Tag: experiences

Motivational Monday: Staying True to Your Values

Values are what you hold true in your life. As you mature, your values make you into who you are and you’ll put the energy from those values into everything you do-at work, in your relationships and within yourself. When you stay true to your values it shows outwardly who you are as a person. The things you value in life show other’s what is important to you. It is good to find people who value the same things as you.
Below are some of my values in life:

Spending time with loved ones.
Being appreciative and respectful toward others.
Staying positive in any situation.
What are your values in life and what do they mean to you?

Motivational Monday: Celebrate Life

People all want the same things in life which are to be happy, overcome struggles, find themselves, and be surrounded by people who love and support you and have great times turn into great memories.
For anyone who celebrates birthdays, always remember to treat every day as good as a birthday. You should celebrate being alive today. There is always something good in every day whether it’s something you did for someone or something someone said to you or something you did for yourself. Treating yourself as good as you treat others is can make a difference in your own happiness. Think of what you would say to a friend in a time of need and repeat that to yourself.

Wake up each morning to decide that today will be worth it. Any struggles you’re facing can always be worked through. As long as you don’t let your struggles diminish you, you can get to a point where the struggles you face today, won’t be your struggles for tomorrow.

There will always be a balance of struggle and celebration in life. If you can recognize the work you’re doing to win against the struggles than that in itself is a celebration of life. ❤

The Importance of Dressing For Yourself

Today, I’m sharing the three key factors when it comes to dressing for yourself: Comfort, Body Figure and Personality. Since you are unique, you should dress it! Dressing for yourself says a lot about you and it can shift the mindset of the life you want to live.
I believe you should dress for:

Comfort-Find clothes that you feel comfortable in. These are pieces you can wear all day long without anticipating when you’ll be able to go home to change into something more comfortable. One of my favorite things to buy are cardigans because they are comfortable and functional (keeping me warm). And, while I love the look of an off the shoulder top, the tops do not work for me because the shoulders ride up, so I don’t buy them. Instead I go for other trends like bell sleeves.

Body Figure-If a piece of clothing is too tight, loose, long, short or does not fit correctly, don’t buy it…unless you plan to tailor it. See more in this blog post about tailoring tips: Tips For Your Next Clothes Shopping Trip You’ll want your clothes to have the right amount of looseness to them, so that the clothes flatter your figure. They should push away from your body instead of pull inward which makes the material pull in multiple places. Pay attention to small details on clothes like if you should be wearing a petite or tall. Clothing brands will always range in size and style, so it is okay if you range in sizes, remember the important thing is that the clothes fit you, not what size you’re wearing.
Personality-Dress in what you LOVE! If you love a certain color, style, trend, print or pattern then buy it. Incorporate pieces that work with the items you love. Personally, I love a lot of floral pieces such as pants and shirts which I then ground with neutral cardigans.

Why I Enjoy Eating Simple & Healthy Meals

This week I made an easy delicious yet healthy dinner and if you’ve read any of my other Tuesday food posts, you’ll see that this is a weekly theme.
The ingredients for this meal were: Garlic naan, tomatoes, kale, and chicken with pomegranate vinaigrette.

This meal was simple to prepare because I bought a rotisserie chicken which I tore apart, cooked the kale in water and olive oil, sliced up tomatoes and cooked them, warmed the garlic naan in the oven and put all the ingredients together on the bread and poured the pomegranate vinaigrette over top. This took less than 30 minutes to make.


The next night, I reheated the meal, added a small avocado and topped it with everything seasoning. It tasted so good this way, too! The beauty of this dish is that you can add many ingredients to make it new again, which is why it’s a staple dish.

simplemeals1
The reason why I enjoy eating a meal like this is because I get to eat what I want while still eating my vegetables. And, anyone can make this dish. I treated it like it was a personal pizza. While I LOVE pizza and eat it from time to time, I also enjoy coming up with new dishes that satisfy me the same way a pizza would. I encourage you to try this too, all you have to do is think about ways you can alter your favorite dishes to make in a new healthier way at home. Doing this will make you more excited about cooking and eager to try something new for dinner.

