enjoy the most together. I can picture us having an evening walk on the cobbled streets with the Eiffel Tower twinkling in the background, and nothing seems better. The food, the history, and the architecture amongst many things is something I refuse to miss out on in the duration of my life.
3. Venice, Italy: although I’ve heard mixed reviews about this one, you definitely can’t deny that there’s no city that could compare to Venice. Predicted to eventually sink, it has got to be a top priority in everybody’s destination wishlist. I mean, imagine visiting a place that won’t exist in a couple hundred years!
4. Mallorca, Spain: one of my very close friends is from Mallorca, and I literally foam at the mouth every time she shows me pictures of the island. The water is so blue that it looks photoshopped, and it houses the Love Island villa, so that pretty much sells it for me.
   
5. Tokyo, Japan: I am SO smitten by Japan. They have beautiful mountains – and hello cherry blossom trees! I also adore how put together everyone seems there, with perfect hair and perfect skin and perfect outfits.
6. Plovdiv, Bulgaria: I’m going to be honest and tell you that the two reasons Bulgaria was on my wishlist was because a) my best friend lives there, and b) Nina Dobrev is Bulgarian and I love her. However, after some research, I fell in love with the subtle beauty of the country. I want to visit Plovdiv in particular because of my friend, but Verna and Sophia seem just as stunning.
7. Honolulu, United States of America: listen, man, just hand me a hula skirt, a lei, and a coconut bra and I’ll be on my way. Surfing lessons and evening bonfires galore! Visiting Hawaii would be a dream.
8. Bali, Indonesia: I feel like places like Bali should be travelled to alone. I hate to go all Eat, Pray, Love on you, but seriously. All I want to do is hop on a plane there. I want to ride elephants, do yoga with treefrogs, sub dive to see the coral reefs…the possibilities really do seem endless.
   
9. Mykonos, Greece: I got a serious case of itchy feet when I first saw pictures of Mykonos. It looks like one carefully curated Instagram picture, with its perfect ocean and white houses with the blue roofs. I mean, just look at it. Who wouldn’t want to go there?!
10. Anchorage, United States of America: I love the cold, and although I’ve never actually seen snow in real life, I’m convinced I love snow too. I’d like to go to Anchorage in Alaska in the winters. This is probably me asking to die of hypothermia and frostbite, but I don’t care. I just want to stay inside a cabin with a fireplace and an endless supply of hot chocolate and my two cats, and watch romcoms all day long.

Where do you want to go most right now?

The Ultimate Study Guide for Getting Straight As

Guess who’s done with her junior year of university and will probably definitely be spending the next three months in ratty pajamas eating Nutella out of the jar and binging Love Island? OH YEAH, BABY, IT’S ME. I can’t believe it’s come to this. Nine months of late nights on my uncomfortable desk, more breakdowns than I can count, and unlimited cups of coffee (although lets be real, I would have drank them regardless)…all leading to a pretty great GPA, if I say so myself. Can I get a heck yeah?

I wanted to spread some of my wisdom around on how I achieved that, because believe it or not, I haven’t always been a great learner. I was always more of a doer than a thinker, but this past semester, I’ve really had to discipline myself and get my grades up at any chance of a future that doesn’t involve relying on my parents for the rest of my life. So somehow, I managed to get it together and the results were quite favorable! Here are my top tips on how to study and get As in your classes:

1. Get into the right mindset. And no, that does not mean watching all the Harry Potter scenes where Hermione is studying to give you “#inspo”. You need to write down exactly why you’re doing this. A good job? A better life? More knowledge on a subject you love? What’s pushing you? Why are you spending so much money and time on this? There has to be a reason why you are where you are. Figure out what it is and let it drive you.
2. Gather all your supplies. When I was younger and I used to buy pretty stationary to use whilst studying, my mom always used to tell me that it was a waste of time, and I should be more focused on the actual content rather than making it look nice. But what she didn’t realize was that using colors and pretty glitter pens that smelt like fruit actually got me in the mood to study. What I’m trying to say is: you do you. Get the craziest patterned notebooks, or pastel markers, or whatever floats your boat. Personally, I like to have blank paper, flashcards, different colored highlighters and pens, and a binder with clear pockets to organize everything in.
   
