Being the VIP of Your Own Life: The End of the Course
What Was This All About?
Life skills course has taught us which things we can affect to make our everyday lives run smoother and feel better. We have tried to map out our needs, values, and life goals to understand better what good life is made of.
To make use of what you learned during the Life skills course, you can reread the course contents anytime. You can revise, make the exercises, and remember how you have been feeling. It’s a good idea to think back and find the things that have helped you move forward before. Maybe these skills can be useful in the future too?
Know the Things That Energise Your Everyday Life
The Life skills course has given you different methods and tools to affect your own energy levels. We all our come from own backgrounds and have different paths of life, our own strengths and weaknesses. Make your own strengths, resources, and the good things in your life work for you to improve your wellbeing! Your resources give your everyday life energy. They can be your own traits or related to your environment.
Good human relationships, having an organised disposition, the ability to relax, the ability to plan ahead, or a shopkeeper who gives you discount on the bread might all be your resources. When you recognise the exact things that are working in your life and are your strengths, you can use them extensively.
Resources are a bit like natural resources: they wear out but are constantly renewing. Remember to use all your resources widely. They help you to act in a responsible way, like you’re in control of yourself and your life.
Make Use of Affirmations
Affirmations are a way of changing your thoughts and beliefs. It’s conscious harnessing of the power of the mind. Affirmations are a method of reassuring yourself of a thought you have chosen. Affirmations help us see things the way we choose. They can be general mottos in our lives or encourage us when we face challenges.
You can write down an affirmation and carry it in your wallet, put it on your refrigerator door, have it in your diary, or see it clearly in your mind, always ready for use when needed.
My Own Resources
When You Face Challenges, Use a Problem-solving Approach
Setbacks and challenges are part of everyday life. By having a problem-solving approach to challenges, you focus on what’s working already. You will notice even the small steps that take you towards your goal. The aim of the problem-solving approach is to move forward and avoid blame.
Three principles of the problem-solving approach are:
- Only fix what is broken.
- Do more of the thing that works for you.
- Do less of the thing that doesn’t work for you.
When you face challenges, find out first what the problem is about and which things have affected it.
You can have problems in different areas of your life:
- Human relationships: losses and grief, role conflicts, changes in roles, longing
- studies or work
- problems with motivation
- health issues
- making a living
- everyday life
Problems tend to build up and attract each other. If you have trouble making ends meet, your thoughts are concentrated on paying the bills and surviving financially. Then it might be difficult to concentrate on your studies which again has a negative effect. You might not have the energy to contact your friends, and this might make your relationships suffer.
You can move forward by using problem-solving and resource approaches:
- Focus on what is working. The thing you focus on will increase.
- You have all the resources you need to make change or resolve a problem. Just do your best, everything you can do right now.
- You are the expert on yourself, your work, and your human relationships. You know what is good for you.
- Aseta tavoitteet itse, oman tahtosi ja toiveidesi mukaisesti. Set your goals yourself, according to your wishes and needs.
- There are many ways to solve a problem. Find out-of-the-box solutions.
- Playfulness, humour, creativity, and positivity play an important role in finding new solutions.
- Even a big problem can be solved by making small changes.
- It is more useful to have a mental image about the solution than to concentrate on the past.
- When problem solving, use your own and others’ experiences.
- Solve problems together with others.
- Remember to give feedback to everyone involved in the solving process.
- Thank yourself and everyone involved.
My Ways to Survive
Dare to dream
Dreaming is the ability to imagine what life could be like at its best. Creativity, creating and developing new things require the ability to dream. To reach your dreams, it’s important to accept where you come from. A person reaching their dreams must be responsible for their own feelings, thoughts, values, and attitude, their current situation, life choices, and dealing with them.
You should also consider your friends, family, and situation in life, and sometimes make hard decisions. Our dreams push us to create new things and they let us grow as people. If we deny our dreams, we don’t live life to the fullest. It’s a good idea to stop, let our thoughts run wild, and ask: What kind of life do I want to live? The journey towards the dream can be amazing even though the dream doesn’t come true. Dreaming itself gives your everyday life energy. You will know yourself better and find an inner goal as you take steps towards the dream.
Processing your dreams
You can process your dreams in different ways, like by using a treasure map or dream path. When your daily needs are met, you will have resources to build your future and dream. If you feel like you can’t come up with any dreams, try approaching this subject from a different angle. What are your goals for example in 10 years? Where has life taken you then?
Goals express things that are meaningful to you and they can be related to your dreams. Think about your values and needs. What would your everyday life be like if your most important needs were fulfilled, and you lived completely according to your values? What would your ideal life be like?
By thinking about the things you find valuable, great, or worth having, you get closer to your dreams. Your dreams can be small or big fantasies about your current situation in life. No matter what they are like, they’re your own and right just as they are.
Goals take you forward
Having realistic and reachable goals you can get closer to your dreams. There’s no need to fulfil all dreams, but you can change your life so that it matches your dreams better. Divide your big goals into smaller goals in between and always reward yourself as you take steps forward. Schedule your time as you plan motivating goals for your life. Practise and change your objectives as you go. It’s natural that your goals change as your journey continues. Allow yourself to change and develop.
Your good life
Take care of yourself and tell yourself that you are important. Learn to be gentle and encouraging towards yourself. Remember that you’re worth it. Notice when you’ve succeeded or made positive change.
Be positively curious about life even if it doesn’t go according to the plan. Don’t let setbacks bring you down but try to see them as learning experiences. They are a part of learning new things. Learn to accept yourself. Be patient, honest, and gentle with yourself especially when you’re changing your thoughts, ways of acting, and lifestyle. Remind yourself that you are good enough right now and as you are. You have the right to be seen, heard, and accepted exactly as you are.