Personal Development

Can you imagine how fast you’d grow if you were able to read one book a week? It’s not even as difficult as you imagine it to be! 

With 52 books full of knowledge absorbed within a year, you will rapidly level up and become more successful than you’d ever imagined. 

Many of the most successful people are avid readers, and since you are reading this, I am sure you are ready to join their ranks. 

Here is how I read one book per week:

Read also: Reading List For Personal Growth

Read also: 18 Powerful Personal Growth Ideas

1. Use Goodreads for motivation

Firstly, let’s talk about the motivation aspect of reading one book per week. 

Reading is not a terribly difficult task. The vast majority of people know how to do it and can do so with relative ease, albeit with different speed levels. 

In the end, the reason so few people read books, and even fewer nonfiction books and even fewer than that more than 1 book per month, let alone one per week, is a lack of motivation. 

They simply don’t want to. Maybe they even know it would benefit them, and they think they should do it. But they clearly lack the motivation necessary to get started. 

I’ve found one great way to get motivated to read more books is Goodreads. 

Goodreads is like this huge online bookclub. It is owned by Amazon and has every book you can think of listed with a summary and its different editions in different languages. 

Once you create a Goodreads account or connect it to your Amazon account, set yourself a yearly goal on how many books you want to read. 

At first, choose a number that seems comfortable enough to reach but is more than you read last year. DON’T just set a goal of 52 books a year right off the bat! This is bound to make you feel stressed and like a failure, if you don’t hit the goal. 

Next, I recommend you to search for all the books you’ve ever read in your life and save them under ‘READ.’ 

Seeing how much you’ve already read is always a nice motivational boost. And if you remember them well enough, you can even go ahead and give them ratings and reviews.

Then, if you already have some books on your mind that you’d like to read, search for them as well and add them under ‘WANT TO READ.’ 

And once you start to read a book, you mark it as ‘CURRENTLY READING .’

2. Buy only one book at a time

I’ve learned the hard way that my excitement to read a book can wane as quickly as it came. 

Sometimes I used to be super motivated to read new books, so I bought four or five at once. 

And I was very much thrilled to read the first and second books. But by the time I had read those, the excitement for the other books was slowly dwindling, and I had my heart set upon books not yet on my shelf. 

Eventually, sometimes after years of them catching dust on my shelf, I read them, and they were good. But until then, they always created that feeling of guilt when I saw them still standing unread on my bookshelf. 

Nowadays, I only purchase one book at a time – no matter how much I might desire two books and how sure I am of reading them both, I will buy only one at a time. 

Of course, there is the exception of wishing for books on your birthday or Christmas, but I stick to my one book at a time rule whenever I’m the one purchasing them. 

It’s one of the best mindset changes regarding books I’ve ever made. Try it out for yourself! 

3. Get inspired and excited for a book

Now, how does one get inspired and excited to read a new book? 

For me, there are several ways this can happen. 

Sometimes it’s through listening to an interview on a podcast that gets me super interested in the value the book provides. I discovered The Alter Ego Effect this way on the Jim Kwik Podcast. 

Other times it’s through book recommendation videos on YouTube. That’s how I discovered Sacred Powers and Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 

Sometimes I get excited to read books because they are mentioned in other books or even Fanfiction. I discovered The Focault Pendulum while reading an Arthur/Eames (Inception) Fanfiction, for example. 

There really are endless ways to find good book inspirations. In whatever way I come across them, I always make sure to save them onto my Goodreads ‘WANT TO READ’ list. 

Often, I never get around to reading them because my excitement for them disappears until I am finished with my current book and ready to purchase another one. But if that happens, it is just as fine. 

Sometimes, that spark gets rekindled months or years later. 

But in any way, I always have a book I’m thrilled to read at hand and many more waiting for me. 

4. Divide into sections

Alright, so now, you have a book that you are wildly motivated to read. What now? 

First of all, I like to calculate how many pages I need to read in a day to finish the whole book within a week. 

If it’s a physical book, I like to put in post-its to have a visual marker, but if it’s my Kindle, then I simply memorize the rough number.

Each day I always aim to reach that number of pages. If I don’t reach it the previous day, I know exactly how much more I need to read today or the other days to get back on track. 

5. Make it a habit

Make reading a non-negotiable part of your day. If you don’t turn it into a habit that has an exact time during your day, you will most likely forget about it or remember it at the end of the day when you have to rush to squeeze it in before bedtime. 

For me, reading is part of my morning routine. I spend 20-30 minutes each morning reading. If I’ve read in the morning, I can forget about it and be at ease knowing I’ve done my daily reading. 

However, often enough these days, I like to sprinkle in some smaller reading sessions throughout the rest of the day. 

Every time I have some time to spare and I am in the mood to read, I’ll read a few pages to reach or even superseded my daily page number goal. 

I don’t recommend just relying on those sprinkled in reading sessions. You should have a clear time of the day, which you use for reading. Find where it fits best for you.

