Becoming “That Girl” – what exactly does this mean?

There’s a good reason why Becoming That Girl is trending right now! In these new times, we all are seeking to find pure happiness, inner peace and joy every day. Life is all about self-improvement. We want to feel good inside and out. We want to have beautiful experiences. Make incredible memories. We want to be healthy – in all areas of life.

There’s always something new to learn and ways to grow. The key is figuring out where you want to go, then taking steps toward that goal.

Being a better version of yourself can be as simple as understanding how your mind works. It’s about being more efficient, staying focused and embracing positivity. The way to achieve any goal is to always remain positive even when things get challenging.

Here are 10 ways to help you be a better version of yourself and accomplish the Smart Goals you want for yourself in 2022!

*Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.  I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. 

1. That Girls, Start with a positive attitude

There’s nothing wrong with having a positive attitude and starting your day with a smile. It can be the difference between success and failure. A negative attitude can harm you in many ways.

The first way a negative attitude harms you is by bringing negative thoughts into your mind. When you let your thoughts run wild, you create an environment that can only attract negative energy.

Additionally, a negative attitude can harm you is by attracting the same kind of people into your life. By being around people who share your outlook on life, you will start thinking like them, which will only reinforce your negative outlook.

“By being around people who are positive and upbeat, you will start thinking like them, which will only reinforce your positive outlook.”

So choose your friends wisely.

2. Make a gratitude vision board

Have you heard of vision boards? It’s a cool tool for long-term goal setting, and it’s based on the concept of the Law of Attraction.

You write down your goals and dreams and hang them in a place where you’ll see them every day. The idea is that thinking about your dreams will attract the energy you need to achieve them. And they say that if you want something bad enough, that want alone will bring it to you.

So if you want to be more grateful for what you have right now and live in the moment, create a vision board of the things you are most grateful for.

3. Work on your mindset

It took a couple of sessions with my therapist and hypnosis to release the trauma and take control of my fears for me to be able to get to a point of having a healthy mindset.

How do therapy and hypnosis help you with a healthy mindset?

1. You learn that it is not your fault and there is nothing wrong with you for feeling broken and afraid of living once you have been through traumas
2. You learn what traumas caused certain behaviours, thoughts and reactions
3. You learn how to identify the thoughts that take you down the rabbit hole and how to divert your thoughts back to a happy place
4. You release the tension, hurt, fears, anger and anxiety caused by traumas during hypnosis (when your subconscious mind is accessed)
5. You feel lighter, free, joy, happiness and excitement in your mind, body and soul – instead of the heavy, dark, fear and anxiety that you started with.

My favourite affirmation:

“I release the unhealed version of myself.”

4. That Girls know their financial situation

One of the biggest stresses in life is usually finances. Usually associated with having too little income and too many expenses or having too much debt and struggling to pay it off.

You may feel like you have lost control and don’t know how to cope with your monthly payments or how to get through the month once you have been paid. There is a solution – we just don’t always like the solution.

If your expenses are more than your income or you are stressing about how to get through the month once you have paid all your bills, then you need to adjust your budget. (Start by creating a budget if you don’t already have one.)

You need to cut out anything that is not essential or a must-pay.

The easiest way to save money is to spend less, and the easiest way to spend less is to become familiar with your finances. There are several ways to do this.

The first is to find out how much you bring home in a month and then subtract your monthly bills. You’ll be surprised at how much you have leftover every month once you start looking at it like this.

Follow these steps to financial freedom:

• Insert your incomes and expenses in a spreadsheet.
• Highlight all the items that are essentials (such as housing, food, water, electricity, etc)
• Highlight (in a different colour) all the items you have to pay (such as minimum debt amounts, etc)
• Add a column for all your debt and add in the total balance owed as well as the interest rate

Next:

• Now put all your debt information into a debt snowball calculator such as this one by lifeandmyfinances.com, in the order of smallest balance to largest balance
• Go through your expenses list and see which items you can cancel or cut which are not essential to you (it is ok to leave 1 thing that is there as a treat or luxury but you don’t need 7 treats or luxuries)
• Use the money you saved to add to your debt snowball calculator as extra payments. The debt snowball calculator will show you how to pay off your debt
• Make sure to include an amount each month for savings (for emergency savings or unexpected expenses)

It might take a couple of years to reach your goal of financial freedom, or just being debt-free. But the time will pass anyway and you might as well use the time to better your situation so that you no longer have to be anxious about your finances.

