172: Starting Your Self-Improvement Journey in Five Minutes a Day

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. This is your host Dra. Yvette. Today I am recording a solo episode for you all about how to start your self improvement journey in five minutes a day. Self improvement is a topic that I'm not sure a lot of us are introduced to in our K through 12 and higher ed journey. Perhaps it's a generational difference. But I will say that in my own schooling journey, there was not a single person who introduced me to the concept of self improvement or personal development.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

There was a strong emphasis in learning about my major, in learning research methods, in learning career development, and professional development skills. But there was not a strong emphasis in learning about myself, and about the things that make me me, and the things that are special about me- my own gifts and talents. We all have these things. We all have particular characteristics about us. We all have strengths. We all have areas of growth. And the sooner you learn to identify your strengths, to identify what makes you you, your personality, and you learn to embrace that, then the sooner you'll be able to make decisions about your life that are in alignment with who you are and what you want to do.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So for me, this area, this concept of self improvement is really important, because it has helped me so much in my own growth. One of the things that I was doing in 2022 was focusing on my own personal development through going to therapy, through coaching, through reading a lot of books in the personal development sphere. And one thing that I noticed that was frustrating about this process is that I felt like the personal development space was just so white, and so middle class and wealthy.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I did not see myself represented in these books and in these figures. I actually came across one book that I did relate to, and this was Trudi Lebron's book, The Anti Racist Business Book. I recall when I started reading the book, she mentioned kind of having a similar experience of getting into the personal development space, learning more about entrepreneurship, and feeling like it was what she calls white people shit, WPS. And I felt so seen and so heard, because that has been my experience in the last year.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

That's not to say that it's only white folks doing this work. There are some amazing POC, BIPOC folks doing this work, who I very much follow and am motivated and inspired by. But it is a predominantly white space. In learning these personal development skills and going on this journaling journey of journaling regularly- not just not just when I'm going through difficult moments. Because writing, reading and writing actually, have been a solace for me ever since I was a child. Whenever things got really rough, I could always turn to reading a book, reading a play, or even getting involved in theatre. I could always turn to writing, writing about my emotions as a way- as a self soothing technique, as a way to take care of myself. It's been incredibly helpful to not just journal during difficult moments, but to also journal during great moments, to journal about different areas of my life.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So one thing that I worked on in 2022- aside from reading books, and listening to podcasts, and working with my clients and doing all these great things to help myself out and to help other people out as well- is I developed a growth journal. Because I was finding all these exercises that were helpful for me, reflective exercises, that I thought well, why don't I put it together a bunch of these handouts? And why don't I curate a journal that I can use in 2023 for, again, continuous self reflection, to keep learning about myself, and about where I want to go, what I want my future to look like.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So I put together these handouts, a PDF full of resources- mostly self improvement exercises. It became 60 pages, and there are seven different areas in terms of handouts and exercises that it covers. So today's episode, I thought I'd share the seven areas and just remind you how, if you want to work on your self improvement journey, you can do it in just five minutes a day. You don't even have to do it every day. Because I know, for some of us, the idea of doing anything every day can be a lot. But it could be 10, 15 minutes, a couple times a week. It could be once a week. It could be whatever works the best for you. But journaling is very, very helpful.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Here are the seven areas, and here are the ways that you can help yourself with just if you have five minutes, and you want to focus on yourself every day, you can do the these things. And some of these things you might already be doing. But doing them intentionally- not just out of habit, but because you know you're working on yourself, that makes a difference.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

The first thing that a lot of us probably already do- and sometimes again, like I said, not intentionally- is goal setting. So being very particular about the way that you set your goals. We are all familiar with setting goals. We are also familiar with meeting the goals of other people's expectations. So you go to college, and someone tells you to apply to this internship, or someone tells you to work with so and so. Or someone tells you to apply to this graduate program, or someone tells you you know what? You'd be great at this. Why don't you pursue that? But is it actually your goal?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So five minutes a day with goal setting. It could be a daily goal setting exercise where you- maybe you've got a really busy day, and you just sit down and think- what are the three main things I need to get done today to have a successful day? It could be weekly goal setting. It could be a Sunday night, a Monday morning. You're going through your week, and you're thinking, okay, what are the main things I need to get done this week?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