3. Read and highlight. Whatever resource your instructor has given you, read it all and highlight the important bits. At this stage, you just need to be able to distinguish the important information from the airy-fairy bits. Don’t worry about learning or memorizing anything. Just take it all in.
4. Write the important information you’ve highlighted in an organized way. This step is crucial, because the stuff you write down is the stuff you’re going to learn. Don’t go crazy and copy the entire textbook, but also check, then double-check, that you haven’t left anything important out. If you’ve taken notes in class, incorporate them into your writing, too. Essentially all you’re doing here is making notes. Make sure you paraphrase what the textbook says, because you want to make sure you’re not just passively reading and writing, but rather actually understanding the material.
5. Concise the information further and transfer it onto flashcards. I love me a good ol’ deck of flashcards. There’s just something satisfying about the way they all align and make you look oh-so-studious. Luckily, not only do they look très chic, but they also allow you to have your information handy at pretty much all times. Of course, this step isn’t necessary, and if you’re happy with your A4-sized notes you can stick to them, but I’ve found carrying flashcards around is really convenient. Sometimes, I’ll be out with friends, or having dinner with the family, and whip my cards out to review some terms for a couple minutes. After that, I just slip them back into my bag and pretend like nothing ever happened. Except – hey! I now know what year the Ottoman Empire fell! So the verdict is: yes to the flashcards.
   
6. Use practice tests. Ask your instructor for some, or find some online. If nothing is available, make your own. This would be best done between stages 4 and 5; just pop open a word document, write a few questions down, and forget about them until this step. All this does is make you feel better about knowing the information, and allows you to realize if you have any gaps in your knowledge.
7. Organize all your stuff in a binder. Personally, I LOVE keeping everything neat and tidy, so that means I store everything from my revision sessions, especially if I’m going to be tested on it more than once. I like to keep a copy of the chapter, the notes I wrote, as well as the flashcards all in one place, just in case I need to revisit it. You can do that, or you just throw everything out after your exam. Do what feels right, boo.

Some bonus tips would be to always have a water bottle around so you’re hydrated (I use a 1000ml one), light a candle to get the atmosphere like mine from H&M Home, and a pet to motivate you whenever you feel like you’re about to give up.

That’s it from me! Go forth and test, my friends. Of course, I’m only just learning the ways of the smart student, so if you guys have any tips, let me know below?

 

How to Achieve Any Goal with a Vision Board

Here’s the thing, you guys: I really don’t believe in tarot cards and horoscopes and fortune tellers and all that other “put it out into the universe” stuff. It’s fun, but I don’t think it’s accurate at all. I do, however, believe that your perspective in situations is one of the biggest driving forces in getting what you want, and that you should use any tools you can to solidify that perspective. In my experience, the most successful of those tools is the vision board.

The premise of the vision board is to be able to visualize, preferably on a daily basis, your ideal outcome of a situation. Today, I’m going to be focusing on creating a vision board for your ideal life within a timeframe. But it’s not as simple as cutting out a bunch of pictures and slapping them on a piece of card all willy-nilly. You have to be in the correct headspace for it. I’ll try and explain it in non-Oprah Winfrey terms: if you don’t have the mindset to move forward, this isn’t for you. Even though vision boards are meant to be “magical” and attract everything you put on there, nothing’s going to happen if all you do is sit in your butt and binge Netflix all day. In fact, this is one of the few times that a Hallmark quote is actually true: “dreams don’t work unless you do”.

Now that we’ve moved past the background bits, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty…

1. Set a timeframe. You need to know when you want to achieve your goals by generally, whether that is a six month, year-long, or even five year period. Something to keep in mind is that longer your timeframe, the more vague your vision board will be, so try to keep it between twelve to eighteen months so that you have something more precise to work towards.
2. Categorise the sections of your life. Some examples of that could be family & friends, health & fitness, travel, career, and so on. Whatever you find important in your life, whatever you want to move forward in and achieve more for, consider it a category.
3. Set your goals. Within your category, write down everything you can and would like to achieve in your timeframe. By all means, be ambitious, but don’t set yourself up for disappointment. Recognize your potential and work within the means of that. For example, if I had a goal of losing 200 pounds in six months, I know for a fact that’s not going to happen, leading me to getting annoyed and discouraged for even trying, and eventually scrapping the rest of my targets. So set good goals! I’ve made a quick printable PDF for you guys, so just save it to your computer and print it out to use as a guideline.
4. Find pictures. Tumblr, Pinterest, magazines, Google images, even your own photos…the possibilities are endless. Pick whatever inspires you, or pushes you to achieve your targets. You can also personalize your board, such as by choosing photos with the same color schemes or filters to create an art piece for your wall. Beware, though, because it might decrease the practicality of it.
5. Put it all together! Another thing you can do is have a virtual copy of your board and set it as your phone or computer wallpaper, ensuring that you see it multiple times a day.

I hope this was helpful! If you guys want another post about me talking about my goals particular, let me know in the comments below.

What sort of goals will you be putting on your board?