how to romanticize your life & have main character energy DAILY.

(upbeat music) Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to a Better You Podcast hosted by yours, truly, Fernanda Ramirez. I am feeling all types of ways today. Let me tell you, it is a beautiful day, it is sunny, I'm feeling energetic, I'm feeling hopeful, excited, and I'm so happy that you clicked on this episode. This is actually my first time shooting a podcast episode, and if I'm being honest with you, I'm kind of shaking. I'm a little bit nervous. I feel like my voice is a little bit trumbly. Most of you may know me from YouTube, and if you do, welcome. I love you guys. I feel at home when I imagine talking to my existing audience. If you are new to this, or you're listening to this for the first time, you're just like, "Mana, I'm gonna see what this is about. Welcome, hello." So as you know, I have a channel on YouTube, and I've been doing that for the past three years, and I absolutely love it, but I've gotten really comfortable talking very quickly, very engaging, and just kind of speaking with purpose, rather than taking my time to explain, really focusing on what I'm thinking about, pretending that I'm talking to a friend, having a conversation. It's just something that I'm not really used to, because I am only showing like 10 minutes of my whole day, whereas a podcast is more like 40 minutes into your thoughts, which is a lot more intimate, and kind of vulnerable. And so this is not something that I'm used to, and I've realized while practicing to film this podcast, because when I tell you I've tried to refill this episode multiple times, it's making me realize that I need to get better at this skill. This is something that I'm not used to. This is definitely a new venture for me, and I'm so excited to get into filming these episodes for you guys, because honestly, if you know me in real life, all my friends, my boyfriend, my family, they're probably like, girl, we do not need to listen to you talk for another 40 minutes, because I am chatting up their ears, and if you know me in person, you probably know that I love to talk. I'm probably not the girl to wrap things up and wanna go home early, like I will stay until that dinner day is over, until that coffee date is over, because I just wanna keep chatting and having a good time. As a YouTuber, I live alone, I work alone, and since I moved out, all my friends are like 45 minutes away for me, so I spend a lot of time alone. I am always in my apartment, and I actually don't know how there's some people that will like post on TikTok saying, when it's 3 p.m. and you live alone, and it's your first time using your voice, and it's kinda like shocking, I don't understand how people are just like, in silence with themselves at home, because when I tell you, I am talking to myself all freaking day, I'm not lying, I will be singing, I will listen to a YouTube video, pause it, and reflect on what they just said, out loud, anyways, I'm always talking, and so now that I have a place to do it, it just feels so, like it was meant to be. That's how I feel. For my first episode of this podcast, I was really thinking about what I wanted to talk about, because obviously this is kind of like the first impression of my podcast, and there may be a lot of new eyes on here, or new impressions, and I was like, "What's something that I can talk about "that will kind of relate to everyone, "that anyone can take a little piece of advice from, "and that I feel comfortable talking about for a while." So I decided that in this episode, we are going to be talking about how to romanticize your life, how to be the main character, how to live your life to the fullest, because that is something that I feel like I try to embody every single day, obviously that's the goal. I feel like all of my friends feel the same way, and I'm sure that you do too. I mean, there may be times where I feel sad, and you know, you kind of dwell on your own situation, or something that is not doing you justice, and I am definitely not one to judge you for that, because I myself can sometimes be quite the complainer, but obviously, I think in the back of our head, we all kind of have the same goal of wanting to live our life to the fullest, wanting to romanticize our life, wanting to feel like that movie is our life, and we're not just like watching other people live it for us, but rather it's us ourselves. And sometimes, especially, I feel like in this age of just watching other people online, we can get really comfortable living through other people, and that can be fun sometimes, but I want to talk about ways that we can take our lives into our own hands and romanticize our life, and the little things that we do every single day, and I've come up with a whole bunch of ideas, and even some of my own ways that I do this, so that I can explain with you guys, and we can just have a little chat about it. Let's get on into it, first of all, what does it mean to romanticize your life? I feel like it's a term that we throw around a lot, and we'll see it in movies, we'll see it in TikToks, but genuinely, what does it mean? Now, I searched it up online, 'cause sometimes I like to do this thing, or I'll have a thought, and I'll just search it up, to kind of get confirmation of what I'm thinking, or just to figure it out, and more just like a solid idea, than something I came up in my head. And so on the internet, it says that "Romanticizing your life" means focusing on your own goals and achieving them. "Romanticizing your life" allows you to embrace change, learn new things, and helps you grow into yourself. I feel like that's a pretty long explanation, but in my head, everything that you're doing is with intention, and you find the beauty and the little