Tip: I’ve learned to treat cooking as a way to relax my mind. Anytime I need a break from working on something or need to clear my mind, I find that cooking focuses my mind.

What’s one staple dish you’ve reinvented? Would you eat the dish I’ve posted? Let me know in the comments below.

Motivational Monday-The Keys to Success

If you continually say to yourself, “I’m going to be a …. (Insert title here)” and are taking the necessary steps to get there then someday you will be what you say. There are so many people in this world that will tell you no or that you can’t do something or be what you want because it’s too hard. The key to success and staying happy is to keep going. Eventually, someone will say yes. It may not be right now or even in the near future but at some point someone will tell you yes. The key is just to keep telling yourself yes even if you don’t know how you’re going to get there. If you want something bad enough, you’ll make a plan for how to make things happen. Little by little, spread out that plan into achievable goals. Start with small goals and see how things are going. Once the small goals are being managed, add on more goals and plan how to execute them. This can be anything from starting new career goals to personal goals that will enhance your happiness. Doing things that make you happy will ultimately lead to future success.

What are your keys to success? Let me know 🙂

The Art of Browsing Clothing Stores

Whenever you’re feeling the urge to go shopping but don’t want to spend money, you can browse your favorite stores. In my lifetime I’ve worked in two malls. I often found myself shopping after work and since I would shop in my favorite stores consistently, I would see when the stores would have the best sales. I also got to see how long it would take an item to go on markdown.
*In the picture I’m wearing a beautiful dress from LOFT that I just LOVE! I’m waiting for it to go on sale so I can wear it all summer!

Here are my tips for browsing clothing stores:

Shop full priced items when the new product hits the floor. This is the perfect time to try on your size. Most stores will have at least 3 or more clothing items of your size available when the item is brand new. Trying on the items now allows you to see what items you like and what fits properly. By browsing the store and trying on clothes it really gives you the opportunity to think about what you’ll wear the item with, how it fits into your wardrobe and how often you’ll wear it. Want more tips? LINK TO SHOPPING TIPS.

My three favorite sales are 1. The ones where an item is on markdown AND it’s 40% or more off. 2. Final Sale Items because this is the lowest prices you’ll find in the store. I’ve found some great final sale items for $9! 3. Buy one, get one free! With all three sales you can find some really amazing deals and it won’t cost a fortune to update your wardrobe. In order to purchase from these sales it may take some waiting but that’s okay because if you’ve done your browsing ahead of time then by the time these sales hit you’ll be able to purchase from them.

Watch the merchandise’s cycle. New merchandise is always set up in the front of stores. This means it has a while before it will go on markdown. However, it will go on a percentage off sale at some point, so if you don’t want to wait for markdown, wait for it go on sale or until you receive a coupon in the mail. If the item is in the back of the store that means it’s been in the store for a while and it will go on markdown soon.

Another great reason for browsing is if you know you’ll be getting a coupon in the mail soon-whether it’s a birthday coupon, store cash or you have a coupon already but it can’t be used for another week/month. So, if you don’t want to wait until the day the coupon is active, start browsing now and you won’t have to wonder what you’ll buy when the time comes.
My ONLY exception to browsing, is if you LOVE IT, BUY IT. If you really can’t wait for the item to go on sale then buy it!

Do you browse stores often? What are your tips for browsing? What are your favorite stores to shop? Please let me know in the comments below or on social media! IG: Stylestomakeyousmile FB Page: Stylestomakeyousmile

Motivational Monday: Staying Present

The biggest lesson life has taught me is to always be in the present. With so much noise in the world-social media, news, stress, emergencies, etc. it can be difficult to stayed focused. The key is to bring yourself back down to a calm state of mind. Listen to the noises around you instead of the thoughts bearing your mind. Focus on your surroundings-look out a window to see that life is moving on. Breathe. Focus on your breathe by taking a huge breath in and letting it all go without thinking about anything. Do this until your body and mind are calm.
I have learned that doing these things to focus my mind on staying present can work in any situation. No matter if I’m having trouble going to sleep at night because my mind is racing or if I’m in a stress related incident.