6. Don’t use books to fall asleep!

That being said, I don’t recommend using your nighttime routine for reading. Or at the very least, you shouldn’t read lying in bed in your pajamas. 

If you are serious about nonfiction books and you want to gain as much value as possible from them, you should be wide awake while you’re reading. 

First of all, if you’re sleepy, you’re not particularly fast in anything you do. Much less so in reading, which will make your eyes droop after a while. So, in general, you’ll need longer to read the book that way. 

Secondly, your comprehension and retention are far from the best when you’re tired. 

I mean, imagine someone gave you an important contract of any kind, and it’s crucial that you read over it before signing because it will heavily impact your life. Would you do that reading in bed in the hopes of falling asleep more easily through it? 

I sure hope you wouldn’t! 

And you should treat valuable nonfiction books the same. 

7. Get a Kindle

Look, I get it. E-Readers like the Kindle are not very aesthetically pleasing. 

They don’t soothe a true bookworm’s heart because they don’t have that paper smell, and you can’t feel the texture of the pages when flipping them. You also can’t appreciate the softness and design of the binding. 

They are, plainly said, dull enough to make you want to cry. 

That being said, they are undoubtedly much more practical than physical books.  

You can easily travel with them, you don’t have to worry about getting them wet on the poolside, you can bring a whole library with you in your handbag wherever you go, you can purchase new books instantly, the books are cheaper, they don’t take up space, and with the right tools, you can quickly transfer your highlighted passages and save them all in one place. 

So the way I am handling it at the moment is like this: 

If there is a book that excites me because of its utterly gorgeous cover (just saying Shadow and Bone here, that book literally has me starstruck every time I see it), I will get it in paperback or hardcover. 

Sometimes I hate the aesthetics of a book so much that I know I will be demotivated to pick it up despite how much I want to read it. That’s when I’ll get it on Kindle. 

And when the book is visually neither terribly exciting nor bad, I’m often swayed by the lower price to get it on my Kindle as well. 

I might rely even more on Kindle from now on, simply because I can’t be bothered typing up notes from the books to refer back to them, and with E-Readers, it is so much easier to do. 

8. Practise Speed Reading #1: Pointer

All right, now let’s talk about your reading speed. 

If you are like most people, me very much included, you’re reading terribly slow most of the time. 

In reality, you could read much, much faster without losing much of your comprehension. 

Just think about it, if you see signs on the road or commercial banners in the city, you just throw a quick look at them, and you know exactly what they said. 

Reading books can be very much the same way. Speed readers can read at twice or even three times the speed of us slow readers, simply because they use a different strategy. 

So, let me give you some tips on how to do this. 

This first tip, unfortunately, doesn’t really work well for reading on touchscreens the Kindle included. 

It is using your finger for pacing through the lines. This makes your reading faster because it keeps your eye tracking a smooth line instead of jumping forth and back and halting throughout. 

Just try it out for yourself. Look straight ahead wherever you are and try to let your eyes move in a straight line from left to right. 

It doesn’t work, does it? Your eyes always jump a bit. 

Hold out your arm, point a finger, and move it from left to right in a straight line while following the movement with your eyes. 

No jumping now, is there?

This effect can help you speed up your reading, so try it out for yourself. 

9. Practise Speed Reading #2: Eliminate Subvocalization 

Now let’s talk about possibly the biggest obstacle to speed reading: Subvocalization. 

I’m sure you know that voice in your head that’s reading along with every sentence as if you were speaking them out loud. 

For me, it’s especially bad when I read in English (which is most of the time, if I’m not reading for uni). Because it’s a foreign language, I still focus on the right pronunciation, which makes me subvocalize a lot. 

I’m sure you know that your thinking speed is faster than your talking speed. So why would we slow our reading down by speaking the words as slowly in our heads as we would out loud? It’s entirely unnecessary. 

But how do you actually reduce subvocalization? 

Some say that humming while you read helps. For me counting 1, 2, 3 repeatedly in my head while reading is more effective. 

Admittedly, I am still struggling very much with this, and it’s annoying me greatly. 

Sometimes I get these glimpses of how fast I could read without subvocalization. Once in a while, I have a phase where I practically fly through sentences and pages of a book, but then I lose momentum, and I’m back to snail reading. 

I assume it is, like most things, merely a matter of practice. And once you get those glimpses of how fast you can read without subvocalization, you’re never going to want to read slower again. 

10. Practise Speed Reading #3: Musik

Listening to instrumental music while reading can help you blend out environmental noise. 

I always tend to get my mind hung up on other people’s conversations if I am so much able as to understand a few words even from a distance. 

This is immensely annoying and slows me down dramatically. 

So whenever people are talking around me, I listen to a Spotify or YouTube study playlist. I prefer alpha wave music over classical music in these situations. 

11. Practise Speed Reading #4: Use your peripheral sight

Our eyes are amazing! They can see a great deal more than simply what we focus on directly. 