things, and you're being super grateful, and you're just like happy to be alive. A lot of times, we feel that there's no need to be extra, or there's no need to celebrate, or why would you put the effort into making something look nice when it's just for you, but doing those little things makes you excited about life, and makes you excited for the next day, and literally waking up in the morning is like a reason to be grateful, because a lot of people don't get the privilege to age, and a lot of people don't get to wake up to their next day, or they don't have their health, or they don't have a roof over their head. So to me, that is what "Romanticizing your life" means, and I feel like this is a tool, or like, kind of like an idea that you can tap into, when things in your life are not necessarily up to your expectations. I don't know if that made sense. For example, you're in school, and you're just like, "I freaking hate this. I don't wanna be here, but using this little tool, you can kind of romanticize it, and pretend you're like, in a movie, or you're in Gilmer Girls, or you're maybe in a staging your life or you're transitioning, and I don't know, or you're like pretending you're in a Disney movie, transitioning life periods, and there's like a slow song in the background. I don't know, okay, what I'm trying to say is, when something I feel like in your life is not ideal, or it's kind of boring, it's kind of mundane, and you're just thinking like, "Oh, what's next? What's the next thing gonna be?" Like, "Oh, I just can't wait for this thing to be over." You are just like not even living your days to the fullest. So, by romanticizing it, each day will be epic, and you'll be grateful and happy to be alive. I might have just talked in the circle, but anyways, that is what I was trying to say. I wanted to talk about a few examples of how I would do this in my life. Ever since I was younger, I was blessed with very, just like optimistic and positive parents, and let me just say, my mom is a Libra, and I'm a Libra, and I think I got a lot of my Libra traits from her, and if you're not into zodiac signs or astrology, or I don't know, you're like a guy listening to this for some reason, that's probably like, "Oh my God, here she goes again, talking about astrology." Yeah, I am, okay? She's a Libra, and Libras are known for being very aesthetically pleasing, for being kind of like daydreamers, hopeless romantics, and they love things to be pretty and balanced, and just overall aesthetic, okay? She is the CEO of that. Ever since I was younger, for every single season, she would have new, cutlery, new plates, new decorations for her house, and the seasons would feel so special to me, because every season would come with like, a new set of decorations in my house, or like a new set of recipes, or a new set of bed sheets. Anything like that, she would have. I feel like that has planted the seed in my head since I was younger to really embrace the seasons, and put effort into what you're doing, because it makes you feel good, and I myself, I feel like have taken that, I've taken that into my own hands as I've grown up, and everything that I do, I like it to look good. Another example would be, ever since I was younger, my mom would always tell me to wear a jewelry to do my hair nice to wear a cute outfit, and although that may not be everyone's cup of tea, because obviously comfort over style, you know, it's not everyone's vibe, it did kind of get me to romanticize like going to school, or maybe running errands, or going to a family event, because I was excited to put my outfit together, I was excited to do my hair, I was excited to get my little earrings, my rings, my jewelry, match everything together, I was just excited to look cute. I show up to this wherever I'm going in confidence, if you feel good on the outside, you feel good on the inside, everything is just a higher vibe. That would be another example, and I think a third example would probably be, oh my gosh, I have a good one. She would always listen to music when we were doing chores, and if you didn't know this about me, I am Mexican. My parents moved to Canada, I think probably like 25 years ago now, I feel like we could honestly make a whole episode of this on its own, where like I reflect on the fact that I'm probably the widest washed. Mexican, not by choice, okay, not by choice, but because I don't visit Mexico that often, and even though I do speak Spanish at home, I don't practice it regularly, a lot of my family members are in Mexico, Vancouver doesn't really have that big of a Latin American population compared to places like the US. Anyways, one of the things that brings me back to, I guess, my culture would be that my mom would always be playing Mexican music in the background, and I'd never even thought twice about it until now that I'm older, and I don't live with them, and I'm like, you know what, I kind of miss when my mom would play Mexican music, it would be so loud while she'd be cleaning. It honestly would make the entire house in a good mood. Like, I don't think that you could be sad while you're listening to a metangue in the background. Like, I actually don't think it's possible. She'd be cleaning, she'd be singing, she'd be dancing. My mom and my dad would start dancing in the living room. That kind of thing was romanticizing the idea of cleaning, something that you don't wanna do, you're kind of lazy to do it. It's obviously not a fun chore. Click at this button and you're playing music. You just wanna dance, you wanna keep going. You don't even wanna stop. That's the vibe I'm trying to be. Now that I grow older, whenever I'm cleaning or I'm doing something that I don't wanna do, I always play music to match the vibe, and it gets me so excited, and