It could be monthly. Maybe it's the end of the month or the beginning of the next month. You're looking at the month ahead and thinking again, what are the primary things that I want to do this month to feel like I had a successful month? And success is defined by you - not by other people. Success can mean, okay, I'm going to slow down. Success can mean, okay, I'm going to speed up. Success can mean, okay, I'm going to maintain what I've been doing. You get to define that for yourself. But goal setting, when you do it intentionally, when you do it to meet your own goals, when you do it and you define your own sense of sense of success, that's powerful.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

One thing I wanted to mention, too, is I have this journal that I developed for myself, that I thought why don't I share it with my audience? When I was looking at it, it just felt like the right thing to do was to put it out there as a free resource. So in today's show notes, there is going to be a link to download the Grad School Femtoring Growth Journal for free. If you want to download it, you want to do it today, you want to do it right now, you'll be able to do it. You go to the link. You download it in exchange for your email. I don't try to spam folks. Folks in my email get two emails max for me, and they're my thoughts, my reflections on grad school, personal development and sustainable productivity. If you're downloading this journal, odds are you'll probably want to be in my newsletter, too. But even if you don't, you can unsubscribe at anytime. So very, very low stakes.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

This is just a gift to you. I developed it mostly just for myself in my own self improvement journey. But I thought, again, why not share with others? Some of this work is the work that we do in coaching sessions too, the personal development work. I would hate to leave out any opportunity for you to support yourself in your own personal development, self improvement. So yes, the journal is available for you. There are a couple of handouts related to helping you with goal setting.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

The next area of handouts that are available through the journal are all about logging your self care, self care practices. Self care is really important. I think that I've noticed with some folks- especially folks who are younger than me, of a different generation than me like Gen Z folks- I'm more of a elder millennial. Some of y'all really have your self care work down, and that's great. But that's not true of all of us. And no matter your age, I think we can all benefit from self improvement practices and exercises. Making sure that we prioritize our self care and we do so continuously is important.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And self care can mean a number of things. There's so many different areas of self care, whether that's physical, mental, spiritual. It's about being very self aware of the things that you're doing in your life, that are nourishing for you. Self care doesn't even need to mean just you. Self care can mean community care as well. You again, get to notice in the areas of your life- what are the things that you're doing that take care of you?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Tor me, it's kind of funny. When I record my podcast episodes, to me, that's a form of self care, because I get to focus just on me or I get to focus on myself and the guest. And it's a really great opportunity for me to be in the moment and not worry about what I have going on after the recording, not worry about my kids yelling in the background, not worry about anything other than just being in the moment and discussing the topic for that episode. So self care can mean anything. You define it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And logging your self care so that you can start to notice the patterns- oh these are things that maybe you're pressuring yourself to do for self care. But you've realized, actually, you don't really like to do it anyway. Or maybe there's some things that you're like, oh, I don't always make time for it, because it feels like such a big deal. But when I do, it really makes me feel good. Or maybe something that you hadn't noticed like- wow, that's actually a pretty easy thing that I can do regularly and it helps me with my mood, or with my energy levels. So log your self care, start to notice these patterns. All this is helpful for your life as a whole. Even if you're a busy grad student, we all need to prioritize self care. Because if you don't, your body is going to at some point, shut down and tell you to slow down. Better to do it ahead of time and to be proactive about it for your own long term health and joy.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Another set of exercises that you can focus on for five minutes a day are journaling exercises that are reflective, where you're reflecting on your day, you're reflecting on your week, you're reflecting on your month, you're reflecting on experiences that you've had, on particular moments. Reflection is incredibly important in getting to know ourselves, and getting to know what works, what doesn't work, what we want to do more or less of.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Again, five minutes a day, another thing that you can do- this is similar to goal setting, but not the same- is planning, planning out your days. This is things like scheduling your day, your week, your month ahead. That is really good because it's not the same as goal setting. Goal setting- you're setting your goals. But planning, you're actually thinking about the execution, the how to of the goals. It's putting these things into practice. And planning is just as important as goal setting. Planning can even mean setting up an environment that makes it so that the things that you want to get done are easy, easier to get done.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

