I know, I know, I’m late. I hope you can forgive me as I bring many juicy things today. I’ll share some things my therapist told me, hoping it will help you too. I’ll also share some of my fears and how I’ve been overcoming them so that I may push you to overcome yours. Finally, I’ll spill the tea and tell you how you can always find a way to make Notion work for you and your goals.

At the end of the email, there is a section of my most used apps of the week if you want to steal some ideas.

Therapist wisdom

A few weeks ago, I realised that the company I work for doesn’t completely align with my core values. This made me reflect on my job, how much I like and dislike it and what I would really do if I had the chance. I talked about this with my therapist, and she told me she is pretty sure I am a multipotential person (someone who has many interests and creative purposes). This resonated a lot with me, but I still couldn’t see how it would help me solve my problems. What do I like when it comes to my work life? Do I like my job? Do I want to be an engineer? Which job would I like more? What makes me really happy? All these questions populated my head and made me feel small and insecure.

I, for once, had the fear to change. Pretty strange for a person who studied far from home for more than 5 years and moved countries multiple times. So, why was I (still am a bit) afraid? Again, in a therapy session, I understood it’s because since I was small, I have created an idea in my head (as I think many of us do) about “future me”. Which job will she do? For me, the job I had pictured as “future me” was being an engineer, like my father. Why? Well, for me, being an engineer meant working with numbers, with logic and solving problems. It would mean coming back home happy and travelling the world as my father does. And if you are thinking, “You can do this thing in so many jobs, not only being an engineer”, good job! It’s the same thing my therapist told me! And I assure you that it made me feel soooooo relieved. Before then, I’ve never asked myself what I liked about (my perspective of) my father's job, and now that I know, I feel like a door has closed, but many windows have opened.

“What about being a multipotential person?” you might ask yourself. Well, being a multipotential person now puts me in front of so many unexplored paths. This makes me feel both excited and scared. I am excited because I can try new things and find something that makes me happy. Scared because I fear I might choose “wrong” again. And this sometimes stops me to making steps into whatever direction and makes me stay put where I am, unhappy with what I do.

Overcoming my fears

How have I been solving this? I'll start by saying I’ve still a long way to go to overcome my fears fully, but here is what I’ve been doing:

1. I try to dedicate a bit of my time every day to something that makes me happy and allows me to discover something more about myself (I put all this in a Notion page, by the way; I can share it with you if you want, just let me know).

2. I make myself fail a bit every day. I have decided to overcome this fear of failure and look at everything I do as a learning opportunity. I know it sounds silly or cliche, but as I fail more, I am understanding is never a real failure, it’s just an opportunity to grow, to learn more about myself and to experiment. How do I make myself fail a bit every day? My main problem now is that I’m unhappy with my job, so I am creating a new curriculum. It’s not focused on engineering, and I’ll start sending it (in the future tense, as I haven’t started yet) to companies that fully align with my values. Of course, I have a Notion page for this; let me know if you want a sneak peek of my work dashboard. I also do other small new things: shoot more creatively, talk to strangers, try a new recipe, and so on. I also started this newsletter to step out of my comfort zone.

3. I try to love myself more. I am starting to recognise my achievements (big or small) a bit more. I tell myself, “Good job” (I really struggled with that for a while). And, a bit connected to the first point, I do something I like every day.

Notion as my little minion

As you might know by now, I am a huge fan of Notion and use it for almost anything in my life. “How can you do it?” you might ask. It’s because I know the basics very well and can shape each page as I want.

The most important basic building block in Notion (in my opinion) is databases. My workflow when creating a page is (almost) always this:

1. Ask myself what the purpose of the page is and what type of data I’ll be storing there.

2. Depending on the type of data I’ll decide to make (or not) a database, for me, the answer is almost always yes ahahah

3. After creating your database, I add as many features as I want and think about creating other linked databases, depending on my need

4. In the end, it’s time for aesthetics. I realized I use colourful, well-organized, and overall prettier Notion pages more than the ones that are not. In my opinion, having a good-looking Notion page is almost as important as what you put inside it.

If you still don’t have a Notion account, you can create it here (it’s my affiliate link). And If you are still scared about where can you learn about all about it, here are a few options:

• you can have all the resources for free on the Notion webpage or following Notion-focused Youtube channels (thinking about starting mine actually, I’ll let you know!)

• If, on the other hand, you don’t want to create pages by yourself, you can use templates. I have many templates already available; I am now working on a storefront in Gumroad where you can find the basic version for free and the advanced version at a fair price - talking about stepping out of my comfort zone. You can also use the ones Notion proposes.

• If you want something 100% tailored for you, we can have a call, and I can do it for you!

Week’s winner apps

This week, I'm sharing two apps that make life feel like a game. I love it when boring tasks (that are actually good for your mental and physical health) can be gamified, and these two apps do this for me!

1. Hevy — A game-changing app for me when we talk about gym motivation. Since I started using this app, I can’t wait to go to the gym, tick all the exercises I have to do, track my progress and be happy about my achievements! It’s a super cool way to gamify the process of going to the gym for people like me who don’t really like to go to the gym just to lift weights. What the app can do for you: for free, you can create three workouts (so that you just have to push “start” when you are at the gym), and at the end of your training, you can take a photo and put some comments about the session. You also receive a wrap about how much weight you lifted and how you’ve been improving. Cool graphics too!

2. WaterMinder—I never kept track of my water intake, but I’m sure there were very few days I actually met my daily target, which made me feel tired every day. This app allows me to track my daily water intake. It makes me feel happy when I reach my goal and also reminds me to drink. This is a very important feature for me as I usually forget, ahahahahah. This app also has some graphics so that you can track your progress!

Asking for feedbacks

That’s a wrap for today. I hope that my life adventures helped you with whatever challenges you are facing these days. As always, I’d really appreciate it if you answered this email, telling me what you liked and didn’t like. If you want, you can also just answer with one of these three options:

• I liked it!

• I didn’t like it.

• It was too long.

• It was too short.

• Next time I would like to see something different.

Thank you so much. A lot of hugs and kisses, see you in two weeks!

Alice