it makes you feel like you're in a little movie. If you don't do this, you should, but I am just addicted to making a whole bunch of playlists on Spotify to whatever my mood is for the day, or the activity. I have playlists for when I'm driving in the car, and I wanna listen to aquamarine music, or I'm in a cafe and I'm romanticizing my studying, and I'm just pretending I'm in Gilmer Girls, or I'm getting ready for a party, and I wanna pretend I'm going to Project X. Like literally, those are the playlists, and that is the vibe that I'm trying to embody, and it makes you romanticize the situation, and nothing can be boring. Anyways, those are a few examples of how my family home kind of influenced me now I'm older to pay attention to the little details. I feel like it does have a really big reflection on how you feel overall. Now that we've touched the basics on this kind of principle, I've come up with a list of things that you can do to rematchize your life, to have fun with it, to switch things around, to play with it, and we're gonna dive in. Okay, so number one, having a signature scent. I wish I was like one of those girlies that had a signature perfume, you know, they give you a hug and you're just like, wow, I need some of that. I wanna be that girl, okay, I don't think I am, maybe because I have 50 different perfumes and I lose them after two months and then I have to switch to a new one and then I'll break it and then I'll switch to a new one and then I'll lose it and I just never have a signature scent. But I wish I was like one of those girls. For example, my friend, she has this perfume called Good Girl by Carolina Herrera and she brought that to our New York trip in 2021. We went to Fashion Week for the first time. That was iconic. I feel like I can make a podcast, talking about that experience in itself, but she wore that perfume the entire time that we were there and now whenever I get a whiff of that, I feel like I'm in New York again. I can just perfectly envision what it felt like walking into those hotels, what it felt like, being in the ubers, what it felt like, being in the back of someone's limo. Like, I just remember that season so well due to this signature perfume. And so I feel like if you have a signature scent for a specific season or a specific task, whenever you spray it, it's gonna remind you of it. For example, you wanna romanticize fall, pick up your fall perfume and you just all of a sudden feel like you're in a fall movie or you pick up your rainy day perfume, I don't know. Examples like that. And also it's just a cute addition, but it doesn't even have to just be scent. I just wanna disclaim that. It can be anything like your signature lipstick or your signature purse or your signature hairstyle. Anything that kinda makes you feel like yourself, gets you excited and just puts you in a good mood. Number two is upgrading and elevating daily things. You can do this in so many different ways and I feel like someone could rebuttal. That's a crazy word, but rebuttal me on this and be like, I don't have the money. I don't wanna spend on elevated things of basic things. I just don't need to do that. For example, if I was like, oh, get a cute set of pajamas and you were like, girl, I'm not buying a pair of a hundred dollar pajamas from LeVee on Rose just to romanticize my life. I'm not trying to say that. Okay, if you wanna thrift these items, you can do that as well. If you wanna get these second hand, I'm pretty sure you can do that as well. I feel like there's a lot of ways to go around this, but upgrading and elevating your things. For example, if you're gonna have a coffee, instead of having it out of this random mug, that's broken and cracked. Maybe you buy a cute mug, that's like super specific and cute and just makes you happy and it just looks so aesthetically pleasing that if someone was to randomly snap a picture of this, it would look perfect because you don't even have to try. It just looks so cute. Another one would be you're taking a bath rather than maybe laying in just like the water. You put a bath bomb or you light some candles. You just elevate the experience. I feel like another way that you could do this would be maybe changing your bed sheets to silk ones. So you go in there and you just feel so luxurious or you're having tea before bed. Okay, I heard someone on TikTok say, they made a list of things that make them feel fancier than they are and one of them was having tea before bed and it really resonated with me because even though it's such a simple task, something about taking the time to like pick up a book and I don't know, have tea before bed and have your melatonin and be in bed at a decent time and have your night light on. Like it just feels so luxurious and it's free. You don't even have to pay for that. It's just the act of taking time for yourself. It makes you feel like you're in a movie. Brandy Melville sells like really cute little dainty pajamas. This one's kind of crazy, but wearing a really cute matching set bra and underwear under your clothes. That is not for anybody else, but it's for yourself and you can be walking around feeling all special 'cause you know that you're wearing a cute little set underneath or maybe it's ordering takeout and instead of eating it out of the box, you put it on a cute little plate and you make yourself a little mocktail or maybe a glass of wine or maybe it's buying a simple syrup and caramel drizzle to do your coffees within the morning. So you just feel like you're at Starbucks, but it's at home or even buying those ice making trays that are like in shape of hearts. Literally any of those reasons I feel like you could find a way to elevate any of the daily things that you do in your life to bring you joy. Third, relating