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Creating your Island in the Pandemic

Recently, I dreamt of being on vacation: Chile’s beautiful sunset Valle Della Luna mixed with the slow waves from Playa Girón in Cuba. Valle Della Luna Playa Girón It’s clear that I miss travelling. And not necessarily only the far-away-places but also briefly getting away for a weekend within Germany. The current situation makes travelling almost impossible, or let’s say: it involves risks that I am not willing to take. There’s probably a ton of things people miss at the moment. After my dream, I asked the question in a forum and others mentioned things

Carolin Stoffels February 4, 2021 No Comments

Lost and found: how to (re-)build trust

Think about the last few years – as well as what’s been happening recently with the pandemic, political events, connections to others… Do you think you trust as much as you did 5, 10, 15 years ago? For my part I have to say: I don’t think so. More than asking: What happened? I’d like to look at: Why are our lives better with trust? What can be done to (re)build trust? How do you put the right seeds into the soil? And how do you need to take care of those seeds to let

Carolin Stoffels January 25, 2021 No Comments

Happiness Habits

Today, I have a question for you:What does it mean to you to be happy? What are the things that impact your happiness? Are you happy right now, in this moment?Over the last decade or so there has been tons of attempts to explain what makes people happy.And even though, there has been some understanding of what goes into the mix of a happy, content life – single individual perspectives on happiness differ quite a bit. You can easily check this for yourself and try and find a satisfying definition of happiness online. Let me assure

Carolin Stoffels January 14, 2021 No Comments

5-Minute Morning Routine to Boost Energy

There are these times when getting up and being excited about the day seems particularly difficult. I had that more often recently, as the pandemic continues, the vaccination process in Germany is sloooow, and our little one cannot go to daycare since mid December. It just feels that it all blocks my progress which dampens my enthusiasm. Whatever your reason is for dreading to get up, you have a chance to adapt your mood if you want to. I try and take this decision every morning: Let’s start the day on the right foot –

Carolin Stoffels January 4, 2021 No Comments

Lasting Change Beyond New Year’s

A lot of people make New Year’s resolutions. If you’re not a resolutions type you still might catch yourself thinking of what you want to change in 2021. Last week, two researchers from Sweden published a study that looked at New Year’s resolutions. They wanted to understand what makes people more likely to be successful at sticking to them. They set out to learn more about: What kind of resolutions do people make? Do different resolutions reach different levels of success? … and if it is possible to increase the likelihood of a resolution’s success

Carolin Stoffels December 14, 2020 No Comments

How to Increase your Chance at Change

… or how to make a lasting New Year’s resolution for 2021 This blog post should probably start with the question of: Who do you want to be? In a perfect world, in which you had all resources – time, money, whatever it may be – how would you live your life? How would you BE in that life? What would you want to change? And then the next question is: What do you really want to achieve by that? What’s your ultimate goal? Let’s say, you wanted to start exercising more. What’s your

Carolin Stoffels December 10, 2020 No Comments

The Power of Calm

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor Frankl Have you heard of Viktor Frankl? He was a neurologist and psychiatrist from Austria who survived the gruel life in a concentration camp during WWII. Frankl wrote about his experience in the international bestseller “Man’s search for meaning”? If you haven’t read the book – it’s a highly recommendable read! It gives a deep insight into how Frankl approached life in the concentration camp and

Carolin Stoffels November 30, 2020 No Comments

Making Better Decisions with Square Method

We make many decisions everyday, most of them unconscious. You just decided which path you should take to work, what to eat, when to drink coffee etc. These simple decisions often define our habits, they rule our quality of life. There are also very important decisions like what to work on, who to marry or how to invest. These bigger decisions define the future context more than smaller decisions. After I started using a framework, especially after writing it down, quality of my decisions improved while unnecessary stress mostly disappeared. Square method is a 4

freedomxx November 27, 2020 No Comments

A Simple Trick to Boost your Confidence

Imagine a fight between two gorillas: they stand up, drum on their chest and try to take as much space a possible to impress their opponent. In some ways we are not much different to them. Those who appear confident take up space with their bodies and gestures. There’s been lots of interesting research on how our posture is impacting our feelings of power, confidence and assertiveness. Maybe you have heard about power posing? Social Psychologist and lecturer at Harvard Business School, Amy Cuddy has conducted interesting research on the impact of power posing. And

Carolin Stoffels November 23, 2020 No Comments

Stress as a fuel to reach your goals

Stress has a hugely bad reputation. Headlines scream at you that stress is the origin of the 20th (or 21st) century health epidemic. There’s countless lists of steps on how to fight or avoid stress. You can learn in stress management courses about ways to deal with it or go to the spa to wind down. What if I told you that there is a different way to think about stress? What if there was a possibility to change its impact from negative to positive? If you would like to see it for yourself try

Carolin Stoffels November 17, 2020 No Comments

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