This peripheral sight can come in handy while you’re reading. 

Many speed readers don’t actually read a full line from the first word to the last. Instead, they read maybe the third word to the third last. 

It is as if they have an invisible margin left and right that cuts through the first few and the last few words of each line. 

Try it out for yourself. Take a quick look at the second or third words of each line of this text. Do you still know the previous words without looking at them? I’m sure you do. 

Try this out when reading the next time. If you use your pointer finger, don’t let it start at the beginning of the line but a few words in and let it stop a few words earlier. 

This technique on its own will help you to improve your reading speed so you can read one book per week more easily. 

I hope these 11 tips on how I read one book a week helped you. I highly encourage you to try it out for yourself. 

Make a challenge out of it! Simply start with a ‘2 books in 2 weeks’ challenge and if that goes well, add another week on top of it. That’s how I got started. 

I always thought reading 52 books a year was a crazy lofty goal, and I was excited with my +12 books a year. 

But when I started the year with a ‘4 books in 4 weeks’ challenge, and it went surprisingly well, I simply had to keep going. And from there on, I never looked back. 

Reading books is sooooooo much more fun if you don’t slow-read the same book each day for 2 months. If you know you’ll finish it within a week, you’re much more likely to pick it up and read it till the end. 

Tell me in the comments down below how your challenge went. Did you manage to read one book per week for 2 weeks, a month, or even longer in a row? 

I’m cheering for you! 

Sophie

Your early 20s are an exciting time of your life, and as a boss babe, you want to live them to the fullest. Here are a few ideas for that: 

(p. s.: It’s never too late to do any of these. So don’t fret if you haven’t done them yet; simply do them now!) 

1. Get a degree

Let’s start with the boring one first. 

You can use your early 20s to get yourself a degree. That’s what society tells you to do. 

Now, I am a firm believer that it doesn’t take a degree to succeed in life – unless you plan on becoming a lawyer, doctor, pilot, or anything of the sort. 

However, I also firmly believe that even if you do not need to use your degree later on in life, attaining it will teach you many valuable things that will help you on the road to success. 

For example, I don’t plan on spending my life practicing law, yet I am already noticing the benefits of having a legal understanding through my law studies. 

Technically you can, of course, get a degree at any point in life. In fact, I highly encourage you never to stop learning! 

However, I believe that your early 20s are the perfect time to spend at uni or college. 

1. Firstly, you’ve left school not long ago, meaning you are still very much in the groove of studying for exams, so the transitioning will be more comfortable. 
2. You most likely don’t have children yet, and many of you are single, so you’ve got much time at hand to invest in your studies. 
3. The earlier you get your degree, the longer you can draw the benefits from it. 

So don’t dismiss the idea of a degree too quickly, even if you are sick of the outdated education system. 

2. Start a business

Alright, now we are getting to the more exciting parts. 

Your early 20s are the perfect time to start your first business. Mind you, of course, you can still perfectly well start your business with 30, 40, 50, 60 or older. 

However, once you are off age, it is a bit more effortless to start a business than in your teens. That’s why your early 20s are perfect. 

If you are working on getting a degree, it is the perfect time to grow your business as a side hustle for a few years. 

By the time you’ve got your degree, you will have a business that provides you with a full income so that you don’t even have to enter a 9-to-5. 

Building a business requires some money, but it is not as much as you’d might think, depending on the business. And while you are at uni or college, you can use your summer and winter break to work and earn some money. 

Also, in your early 20s, you are most likely the only one that relies on that money, so investing it in something a bit more unconventional is less painful. 

Read also: 10 Signs You Are Entrepreneur Material

3. Move out

In their early 20s, many young adults spread their wings for the first time and move out of their parent’s place. 

Now, there is no shame in still living at home during your early and also your late 20s. 

In fact, I always believe that you can use the money you save by staying at home to invest in your business. 

On top of that, you should cherish the time you live together with your family, since most likely you moving out will be for good. 

But, if this is a goal of yours and you feel genuinely called to leave the nest, then go for it! 

Now is your time!

4. Understand and manage your finances

Ok, so this one is mandatory. If you are reading this, you can definitely understand and manage your finances in your early 20s. 

I don’t want to hear any excuses here! 

This is incredibly important yet so often overlooked. 

You know the saying ‘knowledge is power‘, right? Well, it actually isn’t entirely true. 

It needs to say ‘knowledge is potential power.‘ 

Understanding your finances gives you the potential to have power over your life. That’s why you need to do it. 

However, if all that knowledge stays in your head, it is of no use. You need to implement it to truly take life into your own hands. 

Here are some of the topics you should learn more about in your early 20s: 

• creating a savings account
• paying off debt
• the bills you have to pay each year
• how to invest your money
• how to prepare for retirement
• how much you can afford depending on your income
• taxes 

Especially on the topic of taxes, I want to reassure you. It isn’t as daunting as it seems in the beginning. 

