Mojito Lab - Design your own life

The Importance Of Dreaming

Laura | September 29, 2020March 19, 2022

Good Morning! The past few days I have really been thinking about what it means to have dreams. The pros and the cons. Some think dreaming is a waste of time while others think it is a vital component to one’s success. Now, I am a certified dreamer. I am constantly thinking of how I can better my life and all the possibilities that could be. My husband, on the other hand, is more of a realist. We actually balance each other out pretty well. He keeps my feet on the floor, and I give him that little extra push sometimes to step out of the box and see the possibilities.

Neither being a realist nor being a dreamer is a bad thing. I think in order to be a balanced, well-rounded person, you need to have a little bit of both qualities. It’s dangerous to be too heavily unbalanced. You know the saying, “Too much of a good thing is a bad thing”? Well, that’s totally applicable here!

Dangers of Dreaming

If all you ever do is dream, you can spend too much time focusing on what you don’t have and forget to be grateful for all the things you do have. If you’re not careful, you can become discontent and even depressed with your current life. So what can you do to avoid falling into this trap? The solution is simple. Practice daily gratitude. Every morning when I wake up, I find three things that I am grateful for. It is so important to me that I start my day with a grateful heart. In addition to my daily gratitude, any time I notice myself feeling discontent or having negative thoughts, I stop and list all my blessings. It really helps to put things into perspective and see the bigger picture. I’m not going to lie. It takes constant work and requires conscious effort, but it’s so worth it!

Another potential problem with being a dreamer is when you never get past the dreaming phase. It is great to imagine all of life’s possibilities, and it’s true that not every little dream you ever have will come true, but if you constantly catch yourself saying “Wouldn’t it be nice if……” or “I wish I could…..” and never take any action to further it, your dreams are doing you no good.

On the other end of the spectrum are the people who constantly bounce around from one dream to the next, never sticking to one thing long enough to see it through. You have to be persistent and dedicated if you ever want to see real results. Giving up at the first sign of failure or when things start to get difficult is not going to get you anywhere. Dreams can change, and it’s alright if they do, but be smart as you test the waters. This way if you decide it’s not what you thought it was, you aren’t screwed. There is something to be said for some stability in life. In order to learn how to avoid these dangers and see the process I use, check out my article “How to Make Your Dreams a Reality”.

Danger of Realism

The danger of being too realistic is simply that you miss out on all the benefits and joys of having dreams! Dreams are what drive people to do great things and become successful. Only ever looking at the here and the now can result in tunnel vision and a static life. The importance of dreaming is that it inspires you to take your life to the next level. It allows you to imagine how your life could be by following different paths. Life is like a map with endless roads to take, all leading to different destinations and realities.

I don’t know about you, but I want to conquer life, not just coast through it!

How To Make Your Dreams A Reality

Laura | September 25, 2020March 19, 2022

Hello! Do you ever catch yourself always dreaming about the future, but have no idea how to even begin sorting them out or making them happen? Or do you feel stuck in your routine with no dreams at all?

I don’t know about you, but I am a very organized person. I have found it helpful to organize things into steps whenever possible. It helps to solidify all my bazillion thoughts flying through my head. (Yes, I am a big list person!) Here is a step-by-step process I created to help you make your dreams into reality.

Dream, Dream, Dream!

In this first stage, think of all your possibilities. Imagine all the things you would love to experience, learn, and become. Create your perfect world. Follow the “map” down different pathways and imagine where they might take you. This stage is super important as long as you don’t get stuck here. The problem arises when you never leave the dreaming stage.

Discover Your Passion.

Now is the time to sort through all those dreams and find out what you’re really serious about pursuing. We aren’t cats. We don’t have nine lives – just one! I don’t know about you, but I want to get it right! Sit with all the dreams you’ve dreamt up for a while and see which ones feel right. Which ones go away and which ones really stick with you? A passion will give you a spark. It will make you want to jump out of bed in the morning. Truly, a passion gives you a purpose. You may need to do some work in this phase. Talk to people who are living out some of the dreams you thought of. Research the pros and cons. Take a course in photography or salsa dancing, whatever your dreams might be. Sometimes, you don’t know what you really love until you try it.

