The science behind improvement and 4 actionable tips to get better at anything
Every skill is learned through practice — repetition of an action with the goal of improvement. Practice allows us to perform the skill with more ease, confidence, speed, and attention to detail.
As we practice, we notice the improvement in our abilities. What we cannot notice is that our bodies are changing on a cellular level the more we practice. Those changes are the physical representation of getting better at things. Proper practice triggers those changes.
What does practicing do to our brains?
There are two kinds of neural tissue in the brain — grey matter on the outside and white matter on the inside. Grey matter…
The gold standard is a safe, reliable, fast website. Let’s talk about that last point.
There are a number of factors that impact how a page ranks on Google, and as of June 2021, site speed and page loading time are some of the key factors. The Core Web Vitals update means that your SEO strategy is due for a change. The Page Experience ranking factor started rolling ut mid-June and will take a while before it takes effect across the board, so you still have some time to work on your site early on.
Luckily, adapting your SEO strategy to rank high on Google shouldn't be too difficult because optimizing site speed and page…
Today is my 25th birthday and I can’t help the contemplative mood mixed in with my intense need to party. Since partying to my fullest abilities is not an option, I'm spending the evening vibing to my favorite music, dancing in my seat, drinking, and writing about some of the things I've learned in my life so far, and a few I haven't yet. Seems like a good enough way to celebrate my birthday.
1. No to peer and societal pressures
Just like most teenagers and young adults, I experience these kinds of pressure. There is an urgency to perform, to be more like my peers. It’s…
and what you could do about it
Anxiety is a widespread debilitating mental illness that most of us are familiar with. As of 2017, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, 40 million people worldwide suffer from anxiety but only 37% seek help. Anxiety disorders are highly treatable, either through medication or lifestyle changes. Anxiety disorders commonly revolve around a fear related to the future and make people avoid activities that can bring them closer to specific events that cause the anxiety and anything else that could trigger a stress response.
Anxiety is prominent in our daily lives and can even constitute itself in habits that…
A poem about memories latched on.
My mind wanders ‘round a forest of questions. Scary things live there.
Uncertainty. Doubt. Guilt. Unfading memories.
They can be terrifying in the darkness that unanswered questions brings. Turn. Try to run. But it‘s too dark. The veil is too thick. One simply bumps into those apparitions. Or smashes into them. They gain completion.
I find those creatures uglier in luminescence. They stare into your eyes and all mistakes surround your senses.
Event. Mischance. Emotions. Reasons.
Actions. Regrets.
More monsters.
They greet me on the street. They pass me by. I just keep walking. They appear in a song and…
When honor is for naught.
I don‘t want to be your knight in shining armor;
I don‘t want to be the one to save your life.
I don‘t want to listen to your laughter
As you run back to your lover.
I don‘t want the praise, the gratitude, the glamour
Because I gave you to your lover.
Come to aid you? — I did not
And though the beast is dead by now
More monstrous you are
With that sun-bright smile
And those lovely eyes.
You are stomping on my heart
But to hate you I cannot.
For that, I‘d rather let you die,
But then I wouldn‘t bear walk the earth
And that is why I err…
It could have gone either way, but it went in the middle.
I’m no stranger to guilt and realizing I’ve done wrong. In fact, I’m intimately familiar with the gnawing of my erroneous ways, which seems to be a consistent background hum in my daily life at the best of times.
The thing about guilt is that it doesn't push me to say sorry. It pushes me further from it because the stronger the guilt, the stronger the fear. There is also trustworthiness mixed in — can I trust the person to accept my apology gracefully without weaponizing it later on?
One of the guilts that kept me up at night was…
and catching fire instead
When did it writing start feeling like pulling teeth? When did the joy of creation become a mythical creature?
Yesterday everything seemed like it wasn't meant for me but today, here I am, reaching for it anyway. I give myself the permission to speak myself instead of letting the words slip through my fingers like grains of sand.
Yesterday, I couldn't say a thing. Today I’m back and the words slowly start trickling it as I push a little harder and hope for the proverbial click to resound inside my mind.
Today, I learn that self-doubt does not define me…
It started as most things do — slowly, inconspicuously — and then completely and irrevocably; like finding a piece of you and fitting it in with a satisfying conclusive click.
Discovering BTS was a commonplace affair. There is nothing out of the ordinary in laying in bed late at night, scrolling YouTube in search of distraction. I don't remember what the video was exactly, but I saw Min Yoongi on a thumbnail, thought “What a cutie!” and clicked. Simple as that.
I was greeted with a language I didn't even recognize was Korean, people I had never seen before, and…
Ivvie Ivanova
Writer. Hobby novelist. Sociable introvert. Bulgarian living in Sweden. Articles on writing, productivity, mental health, life. https://upscri.be/signup