your experience to a show or movie. I kind of touched on this a few times while we've been talking but say you're in school and you're like not really vibing. Just relating your situation to Gilmer Girls. That's a TV show if you haven't seen it where I feel like they do a lot of like studying and they really romanticize the fall and going into private school and working really hard for your college. This also goes for like gossip girl. Like say you're going on a trip to New York, you watch gossip girl in the way there. It kind of just gets you so excited for whatever you're doing and you could find so many shows to relate to. Even heartbreak, obviously that's not an ideal feeling that you wanna experience, but maybe watching a better sweet film about some person having heartbreak or dealing with that or maybe you just get in a relationship and you watch a movie on someone falling in love. Like just thinking about that is getting me excited. I hope you guys listening are not just like girl, take a breather, but like I'm getting excited just talking about these topics and I feel like that's saying something. Like that just speaks for itself. Like maybe I should watch a movie about a girl starting a podcast and that would get me really into the spirit, even though I'm already in the spirit, but you know what I'm saying? Okay, the fourth one that I had down was music but again, we kind of touched on that. Listening to music that matches the vibe of the experience that you're having, your motion that you're having. One thing I wanna say though with this, a little bit of a disclaimer is that be careful with the type of music that you're listening to because music does carry vibrations and if you are listening to like rap that's like, I'm gonna kill your mom, like just really aggressive. Like that is not necessarily bringing you the highest vibe. Yeah, you know what, now that I say that out loud, I don't think that there's a situation. I hope not where you're gonna wanna relate to that song, but I was trying to think of like what rap songs would say in them. You know what I'm trying to say? Sad music though. Be careful with that one as well because sometimes it puts you in a sad mood that you didn't even have to be in in the first place. Watch out with that. But also use it to your advantage because there is also music that gets you hyped up and in a higher vibration if you are feeling down. For example, I talked about this in a YouTube video, but Ray Gay Music is apparently the highest vibrating music and they're not wrong. Whenever I listen to Ray Gay Music, I wanna get up, I wanna dance, I wanna be in the sun, I wanna be in a bikini, use music to your advantage and let it romanticize your life and tell your story, I guess, tell your emotion. Another one would be to hang out with people that bring the best in you and people that are fun, people that have childlike souls, people that make you wanna play and get you excited and are excited about life because I've been around a lot of people and I think you guys can relate to this as well. You know when you hang out with someone and they're just bringing the vibe down. You know when you're hanging out with someone and you gotta put on a mask because they're not accepting of your true personality or they wanna play it cool and they wanna act nonchalant and act like the chill person that is not excited, is not grateful, thinks this is whatever and it doesn't even let you be excited about the situation you're in. Those kind of people, they're probably dealing with something a little bit on the inside but if you aren't that kind of person and you want to romanticize your life, be wary of the people that you let in and who you share your energy with because it's gonna bring your mood down even if you are vibrating really high. Even if you're really excited about whatever you're doing, hanging around with people that are a low vibration will lower your vibration. It's simple as that. So hanging out with people that make you wanna have fun, that are like the type of people that wanna roll in the grass with you. That might sound kinda crazy but I would not be opposed to hanging out with someone like that or that wants to do clay. Side note, me and my friends the other day, this is really funny but I just, I don't really know if this has to do with romanticizing your life but I'm gonna tell you guys anyways. When I was little first of all, I used to love crafts, I was a crafty gal. I actually wanted to start a crafty YouTube channel, okay? I feel like I got kind of disconnected from that crafty version of myself as I've grown up because there was no need for me to make a duct tape wallet. I don't know. But anyways, I went into Michaels the other day and I found these wooden houses that you could paint and I thought they were the cutest thing ever and I was like, oh my god, I'm just so inspired. Like how fun would this be? Like if all my friends painted this little house, we got polymer clay which is like oven baked clay and we made little versions of ourselves and we got stickers and colorful paper and we basically made like a little house and like we made ourselves in it. If anyone has seen 13 going on to 30, kind of like the little house that the girl gets for her birthday, it's like a super detailed dream house. That's the vibe I was thinking of. So anyways, I bought all the equipment, I proposed the idea to my friends and maybe they were like what the heck but they were so down and so the other day me and my friends came over. We had a sleepover. We even bought wine, we played music, we lit candles and we built little versions of ourselves with polymer clay and we cut up these little colorful papers and we put it in the house and we were just so excited, we were happy, we were laughing and it