Set goals and Work hard.

Now that you’ve done your research and discovered what you’re passionate about, it’s time to really put in the work! Phase 2 involved some work but nothing drastically life changing. Now that you’ve made it this far, you have to do everything in your power to make it work. This will most likely consist of more in depth research, hours of learning, and even more hours of working. Usually, this phase comes with sacrifice. Maybe you need to sacrifice financially or maybe it’s your time or services. You may need to quit your job. You will need to step out of your comfort zone and overcome obstacles. Failure is not an option. This phase will test how serious you truly are about reaching your goals. If you’re not serious enough, this phase will probably break you and you’ll give up.

Enjoy your success.

It’s time to reap the benefits! Learning is a life long process. There will always be more to learn and more work to do, but by this point you have made it. You are starting to see the return on investment from all the hard work you put in. Maybe it’s a product you created that is getting popular or your dream house that you finally are able to afford. Whatever it might be, enjoy it!

What happens if I fail? Well, I don’t believe you ever truly fail unless you don’t learn anything from your experience. Maybe you learn that it wasn’t what you thought it would be and it’s not what you really want. Nine times out of ten I think people fail because they just didn’t want it enough. It’s human nature to want to give up when things aren’t going our way or aren’t happening as quickly as we’d like. What sets the truly successful people apart from everyone else is perseverance in the midst of difficulty and frustration. However, if your dream doesn’t work out, it’s time to start the process all over again and go back to the dreaming phase.

This process is not just one and done. It is something you will need to go through your whole life. It’s important to always have a dream or a goal you’re working towards. That’s how we grow! Once you reach your goal and accomplish your dream, take some time to just enjoy it then find the next thing to work towards!

Hookah On Holiday Fire And Water

Laura | September 19, 2020March 19, 2022

With my new mini hookah (can you tell I love it?) it’s going to be easy to take a hookah on holiday with me in the future, but I’ve had some issues in the past. I usually like to go to places with a café culture, and these days that means there’s a hookah bar not too far away, but I do other things too. The year before last a couple of friends and I went to the Norfolk Broads for a week, and I had a bad feeling about the availability of a relaxing pipe.

For one thing Norfolk isn’t exactly full of big sophisticated cities; it’s mostly small villages with small village pubs, which are great but not exactly a hotbed of international culture. Also the UK has a smoking ban which has pretty much put the lid on hookah bars.

Anyway we were driving there, so we decided to throw a pipe and a box of bits in the back of the car. That was all cool, and off we motored. It was only when we got there that I started to have some second thoughts. See, there we were with a great big thing that runs on glowing charcoal, and we’d hired a 30 foot wooden boat.

In fact it was a 30 foot wooden sailing boat, so as well as all the usual flammable boat stuff – gas bottles, a fuel tank and about five tons of wood, for example – there were all these sails as well. I had a bad feeling about bits of coal blowing around – it was pretty windy – on what was basically a floating bomb. Also we didn’t have a windshield.

We sneaked the hookah on board after the usual lecture about how to make the boat work, then sailed off down river. First priority was to make a windshield and a beer can always works for that, but we only had bottled beer. No problem, there’s a shop half a mile down the river from the boatyard, so we tied up near it. That could have gone more smoothly, I admit, but it was a bit of a surprise to find that you need to push the gearstick forwards to put the engine in reverse. Anyway we didn’t hit anything very hard and managed to get the boat parked, and nipped off to the shop for a six-pack of Stella Artois. In the end we made it three six-packs, because the beer we’d brought with us wasn’t chilled and the fridge on the boat was kind of slow, and as soon as the first can was empty we knocked up a windshield in a couple of minutes.

