What´s that place that´s so very special to you, the one that brings you such good memories that just imagining being there makes you start feeling great immediately?

If you have it (and I hope you do), then that´s your "happy place", an expression that sounds to me a bit like a line from a movie.

Maybe you have more than one happy place, even better. Today, I´ve been lucky enough to visit one of mine, a place where I´ve spent many summer days throughout my life, and enjoyed many hours of swimming and games with my family 🙂

Some things have changed along the years, understandably (everything is, and all of us are, constantly changing), but I´m always happy to come back... And I know I´m very lucky to be able to come back.

Your happy places may no longer be the way you used to know them; they may be different now, or they may even have disappeared. You may think that you´re never going to visit them again. But that doesn´t really matter, because they still exist in your mind and your heart, where you can remember them in whichever way you want.

Let me propose a little game to you: close your eyes, take a deep breath, bring your mind to the happy place of your choice for a few minutes, truly enjoy it (this is the most important part), and pay attention to the details you like most, the ones that bring you the best memories, so that you can get back to them and feel that great whenever you need it:

• An image – the sunset by the swimming pool.
• A sound – the song of the turtledoves (I´m still not sure this is the right bird...)
• A smell – the wet ground during a summer electrical storm.
• A taste – the breakfast "bolluelas" (a typical baked good from the village).
• A sensation – calm, joy, connection.

Would you like to share yours?

Today I'm bringing you this Irish saying, written in Irish language (which by the way I have no idea how to pronounce):

Which translates to...

The hardest thing is daring to cross that start line...

Thanks a million to all of you who have supported me in various ways this week, with my first online workshop (the first of many, I hope)

I feel it's been a great start, watch this space for more 🙂

Internet experts say that when you want to publish content online or on social media, it´s important to schedule your publications with a certain cadence so that there´s a predictable rythm. Saint Google seems to love that consistency.

When I found this out a few months ago (thanks María!), I applied it to this blog with the most straightforward and achievable cadence I could think of: writing a post per week. Initially, I didn´t have any particular day of the week in mind. Still, by the time I realized, a pattern had emerged: I ended up publishing on Sundays, usually late at night (or in the early hours of Monday, which is technically the following week…)

In view of this, one could say that I have a tendency to leave things until the last minute. And in some cases, it´s true. I could choose to focus on that and beat myself up for spending my time procrastinating (which is a word that I don´t like at all, by the way).

But also, if you look at it this way, it turns out that week after week I´m achieving my goal of publishing a blog post, because even if it´s at the last minute, regardless of whether I feel like it or not, when the time comes I always start writing, with no excuses, because I want to honour my weekly commitment to myself and to my readers.

So most probably, had this auto-imposed deadline not existed, about half of the articles that you can read and enjoy here would not have been written… But here they are, thanks to my finding a productive way to negotiate with my procrastination habit 🙂

By the way, have you ever wondered why we procrastinate? A theory that I´ve heard several times states that leaving things until the last moment is very convenient for our unconscious mind, because that way we avoid responsibility regarding the outcome: if it turns out badly, then we have the excuse of not having had time to do it properly. And if it turns out right? Then great, we take the credit for having achieved it in record time. Either way, our ego avoids suffering.

In contrast, when we complete the task ahead of time, it´s a lot clearer that we´re the ones responsible for the outcome, and that triggers a lot of fear and insecurity within us: what if it turns out wrong? What if they don´t like it? What if they reject me?

Maybe the key to this is to leave all excuses aside once and for all, accept that the result is and will always be our responsibility, and choose the best way to manage our daily life according to what we want to achieve in life.

Because, what would happen if you really dedicated time and effort to that thing you say is important but always gets left behind?