Once I got myself a program which leads me through the step by step process and asks me for all the relevant information, I managed to do my taxes within a day. 

I’ve been doing it that way since I was 18. And even though I neither have the most significant income nor the biggest expenses, I’ve already saved so much money through doing my taxes. 

So do some research on programs that fit the tax system of your country! 

(I live in Germany, and for the past four years, I’ve used the WISO Steuer Software, which I bought and downloaded from Amazon.de. It is not ideally made for students, but it works well enough.) 

I’d also like to recommend a very affordable course I recently took. It’s called Transform Your Wealth. 

Inside the course, many videos will transform your mindset towards wealth, teach you all the essential universal laws that impact your wealth, and (what I especially liked) give you some real and practical tips on how to organize your back account optimally. 

Because the creators of the course always say ‘money flows to where it’s organized most.‘

5. Travel often (unless there is a pandemic going on)

Your early 20s will give you a kind of freedom that you most likely won’t have for a long time in your life. 

You are young, full of energy, off age, and don’t have children you need to consider when traveling. 

Use that time wisely! 

Travel with your significant other, travel with friends, travel with your siblings, or travel alone. 

Just make sure that you don’t have any regret later on in life because you didn’t use the freedom when it was available to you. 

Read also: 15 Ways To Live A Life You Won´t Regret

6. Take calculated risks and make mistakes 

You don’t need to have everything figured out yet in your 20s. In fact, your 20s – and even more so, your early 20s – are there for you to experiment, follow different paths in life, make mistakes, and learn from them. 

This doesn’t mean you should go out there doing illegal things or risking your life by doing freestyle wall climbing. 

It means you should go for it if an opportunity excites you and you have calculated the risks. 

Why not start that business? 

Why not move abroad? 

Why not change your major? 

Read also: 12 Signs You Should (Not) Drop Out Of College

When you’re young, you’ve got plenty of time to make up for mistakes should they happen. 

Also, it is your life. You are most likely not yet responsible for a spouse and children, so take the risk if the reward is worth it! 

7. Determine your values

In your early 20s, you are mature enough to finally decide what values you will live by. 

If you become clear of your values this early on in your life, it will serve you well throughout the following decades. 

If you live by them, you can be unapologetically you, avoid regrets, and create a life you truly love. 

Let’s say one of your most important values is honesty. If that is the case, you won’t tolerate people that lie. You will cut them out of your life as quickly and efficiently as possible. 

Also, you won’t lie to reach your goals, which means you won’t be able to take advantage of some opportunities, which will change the course of your life. 

If you decide to value personal growth, you will spend your days reading, watching, and listening to self-improvement content. You will spend your money on these things instead of spending that money on partying or cars. 

That way, you will have a starkly different life in five years compared to what could have been had you not focused on the things you value. 

Your values are like the rule book of the game you need to play to create your dream life. 

If you don’t know the rules, your chances of winning the game are slim. 

8. Get that haircut you’ve been eyeing 

Sometimes we are madly in love with a haircut or hair color, but we keep postponing actually getting it because of some unconvincing arguments. 

Well, darling, that’s what you’re the 20s are for! 

Experiment! Get that haircut you’ve been eyeing forever. 

You will be much more reluctant to try something like this once you work in a 9-to-5 (if that is your goal). 

9. Start curating a timeless wardrobe 

Chances are that by the time you’ve reached your early 20s, you have mostly figured out your personal style. 

This is great because it means you can slowly but surely start to invest in high quality and timeless pieces that can last you for many years to come. 

I’m thinking about things like gold jewelry, expensive handbags, and sunglasses. 

Take the time and the money to build a wardrobe with high-quality pieces that you can easily mix and match. 

Read also: 11 Fashion Hacks For Stylish Women

10. Do the inner work

One, if not the most life-changing thing you can ever do, is getting rid of your inner baggage. 

No matter how amazing your parents have been, they have messed you up in one way or another – without them intending to do so, of course, it’s more how you interpreted their actions and words. 

This can be as little as them saying ‘no‘ to you once, and you unconsciously interpreting it as not being loved. 

It can also be that your parents lovingly corrected something that you did, and you unconsciously adopted the belief that you can never be as good as them. 

It’s important to realize that these things happen to everyone. They happened to your parents as well as your grandparents. And it doesn’t make them bad people. 

What counts is that you are getting rid of these toxic and limiting beliefs as soon as possible. 

The sooner you do that, the quicker you can live as your best version, the most incredible life you can imagine. 

Partly, you can get rid of some of these beliefs by relentlessly dedicating time to personal growth. 

However, you won’t be able to get rid of the deepest blocks you have by yourself. 

You’ll need a mentor or coach to guide you through that process. 

So, I recommend keeping your eyes open for mentors and coaches you trust and feel drawn to. 

I have a few whose service I intend to book as soon as I have the financial means to do so. 