was kind of bringing the inner child out of us and just thinking about it warms my heart honestly because I'm glad that I have those people in my life that want to kind of do hobbies and do something other than be on our phone and bring each other down and just complain. I feel like hanging out with the type of people that would do those types of activities with you are the best kind of people to have. They bring your spirit up and it'll help you. It'd be so excited for the next day and the next time you guys hang out. Okay, next one, embrace each season. It is so easy to, for example, hate the winter. Now I'm one of those people that unfortunately probably struggles with seasonal depression and you know what, maybe this was the Latin household in me but when I was younger, we were not a lot of use the word depression. Yeah, things have changed since then because we've normalized mental health and all that kind of stuff but when I was younger I didn't even register that depression was a thing that you could feel. Like I thought that was so foreign. I thought that it wasn't something you were allowed to experience unless you were diagnosed. And as I've gotten older, I've realized that obviously that's an emotion that you can have. Obviously being clinically diagnosed with depression is different than maybe feeling depressed once in a while. I definitely feel my mood lower, my energy lower, my outlook on life lower in the winter when I haven't seen the sun in weeks and of course living in Vancouver, if you don't know, actually nicknamed Raincooper because it is always freaking cloudy. It really puts a damp on my mood during that season. And when fall is approaching, I'm like dreading the winter season. And when it comes, I'm just like complaining. I'm just not excited. And my parents are just like, "Girl, stop complaining. Why don't you embrace the season and go skiing?" And I was like, "You know what? I don't thought about that." And that's something I appreciate in my parents. We're having a positive perspective because they're like, "Why are you sad? Why are you laying on the couch looking at the sky feeling sorry for yourself? Why don't you embrace the fact that you live in a place that's snowy and that you can go skiing? Why don't you go skating? Why don't you go to a cabin? Why don't you go snow-shoeing? Why don't you go outside and build a snowman?" So with that in mind, this winter, I tried to approach it a little bit different. This winter, I feel like I prioritized doing activities and embracing the season by, you know, embodying the Pink Pilates Princess aesthetic. Honestly, that really helped me this winter. But it made me excited about the fact that it was winter. It made me excited to go out in the snow and do activities with my friends. I listened to Christmas music. I got a whole bunch of blankets. I was really cozy. I ate a lot of soup. I made apple cider for my family. I hosted American Thanksgiving. I literally live in Canada and I hosted an American Thanksgiving. So like, things like that make you embrace the season rather than feeling bad about it. And I feel like that really only goes for like fall and winter because I feel like everyone's in a good mood and spring and summer. Same for spring and summer. They're very different seasons. At least, I can say that coming from a place in Vancouver where all the seasons are really different looking. Maybe if you're from somewhere else where it's like sunny all year round, it doesn't necessarily feel the same. But I feel like that's actually even more of a reason to romanticize the season. So you have a distinction between every couple months when the seasons change. For example, now that it's turning into spring, buy some tulips for yourself, incorporate more colors into your outfits, maybe go on more walks, go on bike rides. Like, it's just turning into a sunnier season. So do activities that match with the season. And then when summer comes around, spend time outside trying new hobbies like tennis or maybe go swimming, going a lake. I don't know. Going off of that, I guess we can touch on eating or drinking things that align with whatever you're doing or the season. Having certain foods or drinks really remind you of a certain time in your life. And they can kind of ignite like an emotion in yourself. For myself, you know, when it gets cold, I love having pousseau, which is like a Mexican soup. I'm always makes that for me. And it reminds me of that kind of season or maybe it's summer and you want to have more fruit salads. Just eating foods and drinking drinks, that kind of match, whatever mood you're going for. I feel like just makes you feel happy. And it's exciting to switch each season and have something to look forward to that you didn't have in the last. The next one I found online and it was to slow down whatever you're doing. And I guess this goes hand in hand with just being present, which like helps you in your everyday life. Of course, we know that. But slowing down helps you romanticize the situation that you're in because you really get to feel, for example, you're doing your morning routine. Imagine you're just rushing. You're trying to get to school, you're late. You literally didn't have time to do your makeup. You hate the outfit you're wearing. You accidentally stepped on a puddle outside. Oh my god, that morning routine is probably not ideal. If you take an extra 30 minutes to wake up a little bit earlier and you slowly get out of bed, you even take the time to read a few pages of a book. You take the time to make yourself a little omelet. You even take your vitamins. You pick out an outfit that you love. You do your makeup, maybe with a purple eyeliner today. I don't know. Okay. You take the time to do something and it turns out a lot better