For instance, I have my office set up so that the mic is right there at all times on my desk so I can record a podcast at any moment. I have my office set up where I have these beautiful orchids that my husband will get me from time to time- sometimes I get them for myself. Sometimes they're not orchids. Sometimes they're sunflowers. Just looking at these flowers brings a smile to my face and brings me joy.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I have my office set up so that I have a stationary bike that I see from the corner of my eyes. And it just reminds me to get moving, because I know that cycling is one of the things that I enjoy. Even though I can't do high intensity workouts because of how it impacts my body. Due to my chronic illnesses, I have to be very careful with not doing too little or too much physically. Cycling has been really, really good for me. It's just a reminder of like, oh, there's the bike. I can ride it for 5, 10, 15 minutes, and it'll make me feel good. Again, planning your day and setting up your environment for success is going to help you in your personal development journey.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Another thing you can do for five minutes a day- and this is gonna sound, I don't even know what's the word or phrase to describe this. It may feel very uncomfortable at first, especially if you lean more on the pessimist side, which I did for a very long time. And I know a lot of folks are uneasy with this idea of toxic positivity. I definitely am not a fan of toxic positivity. I don't think we need to be positive at all times. I don't think that you should be grateful for everything in your life. I do think that there are moments in life that are very difficult or just incidents that happen that suck. That's all that I can say. They just suck. We all experience grief and loss in different ways, and some of us experience injustices that are just not okay.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But despite all of that, despite systemic barriers, systemic injustices, all the many different forms of oppression we may be experiencing, there are always things that you can be grateful for in your life. Again, this might sound silly. But having a gratitude practice can actually improve your sense of joy, can actually help you to live a happier, more meaningful life. Being grateful. Again, you don't have to be grateful for everything, but having things to be grateful for.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So in my life, I'm incredibly grateful to have a loving and supportive mother in my life. As a mom, myself, the fact that I still have a mom in my life, who loves me and supports me, and to the best of her ability gets me- I'm getting tear eyed just thinking about it. I'm incredibly grateful for having a very supportive partner and husband who- and I've said this in the past. I've talked to friends and family about him. But he is so down. He is so down. He has never said no to any of my wild ideas. And I love that he's just up for the ride and that he doesn't really care about things like gender roles, about other people's expectations. I know a part of it is the fact that he's autistic. So for him, if he can rationalize anything, he will go with it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But I just I really love that I have such a supportive partner in my life. I love that I have these incredible- I'm so grateful to have incredible children. They're miracles, my little milagritos. They are miracles. I mean for those of y'all that are moms, you understand that birthing a child or children is a miracle. It is a life or death experience and you change as a person in birthing other humans. And you also change as a person in having relationships with young humans. You don't have to be a bio mom to have a really strong incredible bond with young children. Young children are so full of life and energy and joy and hope. I see the bond that my children have, for instance, with my sister, with my younger sister. They're so tight knit and close, and it's just incredible. And I see that even with certain friendships too, the way that my kids feel at home with their honorary tias, with their honorary aunties.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I'm grateful for those things. I'm grateful for the fierce friendships that I have. I know that not everybody gets to have strong bonds with folks, but I am grateful that I have them and that I've been able to maintain them even in living on the other side of the world. I'm going off on this little tangent, talking about how grateful I am about these things that I have in my life. And really, it's humans, these people that I have in my life. But you can find gratitude in your day to day. Like, oh, I'm grateful for this cup of coffee. It's so yummy.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Like for me food- when I can eat or drink and not be in pain, that is huge for me. I had to grieve the loss of no longer being able to eat meat and dairy because my stomach couldn't handle it due to my chronic illnesses. So for me, to be able to enjoy food again, and to enjoy food pain free again, to enjoy drinks pain free- certain drinks, because there's still a lot of foods and drinks I can't have. But that, I'm like thank goodness, I can still have chocolate or coffee, or whatever it is that at some point, at one point in my health journey, I couldn't. My body couldn't handle it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So what are you grateful for? What is it- or who are you grateful for? So the journal that I worked on that you're going to have access to- or maybe you already downloaded it. You paused on this recording and decided to download it and you're looking at it now. It has a series of of gratitude exercises and prompts for things you can kind of answer for what you're grateful for.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