I can’t wait for the transformational work they will do with me! 

11. Enjoy yourself! 

And lastly but most certainly not least, you should enjoy your 20s to the fullest! 

I know that boss babes like us are ambitious. We dream big, and we are willing to hustle to get there. 

But don’t spend all day, every day of your 20s hustling away. 

You are just going to look back on that unique time and regret not having cherished it enough. 

I know it can be challenging to get out of that perpetual state of busyness – trust me, I am guilty of that myself. 

But try to do at least one thing each day just for the pleasure of it and not because it will get you anywhere. 

If you don’t like to go to parties, then don’t. Don’t feel pressured to do the ‘typical’ early 20s stuff you see in Holywood movies. 

Do what’s fun for you and cherish it to its fullest. 

I hope these 11 ideas inspired you to make your early 20s one of the best parts of your life. 

But never fall into the trap of thinking it can’t get better because, darling, you have NO IDEA how many wonders are still waiting for you out there. 

I believe you can do great things, and I can’t wait to see, hear, or read about them. 

Much love

Sophie

If you are a sophisticated woman, it is easier for you to attract a high-quality life, including a high-quality soulmate. 

But how does a girl from next door turn into a sophisticated woman? Do you need decades of life experience to fit the role? 

Don’t worry, while more life experience certainly helps, you can speed up the process by intentionally pursuing specific skills and traits. 

No matter who you’ve been so far, you can become a sophisticated woman if you set your mind to it. 

So let’s get into the different steps. 

1. Be well-dressed

If I think about sophisticated women, the first thing that pops into my head is impeccable style. 

Whether we like it or not, we humans can’t help to judge a book by its cover. 

And our cover is the way we dress. 

It will be next to impossible to pull off the sophisticated woman aura if you turn up in hot pants with a rip that shows your ass and a see-through top. 

So I advise dressing to impress. 

One of my favorite ways to do that is through 2-color schemes or even monochromatic style. 

Every outfit looks immediately so much more elevated and thought through if the colors match and exude harmony. 

Anyway, you should take some time to analyze what you could improve styling wise. 

I have a few blog posts to help you with that: 

Read also: 11 Fashion Hacks For Stylish Women

2. Pursue broad interests 

Sophisticated women pull people towards them like a magnet. 

One of the things that makes them so lovely to interact with is their ability to talk about a wide variety of topics. 

Think about it; I’m sure you’ve met at least one of those people who seem to be interested in just a handful of topics. It is bloody difficult to hold a conversation with them. 

Now, the best way to be able to talk about many topics is to have broad interests. 

You should set time aside for personal development every day and a little time to pursue your current interests. 

And this doesn’t mean you have to take up a hobby or join a club. 

This can be as simple as listening to ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire‘ by Billy Joel. Suddenly, you find yourself interested in what exactly happened with Walter Winchell and Studebaker. 

Allow yourself to pursue information without direct use for them. 

You don’t have to write an exam about something to spend time diving deep into it. 

One way that always gets me interested in new topics is listening to interviews with celebrities that I like. 

For example, I love Formula 1, and on their Beyond the Grid podcast, there are some amazing up close and personal interviews with the drivers. A few of those interviews have sparked new interests in me. 

3. Be well-spoken 

I’m always blatantly in awe of people that can smoothly express themself. 

I frequently find myself repeating phrases of movies or series characters that I really liked. 

A great way to broaden your vocabulary is through reading a lot. Personally, I am an advocate of reading books. Still, as a Fanfiction addict, I can definitely attest to the value of reading Fanfiction as well. 

Just read! Focus on the way people express themselves. 

If I’m honest, this topic is currently a very sore spot for me. For some reason, I tend to stumble over my words or mix them up. 

Ridiculously enough, I feel more eloquent in English than in German, and that definitely needs working on. 

With that being said, I also believe that a sophisticated woman can speak a few different languages. 

Personally, I love languages, and I’ve been working on my French for a while now. 

What new language could you pick up? Implement it into your daily life by watching a series in that language with subtitles. 

4. Don’t swear 

This, of course, does somewhat belong to the ‘well-spoken’ category, but it’s important enough to deserve a separate mentioning. 

Swearing like a drunken sailor manages to ruin a carefully crafted image quicker than anything else. It belongs in a category with burping, farting, and picking your nose. 

Now, don’t understand me wrong I don’t expect you to be a saint that says ‘dang’ instead of ‘damn it’ or ‘fuck’. 

But there is somewhat of a severity system between the swear words. I’m sure you are easily able to differentiate between the more vulgar ones and the common ones. 

At any rate, you shouldn’t use too much of the common ones either. If you say ‘fuck‘ and ‘fucking‘ three times in a single sentence you will have trouble being depicted as a sophisticated woman. 

5. Never stop learning

Sophisticated women love learning. They see themselves as students for life. 