because everything you're doing is with intention and it's very true to what you want to do. Another one could be slowing down on your walk to school or your walk to work rather than rushing to get there, looking at your phone the entire time, looking around and noticing people, noticing the environment, noticing the little plant that's sprouting, maybe looking at the dog that someone's walking, making eye contact with people and having a little moment of connection. First of all, it will make you feel more connected to other people and less lonely, but it just is being present and embracing the moment that you're in. I also feel like, say, for example, I'm walking to a coffee shop and I have music on and first of all, it matches the vibe and I'm making eye contact with everyone throwing them a little smile, taking my time with my walk. I feel like I'm in a movie, so I don't know about you guys, but I know that that one works. The next one is to embrace all of your senses. I saw this in a TikTok the other day and it really got me thinking and by thinking, I mean, like, I went into a deep dive on Google searching this up because I was like, wait a second, I'm very intrigued on this topic and it was to use your five senses, which means your smell, your touch, your sight, your hearing and what's the last one taste. Using all your senses and embracing them to notice the things around you and like really feel them and kind of make a verbal, okay, wait, this is sounding so wrong. For example, if you smell something that smells really good, take the time, actually smell it. When you're going for example swimming, really feel the way the water feels on you, the way it's washing you, the way it's like in your hair and smell the salty air, feel the way the water feels when it's gliding between your fingers, when a little saltwater gets in your mouth, really paying attention to all your senses when you're doing an experience just elevates the experience so much more. It went from like taking a dip in the ocean to like, I just had a life changing early rising swim. I don't know if that made sense, but just really using your five senses to your advantage and making the situation more than what it already is. Next one is to do things that you would normally do in a group but on your own. Now, this may take going outside of your comfort zone. I have a perfect example for this. Back in December, there was the Nutcracker ballet performance, I guess, in theater and me and my friend were supposed to go together and we were trying to align a time that worked for us and we were so excited because we were going to do this in person. It was going to be so cool. We were going to wear cute ballet inspired outfits which would have been romanticizing the situation in the first place, but we were planning on going together and it ended up being that I couldn't go the same day she did and instead of backing down and just being like, "Okay, I guess we're going to do another time or we're going to have to wait till next year." My friend bought the tickets and she went on her own. She was sending us videos of her saying, "I'm a little bit nervous to go on my own. What if it's awkward? What if people look at me funny? What if I want to talk to someone and give some commentary and there's nobody there? What if it's weird? Whatever. We were all like, "Girl, you're going to have fun. Just enjoy it. Whatever." So she goes to this show and when she came back, she sent us videos and she just looked so happy and excited and she was like, "Guys, that was such a cool experience. I'm so glad that I went alone. Honestly, it made me appreciate the show in front of me so much more because I wasn't worried about if the person beside me was having as much fun as I was. I wasn't worried about if the person beside me was hating the situation and wanted to leave early. I didn't have to talk to anybody during the show and I could truly just watch and be entertained and just sit back and relax." She said, "I was just observing. I was people watching and I'm so proud of myself for doing that on my own. It was so fun and I want to do that again or I want to make that a monthly thing where I do that on my own." She was like, "I felt like I was in a little movie." That right there is one of those situations where doing something on your own is sometimes better than doing it with other people because you don't have to worry about the expectations of anybody except for yourself. You just have to worry about having a good time being present and just enjoying whatever is in front of you. Doing things alone rather than in a group of people could be a way to try something new that you don't even know if other people would want to do. It could be a good way to explore your own independence. I feel like I know a lot of my friends aren't very comfortable with doing activities alone and maybe a lot of you guys watching are the same way. I feel like especially if you live with friends or you live with your family, it's kind of hard to get that independence but doing activities on your own is not only going to make you probably happy but also just teaches you some lessons along the way. Okay, next one. Writing things by hand. This is like so easy to do and I feel like if there's somebody older than me listening to this podcast or like my mom, they're probably just like, "Yeah, we still, we still write like what?" But first of all, since my job is like purely online, I technically wouldn't need to write anything on paper. I could do everything on Google Docs. The same way that a lot of students and a lot of people that are working, they've gone like paper free and they don't have any reason to write. But I think writing things down is just so cute and wholesome and if you have cute writing or