The way I think of the term ‘glow up,’ is of any person who finds the true potential of themselves, appreciates it and uses it.
‘Glowing up’ can also come in the form of mental or physical. But there is loads of information out there about a physical ‘glow up’ and what products to use to maintain one’s appearance, but hardly any on a mental ‘glow up.’
In order to feel great about your outward appearance, you need to start from within and love your inner self.
So, today I will be filling that gap of information and providing you with some great, actionable ideas to grow yourself mentally.
This will be the first part of my two-part mind glow up series consisting of:
– ‘Self love’ mental glow up (this post)
– ‘Self development’ mental glow up
In the second section of these series (Self-development mental glow up) I will be focussing more on enriching your mind, ways to make you more knowledgeable, level up your organisation skills and put you on the road to becoming more independent.
But before you read that I would recommend for you to read this post as it provides the building blocks of bettering yourself and the ‘Self-development’ post enhances on that.
1. Start incorporating good habits and getting rid of bad one’s
I would suggest not to do this all in one go because then you’ll feel too pressurised and then may end up just completely quitting on making better habits for yourself.
This productivity hack is a great way to start getting used to better habits. It only takes 5 minutes and in that time you will get yourself started on a task and overall, become more productive to accomplish things during the day.
Begin with identifying some habits that you would like to change; let’s use waking up late as an example.
If you wake up at noon but you want to start waking up at 8am, you need to start putting some changes in place such as sleeping earlier and not putting the alarm on snooze.
Telling yourself that you will wake up at 8am, after weeks of sleep-ins is just setting yourself up for failure.
Some say it takes 21 days to change a habit, others say 14 days; regardless, making little consistent changes is key.
2. Get into some calming activities that you can do alone
Some great examples of this may be learning how to draw or paint, trying out some new recipes or even getting into yoga.
Why not try getting into a different genre or world of films?
Studio Ghibli movies are beautiful movies that have a sense of childhood innocence running in all of its stories. Their movies definitely are the perfect pick to curl op on a rainy day and watch.
Check out this list of some of the best Studio Ghibli movies to watch!
Of course, you can do these things with other people as well but the joy of doing it independently is so soothing to the mind and is probably one of the greatest self-care activities I can recommend.
3. Heal your past pains/ anxieties
Time flies and with it the past becomes only a memory, so you should let go of that one moment or few moments from the past that has been haunting you all this time!
Understand that as humans we are constantly growing and learning and the best thing to do is learn from our mistakes instead of wasting time over them.
To put it bluntly, there’s really nothing you can do about that issue anymore, so learn from it and move on!
If you find that stressing over these type of things is quite common for you, read how to control you stress when you’re having a meltdown.
I show you 5 proactive steps that helps alleviate that stress but also helps you get through it and deal with it successfully.
4. Realise your own beauty
There are so many beauty trends nowadays; there was a time when it was attractive for a woman to be thin and the current trend now is to have curvy bodies.
This has helped me realise that beauty comes in many forms; trends are constantly changing and through it all you are still beautiful.
Learn to love both your mind and body as it is now.
5. Learn self-respect
As you begin to appreciate yourself you’ll also find that you have a certain respect for yourself.
For example, you may have worked hard at a certain project or stopped yourself from going to a place you should not be at.
You will realise your strength when you think about the great aspects of yourself, and soon will understand your true worth and will know how you want other people to treat you.
6. Create a scrapbook/ album/ journal/ vision board etc.
Here’s a quick list of ideas:
Scrapbook/ journal: travel journal, scrapbooks of memories with friends, gratitude journal, scrapbook of interests (e.g. your art work, along with images of art you really love etc.)
Vision board: dream house, dream career, the goals you want to complete
7. Practice gratitude and positive affirmations
Even if it’s very occasional, it is good to think about what you are grateful for because it really helps to ground you and appreciate what you have even if things are going wrong.
Positive affirmations are a set of phrases or sentences that you repeat to yourself to uplift yourself such as repeating ‘I am strong,’ or ‘I understand my worth.’
I understand that while saying positive affirmations out loud may work for many people and there are many of you reading this who haven’t tried this or perhaps don’t even believe that this will work.
But on the days when you really feel down, try saying some affirmations – you’ll find that saying these phrases to yourself really makes you feel in control of your life and you start to assimilate what you are saying to yourself.
8. Have a de-clutter session
One of the most satisfying feelings is to tidy up and have a clean room/ house after weeks of messiness.
Along with finding out you have a lot more space in your house than you thought before, this helps to clear your mind and make you more organised.
During this process, you can also try switching up the layout of your house by moving furniture around or giving the dull walls a lick of paint.
9. Laugh
Slightly cringe thing to say I know, but when you’re feeling down try and find something you can laugh to; scientifically, laughing releases endorphins and makes you feel happier and therefore, is a great self-care activity!
Following on from this, realise that you should try to do the things that make you happy especially.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to ignore what everyone else wants to do but it means that if relaxing at home with a good book is what you want to do rather than going to some event your friends are pestering you to go to you can say no, and not feel bad about it.
10. Write a letter to yourself
It can be to your future self a year from now, five years from now or even 10!
It can be like a diary entry or a letter in which you appreciate yourself and practice gratitude, or you can just talk about what’s happening in your life and have a casual conversation with the future you.
Whatever it is, this can be a very meditative activity!
11. Set goals for mental growth
Identify the areas in you which you think are not as great as they could be; for example, you may not be very confident or maybe your perfectionism makes you waste a lot of time.