If you cut back now and focus on your financial goals, you will reach a point where you will be able to spoil yourself again and buy the things you want – but responsibly this time. It will be worth it!

Nobody has ever done this and said: “Oh no, I regret cutting back on my expenses so that I can now be debt-free”.

5. That Girls Plan – Use your time wisely

Honestly, time management is the most important thing in life. If you can’t manage your time well, you’ll have zero results in anything. And you might be saying: “I have no time”. But you are wrong.

Here is a basic list of daily or weekly activities, and you can add to this list or remove items that aren’t applicable:

• Sleeping
• Eating
• Cooking
• Cleaning your environment
• Personal hygiene
• Kids
• Partner
• Working

Also:

• Travelling to work & back (commuting)
• Social Media
• Television / Movies / Series
• Shopping
• Socialising

Write down this list and add several 1-5 for least important to most important to you. Rate each one based on the priority in your life.

Keep a note in your daily Planner of what you do for a week. Write down the time in 24-hour format and write next to the time when you start doing an activity and when you stop.

At the end of the week, you should see how you have used your time for the activities.

For each of the activities listed, you will be able to put durations on how much time per day or week you spend doing that activity.

Now compare the list of activities that you rated to the actual duration of time spent doing that activity. Does it match up? Do your priorities match up to the amount of time spent doing an activity?

If not, then you need to adjust how you spend your time so that you can focus your energy on your priorities.

Example:

I value family time (with my husband and son). When I did the journaling of how I spend my time, I was surprised to see that I spend a lot more time on social media than what I would like to admit, and less time with my family than I thought. So I cut down time spent on social media and now do more with my family.

6. That Girl eats & hydrates her body to feel good

• Hydrate your body with water
• Eat food based on nutrition and fuelling your body (eat at a calorie deficit if you are looking to lean up). Learn about different foods and what nutrients and benefits they offer. After a couple of weeks of eating for nutrition, your body will learn what it gets from different foods and tell you exactly what it wants. Eat colourful meals – greens, reds, yellows, blues.
• Treat yourself for 1 meal per week – whatever meal and desert you feel like (your body will tell you what it wants)

7. Set Smart Goals for yourself and accomplish them!

Write your goals in a pretty journal.

I love this 3 pack of pretty journals:

3 Pack A5 Spiral Notebook/Journals

Start with your long-term goals and vision

Break this down into short-term goals, based on what you need to do to achieve your long-term goals

For example:

Long-term goal

• Have a healthy and fit body

Short-term goals

• Drink 2 litres of water a day
• Workout (walk, run or dance) for 30 minutes per day
• Fuel my body with nutritious foods
• Priorise vegetables, protein and fruits into my diet (without cutting carbs and fats out)
• Use skincare products to nourish and protect my skin
• Schedule a self-care day to pamper my body, mind and soul
• Schedule regular medical check-ups

8. Create a vision board of who you want to be and what you want to do

A vision board is a collage of pictures, quotes and words that you want to achieve in your life. The goal is to visualize what you want in your life so you can see the steps you need to take to achieve those things.

Vision boards are a tool to help you achieve goals, dreams and aspirations. They motivate you to look forward to tomorrow and keep your eyes on the prize. Vision boards are not just for businesses and entrepreneurs; they are also useful for educational, personal self-improvement and fitness goals.

A simple vision board can be created by cutting images out of magazines, arranging them on a poster board, and pasting the images onto the board.

You can also create a digital board by pinning images on Pinterest to your board. This is a good way to use your social media time for feeling good. Pin images that motivate and inspire you to be a better version of yourself.

9. That Girl reads

I started my healing journey by reading Jay Shetty’s Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day.

What I learnt from reading this book:
-How to overcome negativity
-How to stop overthinking
-Why comparison kills love
-How to use your fear

Some other popular “That Girl” books you should check out:

• The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery
• Atomic Habits – James Clear
• 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think – Brianna Wiest
• 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos – Jordan B. Peterson

10. Keep a personal development journal

Write down the following in your journal:

• positive mindset quotes
• goals
• positive affirmations
• growth mindset tips
• daily schedule/routine
• self-care checklist/routine
• cleaning & organising checklist
• to do list for the year/month/week

If you want to become a better version of yourself, remember these 10 things. Maybe you already do most of them, but if not, take it as an opportunity to improve your daily routine and maybe even your life! Remember that we’re always here for you with more tips and tricks. 

Wishing you the best,