I always find that it starkly shows whether a person has stopped learning once they finished school. It shows in the conversations you have with them and the lifestyle they lead. 

Don’t make that mistake! 

Successful and sophisticated women are students for life. They don’t need a curriculum to motivate them to grow and fill their mind with information. 

Read also: 6 Personal Growth Courses I Want To Take

6. Be independent without having to prove it

A common struggle for women is the urge to be independent. 

Because for so long, women were dependent on men and told that they couldn’t achieve the same things as their male counterparts, we had to fight extra hard for our independence and show our strength. 

At the beginning of the emancipation, this was undoubtedly necessary. Nowadays, in countries with female leaders, female entrepreneurs, female engineers, and tacticians (even though there are always pay gaps), it isn’t so much anymore. 

For you, as a sophisticated woman, that means you can embrace your independence without a struggle. Buy yourself that apartment of your dreams, change your flat tire on your own, and build that business. 

However, don’t fall into the trap of proving your independence to anyone. 

A lot of women’s inner conflict is that they want a soulmate who gives them their jacket when they are cold, who opens a door for them, and pays for the dinner. 

Yet, at the same time, our habit of proving our independence makes life so much harder for chivalrous men. 

If a man offers to carry something heavy for you, it doesn’t mean he thinks you are weak and dependent on stronger men. It merely means he’d like to help you out. 

This was just one quick example. But try to observe yourself when making decisions. 

Do you ever get that almost unconscious urge to play tough and show your strength? I know I have in the past, and I am always working on it.

Next time that feeling comes up ask yourself if life wouldn’t be easier without proving your independence. Does anyone even question it? 

Be honest with yourself!

7. Recieve gracefully 

How do you react when someone offers you a compliment or offers to drive you somewhere or pay something for you? 

Do you say ‘thank you, that really wasn’t necessary‘.

Or perhaps you try to reciprocate immediately saying ‘thanks, I love your style too!” 

Maybe you even try to play it down, saying ‘this old thing, pfff, it’s nothing special but thanks.‘ 

A sophisticated woman has mastered the art of receiving gracefully and gratefully. 

Because she always gives freely, be it in the form of compliments or favors, she doesn’t feel bad about receiving either. 

8. Declare your self-worth 

This is a pretty new concept for me that I am currently working on. I’ve learned it in the Transform Your Wealth course. 

I’m sure most of us know that we are worthy, simply because we exist. We have an intrinsically human worth. 

However, if you are striving for an extraordinary life, you can’t merely be ordinarily worthy. 

That won’t sit well with your subconscious, and you will sabotage yourself any time you could accomplish something above average. 

To attract great things in your life, you need to know why you are worthy of having them. 

Sophisticated women don’t expect others to declare their worth for them. They take matters into their own hand and make sure to know their worth without anyone having a say in it. 

So what about you? What makes you worthy of having the extraordinary life of your dreams? What do you bring to the table in all areas of life? 

You should write this list down regularly to make sure you never forget your self-worth. 

9. Assume ignorance before malice

A sophisticated woman assumes ignorance before malice. She doesn’t lash out at people who are rude or make mistakes because she knows that nobody is perfect, and the least people are aiming to be malicious. 

Life gets much more manageable and brighter if you follow this principle. 

10. Honor your privacy

Privacy is one of the most valuable assets we can have in this digital world. That’s why a sophisticated woman takes her privacy very seriously. 

She knows precisely where her privacy starts and where it ends, and she isn’t afraid to draw a line if necessary. 

You won’t find any nudes or scandalous stories of family feuds from a sophisticated woman. 

She doesn’t feel the need to share every part of her life with the public. 

How private are you? 

Read also: 11 Easy Ways To Honor Your Privacy

11. Master the art of body language

Your body language can intimidate people, make them feel superior, or make them relaxed around you. Your posture can even alter your own emotions. 

There are many ways body language can help you in daily life. Yet, most of us use it unconsciously. 

A sophisticated woman recognizes its power and makes a conscious effort to use it to her advantage. 

Personally, I find it interesting to watch body language analyses of fictional characters in movies or series. It is a fun way to learn a lot. 

12. Be on top of your finances 

You need to handle your finances! 

The moment you give up control of your finances, you give up control of your life. 

There was a reason once upon a time, women needed the approval of their husbands to open up a bank account. 

That’s why a sophisticated woman doesn’t shy away to take her finances into her own hands. 

She might hire accountants and brokers along the way to free up more of her time and leave increasingly complicated work to specialists. 

But successful women make sure to know the basics about their income, taxes, investments, debts, savings, and everything else concerning their finances. 

Read also: 11 Things You Should Not Spend Money On

13. Protect your energy

If you are available for everyone, whether they are high vibe or toxic, it will deplete your energy and keep you from doing something meaningful than brings joy. 

A sophisticated woman values her energy and protects it accordingly. 

She doesn’t stand for toxic people be it in real life or on social media. 