Then the hookah fell over. OK, not right away, but pretty soon. We’d motored down the river to Malthouse Broad, which is basically a big lake thing you can reach from the river and is ideal for learning to sail. The problem is that out of the three of us I was the only one that had done any sailing, and some lessons seemed like a good idea so we could make all the sails and stuff work. Lesson number one is don’t use a hookah on a boat that tilts over violently every time you change direction.

Luckily the coal stayed inside the windshield, but it ended up a bit squashed because the windshield got flattened when the lifebelt fell off the cabin roof. Side note: If you ever need to rescue someone from the water with a lifebelt don’t throw it at them; throw it near them, otherwise you’ll knock them out. Those things are hard.

So we decided to keep the hookah for when the boat was anchored or tied up, except we only ever seemed to tie up at pubs. The weather was nice though, so we could sit outside at a table with a few pints and set the pipe up in the middle. Nobody seemed to mind and in fact we met a few cool people that way. Hookahs aren’t exactly a common site around there and everybody wanted to talk about it. In fact most of them wanted to try it, so maybe we started a local hookah boom. That would be a nice thought. Another nice thought is how all the pubs are right by the river. It’s actually pretty cool. They all have a car park out the back and a boat mooring out front. The difference is it’s legal to drive a boat after a couple of beers. Not clever, right enough, but legal.

I’m never going to take a standard hookah on a wooden boat again. What would be really cool is one of those portable hookahs I talked about in my last post. They’re compact and safe, and it would be really easy to tie it to something so it wouldn’t bounce around. In fact I think I’m going to get one next time I want to take a hookah on holiday.

Picking Best Eyelash Growth Product

Laura | September 19, 2020March 19, 2022

If you are a woman and found yourself discouraged at your short stubby eyelashes every time you take your mascara brush in hand then you have probably found yourself thinking about using one of the many eyelash growth products on the market.

If you are hesitating to try one these products it may simply be because you don’t know how to go about choosing the best one for you. Here are a few tips that may help you choose that perfect eyelash growth product.

Chose An Eyelash Growth Product That Is Proven To Work

Every manufacturer is going to claim that their eyelash growth product works and works well. That’s how they sell their product. So, rather than just take their word for it, you need to at least have some degree of confidence that the product is going to actually work for you. Here are a few ways to help you determine whether this product works or at least works for some people.

Start by looking at the company’s reputation and the other effectiveness of the other products they sell. Does this company have a good reputation for only selling products that do what they promise to do? If so, then this at least shows that the company aims for quality in their products and if all or most of their other products live up to their promises there is a chance that this product will as well.

Also, check to see if this company is standing behind their product. While most companies offer some guarantees, a company that is sure they have an excellent product is not afraid to offer a 100% money back guarantee no questions asked or at least a free trial sample for you to try without having to commit to buy future products.

You are also going to want to check for any published clinical trials and take the time to read the reviews for the product. Product reviews written by people who have actually used the product can provide you with a good idea of whether this product works for a large majority of users.

Is It Safe

Look for eyelash growth products that are safe. Check for FDA approval and make sure you check to see if any of the product ingredients have harmful side effects. Having longer lashes isn’t worth getting ill over so make sure that any product you use near your eyes is safe for that use.

Cost

While you shouldn’t expect a good eyelash growth product to be dirt cheap, it should at least be affordable. Even the best eyelash growth product on the market isn’t going to be much good if most consumers can’t afford to buy it.

Choosing the best eyelash growth product is simply a matter of taking the time to ensure that the product you are buying lives up to it’s promises and has a track record of doing what it says it will do. If you find more than one eyelash growth product that looks good then doing a direct comparison will help you decide which of these products is the best one for you.

How To Be More Productive

Laura | September 19, 2020March 19, 2022

Have you ever had a whole day fly by just to realize you’ve done absolutely nothing productive all day? and now you’re staring at your to-do list frustrated and wondering how you wasted an entire day. What on earth did you do to fill your time for the past 10-12 hours? Well, I’ve been there and done that more times than I’d like to admit, and let me tell you – it’s an awful feeling! I feel so much better when I’ve had a productive day and knocked off a huge chunk of my never ending to-do list! Somehow, I have a feeling I’m not alone in this, so today I’d like to share with you a few tips on how to be more productive. Trust me, they work!

