#level up mindset

[sweet-lil-darling]

💕 There are men who enjoy investing in you.

💕 There are men who enjoy providing for you.

💕 There are men who enjoy maintaining you.

Don't listen to the ones who can't or won't treat you the way you want to be treated.

[a-soft-life-for-bw-moodboard]

[digitalgirlguide]

BECOMING THE WOMAN YOU WANT

Imagine the woman you want to become. Envision her embracing a lifestyle woven with healthy habits that radiate positivity and well-being. Picture her waking up early, greeting the day with gratitude, and setting intentions that shape her mindset for success.

In her daily routine, she prioritizes self-care—nourishing her body with wholesome meals, staying hydrated, and indulging in regular exercise that she genuinely enjoys. Whether it's a morning yoga session, an evening run, or a dance class, physical activity is not a chore but a celebration of what her body can achieve.

This woman values the power of mindfulness. Picture her taking moments throughout the day to breathe deeply, practice meditation, or simply appreciate the present. It's in these mindful pauses that she finds clarity, resilience, and a profound connection with herself.

As she moves through her day, healthy habits extend into her work life. This woman is organized and efficient, using time management techniques to tackle tasks without feeling overwhelmed. Regular breaks and moments of reflection help her maintain focus and creativity.

Evenings are a sanctuary for winding down. She cherishes a good night's sleep, prioritizing rest as a cornerstone of her well-being. Unplugging from screens, engaging in calming activities, and maintaining a consistent sleep schedule contribute to the rejuvenation her body and mind need.

Remember, becoming her doesn't happen overnight. It's a gradual process, a collection of intentional choices and persistent efforts. Start incorporating these healthy habits, step by step, and watch as you evolve into the empowered, balanced woman you aspire to be. 🌿💪🌺🌟

[pinksatinsashes]

This year my focus is on 3 things, my body, my finances, and my natural beauty.

So if you see me looking crazy, with no makeup on, hair in low manipulation styles and refusing to buy new clothes…mind your business.

It’s all part of the process.

[withloveheart]

One of the best things I learned was that it was never too late to start over.

I've heard this being said before but it never really clicked until I met someone who embodied it fully and unapologetically. My Palestinian neighbors had a relative who I had always looked up to when I was in high school. She was smart, funny, loving, and most importantly knew her worth. Her worth wasn't spoken about. Never had I heard her utter things like "I'm confident" or "I know my worth" or anything else along those lines. However, she did embody it.

When I was in high school she was being courted by a man who seemed to adore her and shower her with love. From the outside looking in, he seemed enamored with her. At some point, she accepts to being his wife. They have a lovely engagement party. The wedding was going to be even better. So, imagine my surprise, and many others, when on the day of the wedding, as people are getting ready and making their way to the venue, the entire thing is called off. Money was already put in. Money they couldn't get back. The reason for calling off the wedding? This man began to insult her and make some interesting remarks and as a result she decided she wasn't going through the wedding. I don't know what was said but I do know her family made it clear that she should've worked it out rather than just leave especially on the actual wedding day. After all, what would people think? For those who don't know, plenty of Middle Eastern and North African cultures would view this as an issue. And I personally know many women who have had deep regrets over their marriage but were too worried about the stigma of canceling the wedding when it was so close and the potential of being seen as difficult or spoiled. Of course, this wasn't everyone but a good majority.

Seeing this very statement of "never too late to start over" be embodied by someone wholeheartedly really altered my perspective when I was younger. I also got to see first hand the strength it requires to start over while everyone around you is judging your very decision. Thanks to her I grew up with a solid example to follow and have tried my best to have this attitude with everything in my life. Personally, it has paid off well.

[dosesofglamour]

Doses of Glamour ⚜️

Women of colour in high society:

Brooke Devard Ozaydinli

African American marketing manager and podcast host

Dominant feminine seduction archetypes: The sophisticate and the gamine

Profile: Career

This stunning Stanford alumni is a product marketing manager at Instagram as well as the founder and host of the award winning podcast Naked Beauty Podcast. The Naked Beauty Podcast isn’t simply about physical appearance, Brooke believes that any discussion on beauty taps into complicated personal histories, what we’ve inherited from our mothers and grandmothers, how our ideology shapes our sense of self, how sickness or health (or even being in love!) effects our self-esteem. Beauty is all of these things and she wanted to create a safe space and platform for women to share their stories.

Marriage to Umut Ozaydinli

Brooke is married to Umut Ozaydinli, the founder of Deviant Ventures an entertainment marketing company in New York. He is the son of Bulend Ozaydinli of Istanbul, who was the chief executive of Koc Holding, an industrial company in Istanbul with assets worth $84.8 billion and later the chief executive of Migros, a supermarket chain in Istanbul.