And then again, like changing habits, start small. Take smalls steps to become stronger mentally – talk to one of your friend’s friend who you’ve never met before or push the tasks you couldn’t complete today for tomorrow.
Have an intention or a goal for each day and aim to complete it by the day’s end. Do this regularly, review your progress regularly and feel proud for working on yourself!
Again, check out the second part of this Mind ‘Glow-up’ Series where I show so you some effective ways to become smarter, better and more in control of your life.
It will address the different ways you can improve different aspects of your life as well as giving you bonus tasks to complete that will help you along in your glow up.
12. Research self-care tips, and make a list of the things that you think you would really enjoy!
Bonus idea: look for self-care ideas related to your personality type! E.g. just type self care ideas for ENFP’s on Google and it should come up.
If you have no idea of what this ‘ENFP’ is, take the ‘myers and briggs test’ (just type this on google) and it will generate you four letters that will reveal your personality type.
13. Start your own plant/ herb garden
Gardening isn’t something that your grandparents just do. If you find that you feel restless often, or you find your mind racing a lot, indulge yourself in a calming activity.
Gardening is just one idea, and can be very therapeutic as you just concentrate on the task ahead of you and nothing else.
14. Meditate
There are loads of apps and videos on meditation ranging from being as short as 1 minute meditations to a few hours of meditation; there are also guided videos or just meditation music to listen to.
Maybe one day try some meditation in the morning (wow how many times did I just say meditation?). This one small action can shift a day of possible negativity to thinking positively throughout the day.
15. Don’t mindlessly scroll on your phone/ take detox breaks
It’s easy to get into a zombie-like scrolling spree on your phone when you have nothing to do, but it might actually be that having nothing to do is better than scrolling on your phone.
Going on your phone for hours and hours, and constantly refreshing social media pages makes you sluggish and ultimately you may find yourself comparing your life to the people who show only the picture perfect part of their lives on social media.
When you start finding yourself comparing yourself to someone you follow on Instagram, or if you feel like you need to be on your phone all the time that’s when you need to start taking detox breaks from your phone.
Remember that people only show the best part of their lives on social media, and you shouldn’t be spending your life following theirs. Everyone has their own path, and no one is perfect.
16. Create a good morning and evening routine
Scheduling in things to do as soon as you wake up, or just before you sleep can be forms of self-care.
As well as completing skin care, put in some time to write in your journal in the morning or read a book for half an hour before sleeping.
If you’re just starting along with creating a morning routine, I’ve already done you the task of trying different routines and steps and basically failing at all of them.
In the end of all this though, I did find some realistic things that you can do every day without overcomplicating your morning.
Check out this post showing you 8 realistic things to set you up for the day. They are very simple and easy things to do because ain’t nobody got time to be making an acai bowl every day.
Your welcome 😉
17. Invest in self-growth books
Self-growth books may be a way for you to build yourself; they can be filled with quotes, exercises and activities and help you grow and appreciate yourself as you are.
18. Call a friend
Sometimes all you need is a good catch–up with an old friend, and having a laugh for about two hours while snacking in bed.
Even introverts need people to talk to and speaking to a friend you haven’t seen in a while may be especially refreshing.
19. Stop talking to certain people
If someone is pulling you down, making you feel bad about yourself, isn’t supportive of you, and overall just has bad vibes you need to let them go.
I understand it might be easier said than done, especially if the toxic person is someone that has been in your life for a long time, so at the very least limit the amount of times you see or speak to them.
Then, surround yourself with positive people who uplift you. These are the type of people who will support you in reaching your full potential.
20. Stop sugar coating
Instead of forcing yourself to go and do something because everyone is telling you to do it, just say no.
And don’t give excuses and try to be nice about it. Doing this actually may make you doubt yourself, and over think what you said to them. ‘Was I too rude?’ ‘Should I have just gone?’
It doesn’t matter. As I said before, if going out on a Saturday night isn’t your thing don’t feel pressurised to do it.
Don’t feel bad about saying no, it isn’t you trying to be rude to be your friends, you just don’t want to go out, that’s it. If they are your friends, they’ll understand but if they get upset by that I suggest you visit no. 19 on this post. 🙂
21. Don’t be running after other people
This is so important; do not run after the popular group, your friends, fashion trends, beauty trends or that person you like who is not giving you the same attention back.
Running after other people and waiting for their approval is like saying ‘I’m going to stop my life here and go follow someone else’s for now.’
It’s almost the same as following people on social media; either way, this feeling of wanting approval from somewhere else than yourself is toxic for you and will stunt your self-growth.
Instead, walk through own life and enjoy the scenery.
You’ve probably noticed by now that self-love is all about yourself! (I bet there are some of you thinking ‘well duh’).
But I just wanted to highlight that because too many times there is something moving us away from ourselves whether it is work obligations, social media and at the simplest, not spending time alone.
One of the first steps to glowing up mentally is to start focussing on you! Realise that you are existing in this world as yourself and no one else so it is essential that you make yourself happy before everyone else.
Once you appreciate who you are then you’ll notice that your actions towards others change for the better also.
From this, you can then work on another part of your mind which is to become smarter; this doesn’t necessarily mean academically smarter, but becoming more aware of your surroundings and using your time more effectively to benefit you.
Check out part two of this two-part Mind Glow up series to build on what you’ve hopefully learned in this post, but also to help you become smarter with the way you approach life.