One of the prompts in there or one of the handouts in there that I especially like because I know I use it regularly is thinking about three things you're grateful for every day. At the end of the night- I do it on a Google Doc, not even necessarily on the PDF. But I have a separate Google Doc that's my gratitude journal. Just three quick things that you're grateful for for your day. Even if you had a terrible day, you can always think about three things that you're grateful for- even if it's, I'm grateful to have a roof over my head. Or I'm grateful to have food, or I'm grateful to have- whatever it is. You can be grateful for anything. Five minutes gratitude practice makes a big difference.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Next is a bit unusual. And I don't know how many of us actually do this. I only recently started to do this. But actually creating wish lists. Spending five minutes to dream about these things that you want to do in your life that maybe you haven't done before. Or maybe you have, but you want to try again. So what are your wish lists? Your wish list could be a wish list of like all the movies you want to watch next year, or all the books you want to read, or all the restaurants or types of food you want to try,or bucket list items that you want to do before you die.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

It could be anything. Just things that you look forward to doing. Podcasts you want to start listening to. Parks you want to go see- I know that's one of the ones for me. I love nature, so getting to- one of the joys that I've experienced here living in Porto, in Porto, Portugal in Europe, is all the beautiful parks in the surrounding areas. Every time I get to go to one of their beautiful parks I just feel so happy. So it could be anything. It could be theme parks you want to go to. It could be people you want to go see this year, anything - concerts. It could be low cost too, like I want to try different -I don't know, like going on different walks. Trying out different routes. Or it could be I'm going to listen to different songs or have my friends create playlists and listen to their playlists.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Or actually I had one friend who asked her friends on social media to share with her their favorite song. Then she put all of their favorite songs on a Spotify playlist and listened to that as she was doing her writing or her work. I found that to be a really, really cool exercise that I might have to borrow for myself. So yeah, wish lists, creating wish lists is another thing you can do five minutes quickly. Then go back to it every now and then, if you're feeling a little bit bummed, think about - what's one thing you can try out soon to give you something to look forward to?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Then the last type of exercise that you can do in five minutes is just taking a look at different journaling prompts. I've talked about different journaling prompts- dream based, like thinking big, dream based journaling prompts- in the podcast already. In fact, let me think about which one it was where I talked about journaling. Give me a second so that I can pull it up. It was Episode 146- journaling questions to help you dream of again. So if you want these types of prompts, listen to Episode 146.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But there are a lot of prompts in the growth journal. It's like two pages of a bunch of questions that you can ask yourself. And you can freewrite five minutes a day, what you're thinking, nonstop, about that topic. It doesn't have to be clear writing. It doesn't have to be error free. It can be however you write. It can be full of as many errors as you'd like, because the purpose of it is for you to get your thoughts on paper, and to help you with reflecting, with reflecting on the things that truly matter to you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

That's it. If you can spend five minutes a day doing one of the following things- goal setting, logging your self care, reflecting on your days and weeks that have passed, planning your days, thinking about what you're grateful for, creating and checking off things on your wish list, and journaling in general, you will be well on your way in your self improvement journey.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Again, I can't stress this enough. There is never a wrong time to work on your self improvement. We are all a work in progress. It doesn't matter what age you are. It doesn't matter what stage you're in in your personal or professional life. We all deserve to focus on ourselves a little bit more from time to time, and to really continue to get to know ourselves because we are all continuously in this process of becoming. And ideally, we are becoming the person that we want to be, that we are intentionally trying to be. That's it for today. I hope you all enjoyed today's episode and I hope you all enjoy the growth journal if you decide to download it, okay? All right, I'll talk to you all later.