Related Recs

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Start small, be gracious with yourself

Start small, be gracious— I think the two ways that we often kill routines or goals is that we start where we want to end (ex, ‘I will run a marathon this year’ instead of ‘I will go for a run once a week’), and we get discouraged by setbacks, or see them as final. Start with a keystone habit— like making the bed every morning, or putting coffee on. Making the bed makes it easier to stay out of bed during the day, and putting coffee on can anchor your breakfast routine. If you drink tea, maybe fill your kettle and put a teabag in your favorite mug at night, so it’s ready in the morning. If your goal is building a routine, try setting three alarms: one in the morning, one at midday, and one in the early evening. This is a good way to be aware of time and break your day into segments.

@nadiyaelyse

Feb 18, 2025

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make plans that you're excited about, eat robust meals and commit to a new hobby

1) Make plans: a lot of language schools, embassies and universities offer free entry events. So figure out what you're interested in. If you enjoy film and tv, French language schools often have screenings. If you like cooking, East Asian embassies often do demos. If you like history, universities often offer seminars. Make plans and do them. If you wake up on the day of and don't want to go, that is a sign that you absolutely need to. Go out, try something or learn something, stay for the refreshments and talk to people, and don't put any pressure on yourself to perform in any way, just be in the moment and connect with your interests and people. 2) Eat robust meals: you need to eat. As someone who has been the person who chugs an energy drink down, or has a coffee with an apple, it is not enough. Your mind needs sustenance otherwise you tire quickly and it feels like your brain is leaking out of your ear. But when you eat properly and you have a lot of protein, starch, veg etc in your meals, you feel the difference. So get your favourite cup and plate and put a filling meal on it. 3) Commit to a new hobby. It can be anything. The reason you need to commit is to get into the discipline of needing to get out of bed to do it. Painting, walking, making music etc. Commit to learning or doing something that requires that you get out of bed, and that requires some level of focus. Bonus: look at your phone usage and if there are apps that you use too much, delete them off of your phone and only use them on desktop/laptop.

@ngaatee

Oct 1, 2024

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say no

Making time for a new routine sometimes means saying no to something Ur doing right now. I have been thinking about things I can let go of to make space for the new. It’s been helping! Reframing from “it’s hard to do *new thing*” to “I don’t want *old thing* anymore” has been really productive for me. I find building new habits sometimes feels like pointless asceticism but once I start reaping the benefits of a new routine it’s much easier to keep going!

@cilantro

Feb 18, 2025

Top Recs from @nadiyaelyse

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You are only mundane to yourself because you are so familiar— to everyone else you are new

Firstly, I’m so sorry you’re feeling that way— that’s really crummy, and I’m sure that once you feel that way everything feels like confirmation of being unspecial. But in a very very real way, you might be bored with yourself because you know yourself so well— other people don’t know you. You could walk into a bar or a cafe or an event and you would be new to at least one person there. If you feel like you aren’t interesting conversationally, are you a good listener? In a very honest way, the people I’ve found hottest and most intriguing are always good listeners, and people who are quiet and incisive. It’s okay if you don’t talk on and on; a lot of “interesting” people are just filling space with noise. Noise is always briefly exciting or interesting, but that doesn’t mean it has substance or adds value. Trust me on this, I’m a performer and frankly so many nights I’m just making noise. So first piece of advice is, approach yourself as if you were a stranger— look at everything about you like you’ve never ever seen it before, and start to notice what you like. Then build on those things. Like, it’s okay if you hate your clothes, but do you have one jacket/shirt/earring that you love? Wear that so much, and slowly look out for pieces that make you feel like the thing you love— it’s okay if it takes time, the outfits that make me feel dynamic are all cobbled together from stuff I found over years. Then look at other people, what do you find interesting about them? I am a knockoff of every woman I ever thought was cool— my summer camp counselor, my gender studies TA from my first year of college, my mom, and literally everyone else. That’s okay though, mimicking what you like is a way of developing your taste, and you will put yourself together in a way that’s a little different and totally your own. It’s okay if it takes time— sometimes we have seasons where we don’t like ourselves a ton, but they do pass, and who you will be in a year is a brand new person— you haven’t met them yet, and you might love them. Tiny practical advice? Go for walks; it’s good for your body, it releases endorphins, and it gives you a chance to people watch/observe nature. Read something small; it can be a single poem, or an essay, or a children’s book— I love Howl’s Moving Castle and if I’m feeling stuck in a rut I read that, even though it’s a children’s book. If reading isn’t your thing watch a movie or a TV episode, but whatever you consume, watch it and take notes, like you‘re a secret critic— note what you liked, whether it’s costumes or language or the vibe, and what you didn’t, and then you can find more things like it— that’s how you develop your own taste, and it’s a good way to develop language around art and media. All critics and essayists and everyone whose job is to write interestingly about art started with shit they liked in middle school, and built on that to find their own language— you can do that too. Sorry for the hugely long post, but I promise that you are more interesting than you give yourself credit for, and there are people in the world who will see that.

@nadiyaelyse

Feb 19, 2024

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transparency is not the same as intimacy

This was really impactful for me; the analogy is, your life/your heart is a room (or an apartment, a space, etc) and relationships are all about inviting people into that room. Intimacy is letting them into the room and knowing that they might touch stuff, move furniture around, or change the way you’ve laid the room out. Transparency is letting people see the room, but keeping a glass between them and the space— they can see, but not touch. I think relationally we all have impulses toward transparency instead of intimacy, and it’s easy to say “I let you look at my room, that was intimacy,” while maintaining the glass that separates people from the room. Be intimate! Let people pick up the tchotchkes in your heart and move the furniture.

@nadiyaelyse

May 28, 2024

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Let it die

I like to let my phone die— I often don’t charge it overnight, and try not to plug it in during the day. If you’re able to access work/school through only your laptop, let your phone die, or leave it on the plug in another room. I also delete most apps from my phone for periods of weeks, and minimally use social media— if this works for you, it can feel very liberating, and makes me feel much less constantly accessible (which I think is a good thing). Something that helps me is thinking about the flattening of correspondence; before social media, if you wanted to communicate to a friend, it was one-on-one— you might write a letter, or call, or email, but what you were doing was conversational and relational. When we use social media, we flatten a lot of individual relationships into one relationship between us and our “audience.” Instead of sharing a thought or comment intended for one person, and designed for them to reply and continue the correspondence, we put out press releases on our own lives: “this is what I had for breakfast,” “this is a meme about my mental health,” and we become part of a passive audience in our friend’s lives. We end up feeling like we’ve just seen our friends, because we’re “viewing” their lives, but actually apps leave us feeling very isolated and anti-social. Try deleting your most used social media apps, and also schedule a walk/movie night/coffee with a friend. Outside of radical deletion, pick an audio book to listen to, and pair it with a hands on/tactile activity: you could load the dishwasher, or draw, or try embroidery.

@nadiyaelyse

Jul 29, 2024