Ready to Embrace Inner Peace?
Find peace amidst chaos and design a life you love
Do you feel tired of:
Trying Self-Development exercises but feeling that you're not making progress?
Lacking the motivation or willpower to stick to a Self-Development plan?
I get it! I've been there! And to be honest, I’m jumping on and off this wagon. There is no quick fix and there’s no other way, whatever you hear from online gurus, other than consistent small steps to where you want to go.
Introducing
Design Yourself
12 Science-based Exercises
A science-backed, step-by-step workbook to create gradual behavioural change.
A self-paced workbook to help you in your self-development journey by reducing stress, enhancing your emotional functions and boosting your mood. Stop searching for quick fixes only to be left disappointed. This workbook will help you to:
Observe your thoughts, understand them, compartmentalise them and move on from them.
Follow concrete action steps to meet your self-development goals.
Push through procrastination and keep yourself accountable to build behavioural habits that lead to real change.
By the end of this workbook, you will know exactly how to
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In 2005 Cambridge University carried out a study into expressive writing. They gathered a group of participants and had half write about their stressful, emotional or traumatic experiences for fifteen to twenty minutes on three to five occasions across a period of four months, while the other half did nothing to process these emotions. By the end of the study those that had been making use of the therapeutic benefits of expressive writing were ultimately less affected by the trauma they had experienced, not only did their mental health benefit from expressive writing but the short monthly writing sessions were enough to help lower their blood pressure, improve their immune system and liver functionality.
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Expressive writing allows time for mindfulness and helps you remain present while keeping perspective on how you feel. Taking time to reflect on and understand your feelings provides an opportunity for emotional catharsis and helps your brain learn to regulate emotions.
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Expressive writing doesn’t just mirror the effects of catharsis when people come to terms with their emotional problems by being able to see them in a different light. Instead, when people write about their thoughts, feelings and emotions, medical scans showed their brain activity matched that of other participants who were consciously trying to control their emotions during the scan.
—Dapnhe Chiona, Athens, Greece
“This workbook was a wake-up call that helped me loosen up my approach to happiness. A very useful tool, without being intimidating or asking too many questions.”
— Nigel Holland, Northamptonshire, UK
“Clear, on-point and beautifully applicable in day-to-day settings, the 12 Exerises have proved to be key to me overcoming some of my Self-Development obstacles.”
What’s inside:
↓
Happiness Exercises
🏃♀️
Seeking Happiness
🚧
What is Getting in The Way of Your Well-being?
🤏
Becoming Aware of Victimising Yourself
😌
Learning to Appreciate Yourself
Mindfulness Exercises
👐
Connecting to Your Gut-Feeling
🌬️
Detaching Your Self-Worth From Productivity
🧠
Taking Control of Your Thoughts
⏳
Finding Time for Yourself
Emotional Wellness Exercises
💗
Understanding What Emotions Are Trying to Tell You
🥰
Discovering Your Needs From Your Emotions
🧘
Becoming Aware of Your Emotions
👿 😇
Separating Behaviour From The Self
Your ability to help yourself will only be as good as your capacity to be objective about the nature of your challenges.
How do you understand what your challenges are really about? It is not an easy task to sort out, without any help. Our mind has very creative ways to deny and distort the truth. These mechanisms protect us, but in the long run, the protective strategies our unconscious mind develops do not serve us. There are many studies examining the various defence mechanisms people use to avoid recognising unpleasant truths. This workbook will help you start being objective about your challenges and help you create gradual but long-lasting behavioural change.
You should buy this workbook if…
✔️ You’re dedicated to self-growth and committed to unlocking your potential
✔️ You have tried Self-Development exercises but feel that you're not making progress
✔️ You feel you lack the perspective to understand the nature of your issues accurately
✔️ You feel you lack the motivation or willpower to stick to a self-development plan
You should NOT buy this workbook if…
❌ You’re looking for quick behavioural hacking tricks
❌ You’d rather watch motivational videos than working on yourself
❌ You’re not ready to get serious about taking control of your life
❌ You think it’s going to be easy (Self-Development takes work and commitment)
Ready to get started?