She accepts that there are times when you need to deal with them, but she keeps those moments to a bare minimum. 

14. Be kind

Be kind, just because. 

Seriously, if you have to choose between being an ass or being kind, why would you ever choose the former? 

Don’t let your bad mood out on undeserving people. 

Instead, try to make someone’s day by simply being kind to them. Who knows, it could very well be the best thing that’s happened to them on a shitty day. 

We all need more happiness and kindness in life. 

15. Learn how to read a menu

Ok, there is no way you don’t know that situation: 

You go into a restaurant and read the menu, and there is at least one word that you just don’t know. 

Of course, it’s the 21st century, and you can just quickly google it. 

But there is something very sophisticated about people who know their way around food and beverages. 

It speaks of worldliness – that they have experienced a lot and tried out many different things. 

So learn your food and beverage vocabulary! 

Well, I hope this gave you some new goals to work on. If you are reading this, you are already much closer to being a sophisticated woman than most other women are. 

So pat yourself on the back. 

I wish you much success on your quest to becoming a stunning personality. 

Until next week! 

Sophie

Journaling is a highly underestimated tool for personal growth. With the right journal prompts, you can reinvent yourself from the inside out. 

That being said, not everyone takes to journaling immediately. 

I always feel like you can’t really force yourself to journal and expect a valuable outcome. 

If I don’t feel like it, I journal poorly and ineffectively. 

That’s why I wanted to deliver you multiple journal prompts that have the potential to light that spark of transformation inside you. 

Read through them all and start with those that interest you the most – but beware, some of them are meant to be answered in order (you’ll understand which ones easily). 

Alternatively, if you really don’t find it in yourself to journal, don’t dismiss those journal prompts quickly! 

Very often, I swap journaling for talking to myself about those prompts. That’s how I often come to great solutions to any problems I have to solve or decisions I have to make. 

Just try it out. 

Read also:

1. What talents do you have that you’d typically brush under the table? 

When someone asks you about your talents, you are probably thinking about ordinary things like drawing, dancing, writing, or the like. 

But try to think outside the box for a moment. You do have talents! You just most likely don’t consider them as such. 

A few examples: 

• Anticipating plot twists
• Being so imaginative you start to laugh out loud at your daydreams
• Never forgetting where you parked your car
• Looking at things objectively

2. If from tomorrow morning on, you’d had to dedicate your life to one occupation that is of value to humanity, what would you choose to do?

Honestly, imagine you are in that situation. There is no possibility of changing your decision later on. 

What would you choose? 

If you can’t think of anything, write down the things that come closest to it. 

3. What challenges/problems in your life have you overcome/solved? 

Again, you are most likely not aware of the many problems you have solved in your life. 

We all go through struggles inevitably. Life is full of them. 

So which ones have you successfully overcome? 

A few examples:

• acne 
• allergies 
• learning difficulties
• Sleeping difficulties
• Studying for a difficult degree 

4. How can you teach others to do the same – through text, video, or audio? 

Now that you know about the struggles you’ve overcome, you also know that you do have some expertise to teach others. 

You might still doubt that, but imagine if someone would have told you at the beginning of the problem everything you’ve learned so far about it. 

Would it have helped you even just the slightest bit? 

Most likely. 

So why would you try to withdraw that opportunity from others? 

Go out there and talk about the things you’ve learned! 

Start a blog, youtube channel, podcast, or whatever. 

You don’t have to do it to build a 6-figure business (although you could). 

Primarily do it to help people and learn how to write blog posts or edit videos and podcasts. 

Before you know it, you will have other expertise to teach. 

5. Why are you worthy? Which of your character traits make out your self worth? What do you bring to the table?

Self-worth is a tricky topic. 

In essence, most of us probably think we have good self-worth. Yet when we genuinely dig down to the core of it and ask ourselves exactly why we are worthy, we struggle to answer. 

Make a list. Write about all the things you bring to the table, all the things that determine your self-worth. 

You should cover all areas from career, finances, romantic and social relationships, mind and body, spirituality, and contribution. 

I urge you to push yourself. 

When you feel like you can’t come up with anything anymore, try to find at least 2-3 more characteristics that make you worthy. 

6. What did your mother/father/another essential family member you grew up with believe about money and people with money? 

You might never have considered it, but your family’s beliefs around money have shaped you significantly, whether you want it or not. 

So what did/do they believe about money and people with money? 

Did you grow up hearing things like ‘money doesn’t grow on trees‘ or ‘money is the root of all evil‘? 

7. Which of these beliefs did you adopt? 

8. In what way do they impact your life? What decisions are based on those beliefs? 

What are the thoughts that go through your head when:

• you want to buy food 
• you would love to buy a toy for leisure
• you see rich people with bags full of purchases
• you see expensive cars

9. Should you let go of some of them? 

Be honest with yourself. Are those beliefs of use to you? Have you ever heard of financially successful people that have that belief? 

