Soul: Life is very short and it is important to find the moments that feed you soul and your happiness. Activities that can feed your soul could be as simple as spending time with your friends and your family. Traveling is also a good way to step away from the craziness of life and be one with yourself and calmness.

Here are 5 great ideas to feed your soul and enjoy life:

• Explore and join a travel group
  • Travel Noir’s mission is to make travel more readily available and appealing to people of color and to provide a community and space for black travelers.
• Paint n’ Sip Night with your friends
  • Paint n’ Sips have been popping up all over as more and more people have enjoyed the experience of art and wine. It is a great way to relax with your friends and let your mind drift as you attempt a masterpiece.
• Spirituality is a very important aspect of feeding your soul
  • There are many people who have not found their connection to the universe and others. You may have grown up with religion and have found your place or you may have grown up with it but feel displaced. There are also those who have not found proof and therefore do not believe. It is important to build your own personal connection and if you question it to find the answers and get your self to a place of acceptance and understanding.
  • A good start is to simply download the Bible app. The bible app is a quick and easy way to start small and get into a guided reading plan.
• Family Gathering
  • Family is the one thing that you don’t choose and you are born with and even if you don’t have a good relationship with them there are connections to them that are just embedded in your history.
  • If you have built a family outside of the family you were given or even just haven’t seen your family in a while it is a good idea to just gather with your family or take a trip to appreciate the ties you have built over time.
• Take a solo trip and do something you enjoy
  • Many people are afraid of going places by them selves and do not know how to be comfortable in their own skin.
  • A solo trip is a great way to do an activity that you love and just challenge yourself to be comfortable on your own. Examples could be just going to a dance class on your own or even going to an art exhibit. Challenge yourself to get outside of your comfort zone.

Body: The body is an integral part of self-care. It acts as a machine that can boost you towards optimal performance or sink you depending on how well you care for your body. Mindfulness of what you eat, your daily activity, and what you put on your body is imperative to proper self-care.

Here are 5 tips to boost your body towards optimal performance:

• Follow the cardinal rule: too much of one thing is never good.
  • A more balanced meal with smaller portions will go a long way towards healthy eating.
• Don’t have time to think of a balanced meal?
  • Try services like Hello Fresh and Blue Apron where you can pick out the meal that you want and then the meal is mailed to you with all the ingredients and instructions needed to create the dish.
• Use Meditation as a tool to relax both your mind and your body.
  • Try apps like headspace to get guided mediations right on your phone.
• Exercise or activity is an essential way to ensure that the systems in your body are moving and fluid.
  • If you don’t have the money for a gym membership there are plenty of free workouts available on You Tube
  • Walking every day is a good way to tart introducing activity into your life.
• Mindfulness of what is put on your body is important because anything that is put onto the body can make its way into your blood stream. There are so many harmful chemicals in different products that sometimes simplifying and using organic oils and butters can be way more beneficial then the chemical cocktails available at your local drugstore.
  • Black soap for the body, coconut oil and shea butter are great organic essentials to add to your body care.

Comment down below your best body care tips!

Life is a journey and sometimes it moves so quickly that it is hard to take a moment for self-care. Self care is important because if a moment isn’t taken to re-boot and re-energize then you may find yourself stuck in a rut in your work, in your spirit, or in your mind. Self-care cleanses your senses, opens up your, mind and resets your body to allow room for better focus and higher energy. Do you have the tools to get yourself to perform optimally everyday? Do you have the tools to re-energize when you are burnt out?

Here are a few self-care tips to reboot your mind:

Mind: The mind is an important aspect of our beings. It is so complex that today we are still learning about the capacities of our mind. The most important fact of our mind is that we hold the power to change our brain and how well it works. Your brain is so powerful that even in a normal day it is being reshaped. By engaging different aspects of your brain at the same time and making neurons fire together through your work, learning, and meditating and more you are permanently rewiring your brain to work more quickly and efficiently. It is with regular stimulation that you can form a habit and teach your brain to work in a completely different way. For example, if you strive to move your life in a different direction and you want to pick up skills that you did not have before it is as easy as constantly immersing yourself in the new activity to create new pathways and fire neurons in your brain.

It is with this in mind that it is important to keep learning and filling your mind with motivation. Studying and emulating the people who have made it is a great way to learn and guide your path to success. Put yourself on a social media freeze and instead invest that time into your growth. Some things that you can do during that time is to read a stimulating or educational book, listen to an educational or motivational podcast, or even watch a documentary or webinar to learn something new.

5 book recommendations to stimulate your mind in a positive direction:

1. The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris – This book is an oldie as it was published in 2009 but it still has valuable gems for time management. In the book Tim Ferris explains how he went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month with a 4 hour week.
2. Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun, and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes – Shonda Rhymes as you may or may not know is the creative genius behind Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and the executive producer of How To Get Away With Murder. Rhimes’ Year of Yes explores her life and journey towards exploring, empowering, and loving her true self.
3. Mistakes I Made at Work: 25 Influential Women Reflect on What They Got out of Getting It Wrong – Mistakes I Made At Work is the perfect book for professional women who are just starting out their careers, seeking to advance their themselves at work. Jessica Basal interviews 25 successful women and how they recovered and grew from their mistakes.
4. Get Over Your Damn Self: The No-BS Blueprint to Building a Life-Changing Business by Romi Neustadt – Get Over Your Damn Self is a no-nonsense direct life reboot. In this book, Neustadt teaches the best way to manifest the power that’s already within you to build the life that you desire.
5. The Little Black Book of Success: Laws of Leadership for Black Women by Elaine Meryl Brown Marsha Haygood and Rhonda Joy McLean – The Little Black Book of Success is the ultimate guide for navigating the business world as a black woman. It provides highly beneficial advice from three highly successful executives as they act as your “mentor in your pocket”

Comment down below and let me know how you take care of your mind!

It is very easy to get stuck in ideas and stuck in what you think you need to get started today. All you see is the present and the insurmountable gap between where you are now and your future self. How can you jump this hurdle and realize your dreams? It is a lot simpler than what you make it to be and it is as simple as starting today. Life isn’t about being perfect and having everything right this moment. It is a process and you will fail, you will learn, and you will get better. Starting today is progress because you will have more today than you did yesterday. Starting today is also intentional because by putting your intentions into the universe and moving towards your goal eventually there will be alignment.

Today, you need to do research, collect what you have and move your life into the direction of your dreams. Today, you need to put your intention into the universe that your future self is attainable and it is as simple as research, setting your goals, starting today, and completing your goals one step at a time. It’s easy to get frustrated, lose motivation and not progress and it’s hard to challenge yourself. Nothing in life will come easy and you will only get the success you deserve by starting now.