Stop allowing past behaviour to define you and create gradual behavioural change by designing a life you love.
Are you ready to:
Reduce your stress?
Strengthen your emotional functions?
Boost your mood?
Hi there!
I’m Dimitris
I’m a Design Thinking specialist and a Psychologist in the making. I’m obsessed with behavioural change and that’s why I created Design Thyself.
A psychotherapeutic approach based on Design Thinking and Critical Self-Analysis.
FAQs
“I’ve tried other Self-Development exercises…I just can’t stick to it. Will this workbook help me?”
I’m sure it will! That’s because I also provide the science, external resources and break down how our brain works with regard to our self-development journey. This will give you an overall understanding of how certain mechanisms will try to “prevent” you from sticking to your path.
Many studies examine the various defence mechanisms people use to avoid recognising unpleasant truths. Some common ones are:
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Both of those defence mechanisms are activated when information needs to be kept out of our conscious awareness. Repression occurs when we do this unconsciously, while suppression when we do it consciously. However, these memories don't just disappear; they continue to influence our behaviour.
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Denial is one of the best-known defence mechanisms which blocks us from admitting or recognising that something has occurred or is currently occurring. Denial's purpose is to protect the ego from things with which the individual cannot cope. It is often the case that even though enough evidence is pointing that something is true, the person will choose to deny its existence or truth because it is too painful to handle.
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One of them is what we call "projection" (or "externalisation"). This is when people mistakenly think that the problem is caused by other people around them instead of themselves. This defence mechanism makes us ascribe unacceptable qualities and feelings of our own personality to other people. Example: Some people are not in touch with their anger. They project their anger onto others and begin to believe that it is the "others" who are angry. The strategy of projection has as a primary goal to reduce anxiety. It does this by allowing the expression of the feeling, but in a way that the ego cannot recognise as its own. Therefore stress is temporarily reduced.
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Let's stick with the anger example. Displacement occurs when we take out our feeling of anger to a person or object, which is less threatening than the cause of irritation. Example: Instead of expressing anger at your boss, which may have severe consequences, you decide to take it out to your spouse, friend, pet etc
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According to Freud, intellectualisation involves engrossing oneself so deeply in the reasoning aspect of a situation that you completely disregard the emotional aspect involved. In other words, thinking is used to block feeling. The intellectual analysis of a devastating event helps us to distance ourselves emotionally from anxiety-provoking stimuli.
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Rationalisation is a defence mechanism that involves explaining an unacceptable behaviour or feeling rationally or logically, avoiding the behaviour's true reasons. For example, a person who is rejected for a date might rationalise the situation by thinking they were not attracted to the other person anyway. An employee might blame their poor performance on their manager rather than their own lack of preparation for the job. Rationalisation job is to prevent anxiety and also protect our self-esteem.
Do you feel you lack the perspective to understand which of the above defence mechanisms prevents you from sticking to your self-development path? A great way to start understanding the nature of this challenge is to engage in expressive writing. Which is exactly what this workbook will help you do.
A vast amount of research, pioneered by James W. Pennebaker in 1986 (1), has found that written narrative improves mental and physical health.
In many studies, people committed to expressive writing about stressful experiences in their lives experience improvements in their physical health compared to those who write about insignificant events. These improvements include fewer sessions with physicians (2), better long-term psychological health (3), and enhanced immune function (4).
“What if I don’t have time for a course right now?”
I know how valuable your time is, which is why each exercise has a pre-calculated “time to complete” so it’s easier to fit into your busy schedule.
This workbook is self-paced, meaning you can take as much time as you want. You can complete one exercise per day, per week, per month, or however it suits you best. Plus, you have lifetime access to the content, so you can return to it whenever you’re ready!
“How do I know this is actually going to work for me?”
This workbook contains a lot of information and science-based exercises regarding consistent behavioural change. Each exercise is an actionable strategy to help you implement faster, and each and every one of those exercises come with a science-backed introduction of how they work. I’m confident this workbook will help you.