At the LCC event last week, I met Annica Englund and her friend Bea who had just returned from a training session, and when I learned that I had barely trained since high school, we started discussing that training and beauty are connected.

I have thought a lot about this topic afterwards and thought I would share my thoughts as it feels extremely relevant :)

First of all, I absolutely agree, exercise is not just about beauty because you get a nice body from exercising, but also because exercise and a good diet also show results on skin, hair and nails. You feel good about training, and if you feel good, you look good. But I still do not want to put a = sign between training and beauty. If I feel good, I radiate beauty, regardless of whether I am completely unfixed, but feeling good is about so much more!

The time after high school has been quite stressful for me, both professionally and privately. I worked in a lunch restaurant 5 days a week for almost a year, and since then there has been a focus on driving licenses, the new webshop and the blog (do not think any of you have any idea how much work is really behind).

Jag kände att det blev så himla mycket måsten för att vara “perfekt”. Man ska inte bara göra ett topnotch-jobb utan även alltid vara snygg, ha en städad lägenhet, ägna mycket tid åt familj, vänner, pojkvän and  exercise several times a week. If I tried to have all the balls in the air, it was still things that became half-hearted, and therefore I chose to prioritize the training completely for a while. Because you know what I think? The body (and appearance) feels worse from stress than from being untrained! I can feel good without exercising, but I can not feel good when I am stressed.

Same with diet. Because I do not exercise, I try to eat healthier than usual, it is both good and healthy! But if I treat myself to something useless, I enjoy it to 100%. Many people have such a bad conscience when they eat junk that they do not enjoy it, and then it is really unnecessary. Either you let yourself enjoy it, or you can just as well not.

Now during the summer, however, I do not have as stressful schedule, so I have started to grab the training piece as well :)

Jag vill även tillägga självförtroende i denna kategori. Detta är den viktigaste men knepigaste biten. Jag tror det är lite som att sluta röka, man måste ha viljan och verkligen bestämma sig för att lyckas ändra sitt tankesätt! Ställ dig själv frågan “vill jag slösa bort tid i livet på att må dåligt över saker jag ändå inte kan förändra?” för det är ju så, de flesta brister man anser att man har sitter bara i ditt eget huvud. Och som jag insåg när jag valde att lägga träningen på hyllan helt ett tag – ingen kommer tycka att jag är perfekt i alla fall så jag kan lika bra göra som I  want and let myself feel good. As long as I feel good about it.

Jag säger som Dalai Lama – “Choose to be optimistic, it feels better”

I had very bad self-confidence before, and even though of course I still get a slap in the face sometimes, I feel that I have managed to get away from it. In short, by trying to be as positive as possible and not waste my time on things that affect me negatively - and then I mean both thoughts, people, and things. I began to think about what qualities I wanted others to look at, and realized that it was basically just personality-related qualities such as average, happy and optimistic. The rest is just a bonus!

Folk som tar mer energi än vad dom ger stänger jag ute, och negativa tankar byter jag ut eller förändrar till någonting positivt istället. Om jag känner mig ful en dag så tänker jag “så länge jag inte låter min ful-känsla ta över utstrålningen så kommer ingen märka hur ful jag är” och så skämtar jag om att dom bredvid mig i alla fall kommer känna sig snyggare och det är ju inte fel att kunna bidra med det heller :)

It takes time to change your mindset, but basically bad self-confidence consists of negative thoughts, so instead of trying to change yourself to be perfect in your own eyes, or try to teach yourself that you are good enough which is also very difficult, you can fool the brain by taking a detour around the problem and just trying to become the world's most positive person instead - then your positive thoughts about yourself will automatically lead to a better self-confidence. And if you like yourself, so do others!

I feel good now. Jag är inte helt nöjd med min livssituation i Gimo, men jag får det att funka och vet jag att jag och Miska kommer ha råd med någonting eget närmare Uppsala/Stockholm till slut! Jag jobbar med någonting jag älskar och jag går heelt och hållet min egen väg! Nu är webshopen öppen och istället för att stressa med “nästa steg” så tänker jag jobba med det jag har och observera var det här tar mig någonstans, och njuta lite av sommaren :)

With this post, I am not saying that my way of feeling good is the right one, I am saying that you must dare to trust yourself and above all listen to yourself to know how to go about it.

You may only live once.