It Costs Nothing To Smile
I'm sure that if you're reading this post, you've had your fair share of bad days. And when life is doing its best to beat us down, it sometimes feels like the last thing we have in the tank is a smile. But it's important for our mental health to fight that feeling and keep smiling, even when we don't feel like it!
It seems counterintuitive at first — after all, how can smiling make us feel any worse? The truth is that forcing yourself on something like this can often be more effective than just trying to ignore your troubles.
Here are a few tips for building up your smile muscle when you don't feel like smiling:
- When you hear a joke, see something funny or see someone who seems to be happy, smile. It will make you feel better just knowing that someone is out there having a good time in the world.
- Break the habit of shutting of your mind. Opinions are important and helpful (see next tip) but it can be difficult to find the right balance between being too judgmental and not caring enough about people's lives (even if it's hard to believe at first).
- Take a moment to remind yourself why you are upset. Is it about something that can be easily fixed? If so, fix it! If not, try to remind yourself of how everyone and everything else will be fine once you've found a solution.
- Don't let people get into your head. This is easier said than done, but you don't want to build up layers of anxiety about every little thing in the world. As long as these kinds of thoughts stay in your mind and don't creep out into the real world, they're fine! But if they start affecting more than just thinking mode, then it's time to work on them before they affect your emotions or physical health.
- Try to see the positive in everything. There will always be things that can be fixed and things that can't, but it's important to remember that there is a difference between the two. It's OK to be upset about something that you can fix while also being happy that everything else is still fine.
- Tear down anything negative in your life until you don't see a positive! Negative stress is literally stress poison and will only do more harm than good. What do you need to get rid of? I recommend starting with any beliefs or opinions in your head about situations around you (especially if those beliefs are not based on fact).
- Talk to someone positive and balanced. Stay off of the deep end, but make sure you have a trusted friend or counselor where you can go to if you need help.
- Always remember that life is short and that we can only be happy for so long before things get back on track. Be patient with yourself and the world around you, but remember that there's only one real magic number in life: one—it doesn't matter if you do it in your own time or not.
- And most important of all: lean into the experience, just try to enjoy it!
Thinking about smiling? Do it! As silly as this strategy sounds, there's definitely some truth to it. It has been shown in studies that forced positive thinking can actually be an effective therapy. If someone tells you to "think happy thoughts," they really mean "think positive. If you think positive, you'll smile, and if you smile and try to hold it for a second or two, you'll start to feel better and your thoughts will become more positive. If this doesn't work, don't worry. I've found that logical thinking usually does the trick. But remember: there's one other way to get rid of negative thoughts: ignore them! Don't focus on the things that are really just trying to distract you from having fun. Focus on the less important things and you'll be fine. Good luck!
Will you be smiling today? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Title: Unsolicited Advice (And A Miracle)
Now that we're all on the same page, I'm going to turn this topic over to you. You see, I've been getting a lot of messages lately asking me how many times each person can send an unsolicited email to a company before it becomes too much. When I get such questions in my inbox, I always do my best to answer. But today was different from most days: I got more than a few messages about this specific topic, so let's chat about it for a little bit here.
First of all, I get it. You're sending more than just a one-off email to a business, and you're wondering if you might be annoying them. But think about it like this: even if you were annoying them, they can't block you or erase your comments. So while they're not obligated to respond, they are obligated to listen. And that's the key here: unsolicited emails are a great way for companies to get feedback from their customers without having to wait for online reviews and without having to set up surveys and whatnot (which tends to lead people towards extreme feedback). It can also help them improve both their products and their policies in the future.
All of that is why it's important to remember that while you're writing these emails, they are worth something to the company. They are a chance to connect with your customers and make them feel like you're really interested in their thoughts. If you send an email, then it really doesn't matter if they respond right away or at all. Just keep on sending them because you have every right to share what's on your mind!
However, there is one thing that just about every business has in common: the desire for happy customers with great experiences. If a company's products and policies aren't meeting those needs, then they'll end up not getting any more of your money. And that's really the end goal of all these emails you're sending: you want to see the company change their policies or improve their products so that you can be happy with them.
So what do you need to do if that isn't happening? Well, there are probably a few different strategies out there and I'm sure that many people have already tried some of them.
Conclusion
Over the long term, we can choose to make conscious decisions about the effects of our actions on other people. That's why it's so important to go through our day and determine what we did or didn't do right. Usually, any action you took that you would find in negative is one that should change in the future.
Keep this in mind and try to think before you act! We can also use social media to voice our opinions without directly affecting another person. This is great for situations like a bad review on Yelp or when sharing an article in Facebook threads.