you know how to hand write or do calligraphy, it just feels so vintage and cute. And again, this may sound silly to someone older than me being like, "Um, girl, we all write, I don't know about you, but we all write." But I think it's cute. Even one of my friends the other day, she was gonna write me a handwritten no and I just thought that that was so fun and I just love even when people make birthday cards and they're handwritten. Like I save all of those. It's just so cute. You can also do this by journaling. It doesn't even have to be journaling like reflecting because I feel like that's what I do sometimes and sometimes it's like, "I don't want to reflect. I just want to write. I want to plan. I want to draw or something." I don't know, just use your hands. I'm talking really passionately about writing and I sound crazy right now. But one thing I want to say about that because I just said use your hands. I saw this TikTok yesterday. By the way, why am I referencing TikTok so often? I'm a little bit scared for my content consumption and screen time. But anyways, I saw this girl on TikTok say, "When was the last time you taught your hands something new?" And that really stuck with me because I was like, "Okay, why is that the cutest thing ever?" Like, "Yeah, I could be learning stuff when I'm on my phone or I could be typing something new." But when was the last time you taught your hands to do something new? That really just sparked interest in me because I was like, "Maybe I should learn how to crochet. Maybe I should play Cat's Grittle. Maybe I should. I'm trying to think of what else you do to your hands. Maybe I should do pottery? I don't know. That's food for thought, though. Think about that question yourself and get back to me on that because I'm actually curious about that and want to figure out how I should use my hands more because now that I'm saying it out loud, why haven't I been using my hands? Okay, anyways. Next one. This is kind of similar to the thing about doing activities on your own, but it's doing things in person. We're in an age where you can do everything and survive from the comfort of your own house. You don't even have to go to the grocery store if you don't want to. You can order groceries to your house. You can order a birthday cake supplies to your house, and I know this by experience. You can order meals to your house. You don't even have to cook. You could probably order like, I don't even know, like soil to plant your plants. Like you can order anything, okay? And same with Amazon. You have like literally everything from the comfort of your own house. But I think doing things in person is so important. Again, not only for yourself, from outside situation, whatever, I've said that 50 times in this podcast, but going to the grocery store in person, going shopping at a mall, going to a new coffee shop, maybe tanning at a park. Maybe that's journaling on a bench. Any of those things, it gets you outside of your little bubble that is your house, and it's gonna make your days feel so different and it's gonna make you really learn a lot because you're building, okay, I may be saying this so wrong, but you're like building new pathways in your brain. I was just reading this book. It's called Becoming Supernatural, and it was talking about how when you get into the routine of doing things, you're living in the past and you're living in the future because you're doing the exact same thing as yesterday. And then tomorrow you're gonna do the exact same thing you're doing today. And you basically just become stuck in this loop of doing your same routine, going to work the same route, doing your morning routine, eat the same thing for lunch every single day, you do your night routine, and you get stuck in the same patterns and doing something different and stepping outside of your house, going to somewhere new like a new coffee shop or whatever, it builds new pathways in your brain, and the days feel longer, and time isn't gonna go by so quickly because you're not just not that you're wasting away, but like wasting away time in this same redundant loop, but you're doing new things every day. I feel like this is also fun because you may talk to a new stranger or you may overhear someone and you may just get a little inspiration from what someone else said. Okay, I only have a few more, but the next one is to fill up your calendar even if it's normal daily things. If you don't have a calendar that is tangible, and that's like a hard copy, first of all, I think that you should get one because you can get so many cute ones and cute designs, you can make a whole day out of it, going to like the bookstore and picking out cute stationary, which is like one of my favorite things, and we'll just like make you feel so special when you're opening up your personal little book with your personal little gel pen. Okay, yes, it may take some time, but this goes back to the idea of being slow and being mindful of whatever you're doing, but if you have a cute little calendar, filling it up is so satisfying because you can pick different pens to do it, and you can also romanticize your daily life and feel like you're super busy, it feel like you have a lot to look forward to, and write down even the little things. This may be penciling in all the appointments you have, maybe booking some new like glow-up appointments, like a new nail appointment, a facial massage. Maybe this is filling up your calendar with the time you wanna wake up at, the time you wanna go to bed at, books you wanna read. Maybe this is a great time to hit up a friend and ask him if they wanna go out for dinner, or maybe you wanna plan your weekend plans. Just writing it all out on a calendar gets you excited about the next day to come and keeps you