What are the tools you use to stay in the present? Please let me know in the comments below!

Motivational Monday: You Heal Yourself in Time

Ever hear that saying, Time Heals All? I grew up listening to Dr. Phil and his saying of, “Time doesn’t heal all wounds it’s what you do in this time that matters.” I’ve always remembered this saying growing up and at 31 I can say that it’s true. It doesn’t matter how much time passes in life, if you don’t do the work to make yourself a better version of yourself you’ll always be the same. You’re the only one who can write your own story and if you choose to continue down the same path for a number of years then that just means time passed and you didn’t do anything to change within that time and time healed nothing. But if you take the time to better yourself by finding new perspectives on life then you’ll change.
Again, you’re the only one who can write your own story. Sure, there will be obstacles in your life that will change the path of your journey. If you recognize those challenges as a positive and take the right steps to face them, your life will change.
You heal yourself in time when you’re ready and willing to do the work to change for the better ❤
What’s your opinion on “time heals all”?

The Smarter Shopper Series

Today, I want to introduce my new series: The Smarter Shopper. A new blog post will be posted every Wednesday from now until May! Here are some of the posts I’ll be sharing with you all:

The Art of Browsing
How to Have a Positive Experience in the Fitting Room
The Ultimate Way to Organize Your Closet

In 2011 (the year after I graduated college) I began writing this series. Now that I have the platform of my blog to share with you all, I’m so excited and hope you’ll find the content interesting and insightful. I created this content as a way of sharing my love of fashion, shopping and knowledge on the retail industry to help anyone who struggles with the enjoyment of clothes shopping.
If you know me personally or have read my About Me page on my blog, I have YEARS of experience in retail. My first job as a teenager was a sales associate at a local family owned department store and that’s when I realized I loved helping people find clothes/shoes/accessories they love and look great in. Now that I have my blog, I’m transferring my passion for shopping here in hopes you’ll look at clothes shopping in a positive perspective.

See you back here on Wednesday. ❤

Please let me know in the comments, what do you like or dislike about shopping? Let me know if you want me to cover anything specific in this series so that I can better help you enjoy clothes shopping.

Motivational Monday: Balance & Gratitude

I recently had a weekend that reminded me of how I got to where I am today. It wasn’t at all pretty having a negative experience to remind me of the struggles I face daily such as things like, living on a tight budget, saving money for future purchases but yet spending some money to do things that bring me happiness. It’s been hard but I’ve learned how to balance my finances with saving and spending AND not feeling guilty when I spend money on things that bring me joy-I mean I do only have one life, right?
The biggest realization I made this weekend after having a negative experience was simple, to let it go. Just let it be what it is, move on and think about something else. You can’t change the past. I’ve learned that when I put all my energy into something positive it makes me think about that instead of sitting around upset about the past.

Life will always move on. Just look outside, the world is always spinning, seasons changing. As long as you can find a balance within your experiences-by having a negative experience turn positive-you will always be able to succeed balance within yourself.

Gratitude:
I’d like to say thank you to everyone who read, liked, commented or followed me after reading: Lessons I’ve Learned at 31  When I started my blog the goal was to provide Realistic Lifestyle for Everyone. I want to create blog posts that are relatable to you all and I felt like I received a positive response from this post, so thank you ❤ My goal is to provide more posts like this and hope that you’ll learn something new along with gaining a new perspective on life.

How do you find balance within and your life and what’s something you’re grateful for? Please let me know in the comments or on social media! IG: @stylestomakeyousmile FB Page: Styles To Make You Smile

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