The couple met in London during the 2012 Summer Olympics. Umut, who lived in New York, was in London organizing a live music performance and art exhibition for Coca-Cola. While Brooke, who grew up in New York, was living in London at the time, where she was an executive producer of six short documentary films on underground music culture for Nokia.

When a mutual friend introduced them at the Dorchester Hotel, “I literally couldn’t take my eyes off of her,” Umut said. By February 2013, a romance was starting to blossom. “Every time we saw each other, we grew a little bit more attached,” Brooke said. “Despite living with an ocean between us, we didn't fight the impracticality and quickly recognized that a strong bond was forming. I had never met anyone who thought so big and lived the way he did, he was so full of passion and curiosity.”

In the ensuing months, they had what Brooke described as “these intense weekend rendezvous in Amsterdam, Milan, Los Angeles, Istanbul and Atlanta, stealing time between work and other commitments to be together.”

In August 2013,Umut invited Brooke to join him and his parents, on their boat, to sail the Greek Islands and coast of Turkey. “Little did she know it was my final acid test,” Umut said. The couple got engaged not long after, eventually tying the knot in a beautiful Tuscan ceremony at Villa Cetinale.

[sweet-lil-darling]

🩷 Invest in your skincare.

🩷 Invest in your wardrobe.

🩷 Invest in your skill sets.

🩷 Invest in your knowledge.

🩷 Invest in yourself.

[a-soft-life-for-bw-moodboard]

So ready for a hallmark romance right now 🫦

[windonthewaters]

[pinksatinsashes]

The Dream Girl's Guide to Setting and Achieving Goals

If there's one thing that I am insanely good at, it's planning and setting goals.

However I have not always been great at achieving them.

Call it laziness, lack of self discipline or being over ambitious, you can take your pick. But every year I would set goals and every year I would never achieve them.

This year I was, and am determined to transform. I'm tired of putting it off. I've tried a completely different method (read about that here) and it's finally working out, I cant't wait to share it with you.

Why is Setting and Achieving Goals Important?

Setting and achieving goals will forever be important, no matter what stage of life you're in if you don't want time to pass while you stay in the same place.

If you're happy staying exactly as you are, looking the same way, doing the same thing everyday, making the same money, dating the same guy or having the same conversations, year after year after year. Then this post simply isn't for you.

But for the rest of us, who want more, who understand that wanting something different means that you have to do something different, who want to grow, learn and develop and that who understand that time is the most valuable thing that we have; setting and achieving things, day after day, month after month and year after year is insanely important.

If you are one of us, I'm sure you already knew that, the issue might be actually following through.

You're good at setting goals, not so much with actually achieving them?

Maybe it's not your fault, maybe you're just doing it wrong.

------------- How To Set Goals -------------

How many of us start the new year, or the random day that we decide we need to be better by writing a list of Goals?

Maybe that list looks something like this.

Lose 10lbs

Grow Hair Longer

Dress Better

Save Money

Get 1000 followers on X platform

Can you see the problem here? My STEM girlies are yelling at the screen saying that the goals aren't SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Timely).

The real problem?

All of these goals are end products.

And to eliminate this problem, and make these goals better, we have to turn them into habits.

-------- How to turn Goals into Habits --------

Let's go through our list again.

Lose 10lbs -> Workout 4 times a week, do one form of excerise a day and eat at a caloric deficit.

Grow Hair Longer -> Keep hair in protective styles, use hair growth oils daily, only brush hair when in conditioner

Dress Better -> Sell the clothes I don't like to buy clothes I do like, do a closet clear out once a month, only buy things that are high quality

Save Money -> Budget all money once a month, unsubscribe from things I no longer use, declutter and sell things I no longer need once a month.

Get 1000 followers on X platform -> Post 3 times a week, create meaningful content, reply to all comments left on posts daily, interact with posts from others in the sam niche every day

Can you see the difference?

By changing your goals from the end product to the process these goals suddenly mean more. They're more helpful and seem much more achievable.

End goals cannot always be controlled, you can do everything right, post 3 times a week, reply to all your comments and your following count may still not change for months... then all of a sudden something goes viral and they'll call you an overnight success.

By shifting your focus to the things you can control, rather than the end product, your sense of achievement comes from your consistency and hard work, allowing you to keep going even when you don't see any changes.

This prevents you from giving up when success could be just around the corner.

-------- How To Achieve Your Goals --------

Now that we've gone through how to set Goals, lets talk about how to achieve them.

A lot of people just stop at the first part and never think about the things that they can do to ensure that their goals are met.

Never stop at the list.

Why?

You have no initiative to ever look at this list again so you'll most likely forget you even wrote them down in a few weeks

You haven't factored how your life may make achieving these goals a priority.

The answer to this problem?

Turning your Habits into Routines.

It's all well and good setting goals, even setting good goals. But you also need to make sure that you're creating an environment that's conducive to the goals you want to achieve, the habits you want to keep, and the life you want to create.