Organize Your To-Do List

I find when my to-do list is overwhelmingly large, I have a harder time getting motivated to tackle it. Where do I even begin? Organize your to-do list into categories. Instead of having a bunch of random tasks all over a piece of paper (or sometimes even more than one piece of paper!), try clustering them into groups. For example, I have several events and appointments that I’m needing to schedule. Those all go into one category. Another category will include all the house work that needs to be done: dishes, vacuuming, laundry, etc. I make a separate category for any shopping trips that need to take place, and a category to include my Youtube channel and blogging tasks. Just visually seeing everything separated into categories will help to clear your head and prepare you to conquer them.

Plan Your Time

Of all the tips I’m going to share with you, I think this one is the most beneficial! Now that you’ve separated your To-Do list into categories, plan out your day and designate a specific amount of time to each category. For instance, this morning I scheduled my day like this:

7-8 am – Shower and Get Ready
8-9 am – Clean House
9-10 am – Work on Blogs
10-11 am – Work on Videos
11-11:30 am – Schedule Events
11:30-12 noon – Make Grocery List and Meal Plan
12-2 pm – Grocery Shopping and House Shopping
2-3:30 pm – Jeunesse party
4-5 pm – Wash Cars
5-6 pm – Go for a Run/Walk
6 and on – Make dinner and Relax

Every day it will change obviously, but giving yourself scheduled time will help to put yourself in a productive mindset. This one task makes a WORLD of difference! When I do this, I make the most of my time, and I stay focused. I don’t waste time scrolling through social media and getting distracted by other unimportant things. I also find that I get things done faster! It becomes like a game! How quickly can I accomplish my task? I find myself trying to beat the time frame I gave myself. If I clean the house in 45 minutes instead of an hour, I win! Try it out! It’s actually kind of fun!

Eliminate Distractions

Oh boy! Most of the days I end up being unproductive and I think back to what I filled my time with, it’s things like constantly checking Facebook and Instagram, watching Youtube videos, watching Netflix or TV, and online shopping. These activities can suck up hours of your time! There’s nothing wrong with any of these things in moderation, but they can really hinder you from doing what needs to get done. Planning your day out, as I mentioned above, is an awesome way to discourage you from hopping on Facebook for no reason. Another way you can avoid these pitfalls is to leave your phone in another room or turn it off, or schedule phone, TV, or online shopping time into your day! If you only schedule 15 or 30 minutes to check social media and set an alarm to go off once that time finishes, you won’t be feeling yucky at the end of the day for not being productive.

Wake Up Early

Take advantage of the mornings. I am always my most productive in the morning after I’ve had a good night’s sleep and my brain is fresh, alert, and awake. Now, I realize this isn’t for everybody. Some people feel they are more productive at night. My husband and my mom are both night owls and they can get a lot done at night. I can’t. After 10 pm, I’m tired and my brain won’t focus enough to get much done. Find what works for you and use it to your advantage. If you usually wake up early, try to take advantage of the first few hours after you wake up to get your largest tasks done while your brain is at its clearest.

Take Scheduled Breaks

If you have a large task to accomplish that is going to take several hours of your time, schedule short breaks in. I recommend working in 20-30 minute bursts with a 5 minute break. Use your break to get some fresh air, make a cup of coffee, tea, or water, go to the bathroom, or check your phone. Again, this is a general principle. If you’re working on a project and you’re really on a roll, you may not want to take a break because your mind is concentrated and once you break that concentration, it can be hard to get back into that mindset. However, if you’re finding that you’re having a hard time focusing, your mind keeps wandering, or you’re feeling fatigued, it’s probably time for a break. Just like your muscles, sometimes your mind needs a little rest to reset itself so it can function at its best for you.

I hope that you find some value from these tips and become more productive in your life! The weekends are too short already, so let’s start eliminating wasted weekends one day at a time!

← Previous 1 2 3