10. What are you insecure about?

List everything here, no matter how insignificant it may seem. 

11. Do you have reason to feel that way? 

I know that logic is not a very effective way to get over insecurities, but sometimes it does help diminish them at least a bit. 

So, has anyone ever even commented on that trait that you are insecure about? 

If so, did they do it just because they were emotional and wanted to insult you, or was it an honest critique?

12. Are there people just like that, that you look up to?

Especially with physical traits like crooked noses or thin lips, it is pretty easy to find some celebrity that you would consider as beautiful that has this specific trait.

13. What first tiny step can you take to diminish that insecurity? 

Think about the tiniest step possible. 

The tinier the step, the easier it will be for you to get started on this topic.

14. What troubles your mind currently? What weighs you down?

Writing down and articulating your worries is the first step to releasing them.

15. How can you make it just a little bit better? 

Again, think about the tiniest step you could take towards a slightly better future. 

You might find that step ridiculously tiny but do it anyway. Only then can you take the next tiny action and the next and the next. 

16. What has been annoying you that you consider just a “normal” part of life? 

I’m thinking of things like PMS or taking ages to read through a textbook. 

17. Does everyone suffers from this annoyance, or is it merely common? 

Just because many other people have the same struggle doesn’t mean you should settle with it. 

Just because something is common doesn’t mean it is normal! 

You deserve better! The first step for this is noticing that what you currently experience is unacceptable for the extraordinary life you are striving for. 

18. How can you take one tiny step closer to the lives of those who don’t have to bother with this annoyance/problem? 

There are always people who are one step ahead of you and have stuff figured out. 

So, what are they doing differently? How can you copy them? 

Make an action plan! 

19. Who are your idols? Who do you envy? List them all! 

It doesn’t matter whether they are famous or not. 

20. Why exactly do they fascinate you so much? What is it that you envy about them and their lifestyle? List everything! 

Try to be as specific as possible. 

Do you like that they are smart and strategic, that they have found their soulmate, that they have a ragingly successful business, that they drive expensive cars, or what has caught your interest?

21. What are the common factors between those people? 

Now that you know all the things that make you admire and envy those people compare the items on your list.

What are the common factors that draw you to them?

Are they all musicians, athletes, or do they all have dogs? Find the things that cause your envy. 

At one point, I suddenly noticed that all the people in series and movies that I was fascinated with shared many similar characteristics. 

That realization can be immensely eye-opening because it tells you more about what you actually want in life, whether you’ve consciously noticed it before or not. 

22. How can you get one tiny step closer to being like that or having this life yourself? 

And again, determine the tiniest step you can take in the direction of acquiring one of these traits or items. 

And when I say tiny, I mean tiny. 

For example, if working out each morning is your goal, the tiniest habit to start implementing is putting out your workout gear. 

The next tiny habit would be putting those clothes on each morning. 

Then going to or setting up the place of your workout. 

And then starting the workout. 

Then doing it for 3 minutes, then 5, then 10, …

It might seem ridiculous, but those tiny, tiny goals turned into habits that can bring you much faster to the end goal than having to convince yourself to take a big step.  

23. How can I be more organized?

The creators of Transform Your Wealth taught me that money flows to where it’s organized most. 

So, how organized are you in your life and especially in your finances? 

Where could you improve?

24. How can I be more focused? 

Focus is a crucial component of any endeavor to succeed. 

So you should regularly ask yourself, how can you be more focused? 

Perhaps taking up a regular meditation practice would help. Or you could reduce your screen time. 

Just find one thing and implement it from today on. 

25. How can I be more disciplined? 

Even the most perfect life is full of things we don’t feel like doing. 

Even though I am all about being in the flow, even I know that sometimes you need raw self-disciple to get sh#t done. 

So be honest with yourself – where could you improve on that?

26. How would I feel once I’ve reached that goal? 

This journal prompt will introduce you to the art of scripting. 

The goal here is to write as if you’ve already accomplished that goal. 

Imagine yourself in that situation. How would you feel? What would you do? Where would you be? What would you think? 

Try to put as much emotion in there as possible. 

You should really feel it. Mere thinking is not enough. 

Try to make yourself laugh out loud or shed tears of gratitude. Give it everything you’ve got. 

27. What would my next goal be? 

Often we delay our plans until something has happened. We don’t dare dream about them because we don’t want to be disappointed should we never get the opportunity to act out on our dreams. 

Well, right now, I want you to allow yourself to dream. 

What would you do once you’ve accomplished the goal on your list? 

For example, once I get a certain amount of monthly blog visitors, I will apply to an ad network. And once they have accepted me, I will use the money to start a YouTube channel. 

So, what about you? What are your next steps? 

Dare to forget for a moment that you are not there yet and allow yourself to plan out your next steps. 

I hope you found some aha moments in these journal prompts. 

I advise you to revise them every now and then. At different times these questions will bring out various realizations. 

Until next time!

Sophie