inspired and motivated with all the little things that you have to do and the people that are excited to see you as well or that you're excited to see. And again, if you don't have any friends that you wanna do this with, that's also fine, you can pick activities to do on your own, but also this may be a little self-reflection period where you might wanna fill up your calendar with more things that you can do rather than staying home or like being on your phone or something. Maybe this will inspire you to hit up a new friend or hit up an old friend or maybe try a new hobby where you can make new friends. I feel like this will show you kind of where you're at right now and you can really focus on where you wanna be. I think this is a perfect time to reevaluate and look over your social life and how you want to nurture that, I guess. Going off of that, another one that I have here is talking to people in the street or talking to people in the elevators or talking to people in the grocery stores, just making small conversations on the daily will spice something up in your life and again, you may learn something from them that you never learned before and this also builds a lot of confidence in your social skills and maybe your friend making skills. The more that you talk to people, you get to meet different personalities, you get to hear about different perspectives. It will teach you a lot about yourself. Okay, last one that I have here is to be delusional. We love this one. We love this one for a number of reasons. This is like a main key factor if you wanna be like a master manifestor but being delusional and thinking that the world is your oyster and that you have so much potential to do whatever you want and that you can do whatever you want is so liberating because you can live your day thinking, yeah, I'm gonna be famous next year. Yeah, I'm gonna be in a movie next year or whatever the case may be. Like you can just feel like you're even embodying maybe an alter ego or you can even roleplay, okay. Like literally what am I saying? If you're maybe like feeling sad, imagine this, okay. You're roleplaying the happiest person that you could ever think of. It may feel like an act, you may feel silly but tell me that that wouldn't ignite some sort of happy, positive emotion inside of you. It is literally the definition of fake until you make it. If you feel like you are the cutest person on the block, you probably are gonna look like the cutest person on the block and something that I wanna say about this this isn't about being delusional but I guess this goes into the whole fake until you make it, have an alter ego is that when I first started my YouTube channel, this is for the girl who's not know me from YouTube. I make a lot of self care, how to be that girl videos. When I tell you, before I started my YouTube channel, nobody thought of me as that girl, okay. They thought of me as like some little crazy girl that like I don't know is very forgetful and kind of clumsy and says whatever, okay. When I started making videos about how to be that girl, I unintentionally started acting like how that girl would act. I had my green juices in the morning. I did my little workout, I started doing yoga, I started meditating and I did that so often that I became that girl. All those actions that I was trying to embody, I became that by simply doing it and believing that that's what I was. The same way that I used to be really shy and I talk about this all the time, whatever you probably like for now to shut up, we've heard this for a million times, yeah. Okay, I used to be really shy. When I started making videos and talking about like, this is how you're gonna get confident. This is how I became confident. I have turned more confident because of that idea that I have placed on myself. Because I identified myself as a confident person and I was giving advice on how to be confident, I unintentionally turned into a very confident person. And that goes for so many traits about yourself. Like if you believed that you were the most generous person alive, you would probably start acting from a place of generosity and then you become the most generous person there. Or if you believe that you are so aesthetic and everything that you do is aesthetic, people will look at you and say, "Oh my God, why is everything she does so aesthetic?" Okay, so I'm just gonna leave it with that. Be delusional and remember that you are the main character in your life and nobody is gonna romanticize your life for you. Nobody is going to make this life that you have as fulfilling and enriching that you want it to be. Like when you see other people on social media do it, nobody's gonna do that for you. So you have to take initiative into your own hands and do that for yourself. And let me end it off on become the best version of yourself. And yeah, let's just end it off there, guys. I'm so excited. I feel very inspired right now. I hope you're feeling that way as well. And I hope that you learned something regarding your different perspective out of this episode. I'm so happy and I'm so grateful for you guys. I can breathe. I've been talking for quite a while now. And I can keep going, honestly. But anyways, I love you guys. Thank you for listening to this first episode of A Better You Podcast. I hope you stick around. I hope you subscribe. I'm not used to saying this, but I'm gonna remind you guys to subscribe to this podcast. Give it a rate. If I were you, I'd give it a five. Give it a review. I will love you forever. And wish good luck to you if you do. And you guys can check out the show notes. I'll have a little more details in there and make sure you follow the @abetteru.byfernanda Instagram for this podcast. I love you guys and I'll talk to you soon. (upbeat music)