------- How to turn Habits into Routines ------

We've written down all our goals, turned them into habits and now it's time of the most important part, turning them into routines.

This is important because consistency is key, always. Instead of saying that you'll do something 3 times a week and leaving at that, let's go deeper.

Which days of the week will you do it? What time? For how long?

Leaving it up to chance is risky. What if you forget?

We need to create consistent routines.

Pick which days to do your habits

Pick what time you'll do your habits

Pick how long you'll do them for

Pick what you'll do before and after.

Try to make this as consistent as possible, for example, same time every day, same day every week.

Make sure that every single hour is accounted for, even if it's just set as free time.

Its easy to convince yourself you don't have enough time to do things, let's put all the things you have to do into a spreadsheet with how long it'll take and when you'll do it. Better yet we can use a calendar app or website.

See all the free time you've got?

Now creating routine is so much more than writing it down and doing it everyday or every week. At first you may have to check the app every five seconds to see what you're meant to be doing but if you stay consistent, after a few weeks it'll become second nature.

------------ Removing Distractions ----------

Organising your time and creating a routine is really eye-opening because it gives you a chance to wonder what the f*** you've been spending your time doing.

Nothing productive probably. Take a look at your screentime, what apps are you spending your time on? How long are you spending? Is this part of the life you'd like to build for yourself?

It might be time for a break.

I am being so honest when I said that getting rid of every single distraction that could be keeping me from my goal was the single most important decision I could've made when planning 2024.

I went full on, no Netflix, no YouTube, no music, no games, no social media. No distractions. For at least the first month of my new routine and I plan on only adding everything back slowly.

I advise you do the same.

Remove the things that you can see could distract you from your goals. What's keeping you from going to bed early? What would you rather do than going to the gym?

I'm telling you, I haven't stopped working on myself, because I genuinely have nothing better to do. I've cut all the distractions out. Going on my one hour walk is now what I look forward to all day. The gym is the best part of my day.

My days currently consist of self improvement, wellness podcasts, reading Jane Austen, being active, cleaning my spaces, skincare and early nights.

But it feels like I'm living my dream life? Whenever I think of my ideal day it's never included 4 hours of mindless scrolling or spending 2 hours down a YouTube rabbit hole.

When I think of my dream life it's always been home cooked meals, reading and fancy skincare routines. I couldn't be happier and I really don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.

TRY IT.

This is probably the most important step because the power that distractions have on us is so real.

You can do all the planning and have the best intentions but if your want to play games, scroll mindlessly on social media, text a guy that doesn't care about you or engage in celebrity drama is greater than your want to be better? Good Luck Charlie.

---- Making Your Goal Your Obsession ----

This is actually the fun part.

All I do is listen to podcasts about my goal, read books about my goals, make pinterest boards about my goals and talk to myself about my goals. I'm so obsessed.

Make a reading list, find some podcasts that align with your goals, follow blogs with the same mindset, talk to those of your friends that will get it.

This makes sure that nothing can distract you, and you can't just 'forget' to work towards your goal.

However, you must not let your time obsessing over your goal be more than your time actually working on your goal. Do not forget that.

------------- Books that could help ------------

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

----- May the odds be ever in your favour.. -----

[withloveheart]

What is a pet peeve of yours when it comes to the level up or hypergamy community?

Hey habibti,

To be honest, I probably could make a list, but currently I really dislike when a woman who is on her level up journey or whatever has some weird tendency to fully believe in the stereotypes of other woman in other cultures while also dating the men from those cultures. It's no secret that with this whole hypergamy movement there has been an increase in interest in Asian and Arab men. I find it pathetic when I hear women talk about how easy it is for them to attract men from those cultures because apparently the women from those cultures aren't enough. The number of times I see women posting on different platforms that those women are too submissive, they don't have a backbone, maybe not highly educated, and whatever other bullshit they can think of is endless. It's also the quickest way to figure out someone isn't living the life they are preaching, or they are dealing with a man who is manipulating them into thinking they are special. Women from these cultures know how to handle the men better than you do because of understanding the nuances. Majority of the time these women are also educated, demanding of respect, and are not some submissive pushovers like some people like to paint them as. It's super weird to me when women feel the need to trash other women while making themselves seem special. It reeks of insecurity. People who are uncultured and haven't really experienced the world tend to think in black and white. Take girls who speak like this with a grain of salt.

With Love, Heart 💚

[vetripetraraani]

Resume building is BEAUTIFUL

studying courses. volunteering. interning. getting my bag. exploring my hobbies. finding my interests, whether they are considered "competitive" or not. educating myself. writing papers. creating a name for myself. breaking my limits. developing skills. learning languages. being proud of my purpose. networking with people.

i just love the process that leads to this one piece of paper. there is so much more to it than being the top candidate or busiest worker.