Here, I present to you a very hearty and healthy trail mix that combines sweet, salty, and savoury flavours into one simple, satiating, and convenient snack, to satisfy all kinds of cravings. It is completely vegetarian, and can easily be made vegan (see below). It should also be gluten-free, if all the ingredients are uncontaminated (see below).
Fortunately, this recipe falls into the category of being non-perishable, as long as you exclude the popcorn, since the oil(s) from the popcorn can make the mix go rancid! Perhaps the recipe still keeps well with the popcorn added to it, but I have not experimented with this. But if you do happen to try it out, feel free to let me know how it works out for you by leaving a comment below.
I adore non-perishable recipes that can just be kept in the pantry for months and months. Like everyone else, I hate wasting food and money, so I very much appreciate foods that have an extremely long expiration date. I love that I can make a big batch of this once and have a healthy, convenient snack that’s ready-to-go for months (if you exclude the popcorn).
It’s nice to keep a bag of this with you when you go out, as well as in your car (if you have one), desk, or a purse/bag, for a convenient snack option when you’re hungry that is both healthy and satiating. If you wish, you can divide the recipe into ziplock bags so it’s already portioned and ready to go when you need it.
Introducing Goji Berries: A Dried Superfruit
I’m not normally a big fan of using dried fruit in recipes because they tend to lack nutrients compared to fresh fruit, while also having high sugar content. However, coconut is an exception for me because it contains much less sugar than other kinds of fruits.
Goji berries (Amazon), which are shown in the images below, are also an exception for me because they are a superfood and are extremely high in vitamins—specifically vitamins C and A—despite being dried!
Dried goji berries
They have incredible medicinal properties, as they have been linked to improving eye health, immune function, sleep quality, mental health, healthy skin, and even providing protection against cancer, just to name a few of their many impressive health benefits.
You can read more about the remarkable qualities of this impressive fruit via the Web MD and Healthline websites.
How to Make This Recipe Vegan
This recipe can easily be made vegan if you make your own kettle corn and replace butter with a vegan substitute, like margarine, or a healthier oil, such as coconut oil. Since this recipe already contains dried coconut, I assume using coconut oil to make the kettle corn would be delicious, but I haven’t tried this.
Is This Recipe Gluten-Free?
This recipe should be completely gluten-free, unless of course some of the ingredients, like popcorn, are contaminated with gluten (e.g., if it’s prepared in a facility that processes gluten-containing products).
There are so many things I love about this banana zoat recipe! In fact, here’s a list of everything I adore about it:
Simply put, this recipe is a pleasure to the senses. I love all the texture in it, created from the mixture of chia seeds, crunchy hemp seeds, creamy peanut butter and banana, and juicy fruit. The lovely array of fruits also make it rich in colour, creating a very pleasurable sensory experience not only in terms of taste, but in sight and touch, as well. For this reason, I love presenting this recipe to people, since it looks so beautifully delicious.
I love the fact that you can’t really taste any of the zucchini in it at all, since zucchini—especially cooked zucchini—is pretty mellow and kind of takes on whatever other tastes are present. This makes it a perfect meal to make for anyone who struggles to eat enough vegetables, as it allows you to get about 1 serving of vegetables (1 serving is equivalent to about ½ cup of vegetables), without having to endure the typically strong yet bland taste of vegetables.
I find that this recipe is fairly filling and can keep me going for quite a long time. This is probably because the protein from the seeds and the peanut butter make it very satiating. This makes it an ideal meal to have on days when you are incredibly busy all day. But if you want an even bigger protein boost, feel free to add in about a half scoop of protein powder. If you do this, then of course, first try adding a little protein powder at a time and taste it before adding an entire half scoop.
I love that it’s a high-volume meal, so if you love eating as much as I do, you will definitely appreciate how much food this recipe yields! For this reason, I wasn’t sure whether or not to divide one serving into two servings, so in the recipe below you’ll see that I’ve stated that it serves 1-2 people, depending on how much you eat and what your appetite is like when you make it. If you’re not feeling too hungry and you just want to make it for yourself, then I would suggest making half of it, unless you want leftovers (but it is definitely best fresh).
With just a few simple ingredients, this recipe is incredibly easy and healthy to make!
How to Make it Vegan:
This banana zoat recipe can easily be made vegan, as long as you use a dairy-free alternative to dairy milk, such as soy milk, but adding milk isn’t even completely necessary, and you can definitely omit it altogether if you want. Just be sure to replace the amount of milk required in the recipe with water. Also add extra water if it is still too “dry” for your liking, of course.
Gluten-Free:
This recipe should be gluten-free, as long as none of the ingredients are contaminated with gluten. Pure oats can sometimes contain traces of gluten if they are processed in a facility that also processes grains that contain gluten, such as wheat.
Other Ways to Use this Recipe (you may need to make adjustments to the ingredients and quantities required):
To make cookies
To make muffins
To make banana zucchini bread
I haven’t tried any of these suggestions out yet, so let me know in the comments section below if you try any of them, what adjustments you’ve made (if any) to the ingredients and quantities required, and how they work out overall for you!
To Reduce Food Waste:
You can try freezing the unused portion of the banana in a ziplock freezer bag. Bananas tend to last very well in the freezer (for up to 3 months, approximately). They work amazingly well in smoothies, as their thick, creamy texture seems to be amplified when they’re frozen. Just be sure to remove their peel prior to freezing them, as it’s much more difficult to remove it when they’re frozen. For more tips on reducing food waste, please check out this post.
Optional add-ins:whey powder, stevia, monk fruit, etc.
Instructions
Mash the banana in a bowl.
Add the water to a pot and bring to a boil.
Lower heat to a low-medium temperature and stir in the oats. Let it simmer, stirring frequently, for about 3 minutes.
Stir in the milk, mashed banana, and shredded zucchini and continue to cook until the oats are completely cooked and the desired consistency is reached. While cooking it, add extra milk or water as soon as you find the mixture starts to get dry or stick to the bottom, or if you want a thinner consistency.
Turn off the heat and mix in the cinnamon, vanilla extract, and peanut butter. You can also add stevia, monk fruit, or whey powder at this stage, which is completely optional. A few drops of stevia or monk fruit go a very long way, so be sure to taste it before adding another drop.
Stir in the chia seeds and hemp seeds. Top with your choice of fruit and any other add-ins, and it’s ready to be enjoyed!
Please let me know if you enjoyed this recipe by rating it and/or leaving a comment below!
I cannot stress enough how awful the COVID-19 pandemic has been for most people in so many ways. So many of us, as well as our loved ones, have become horribly sick or have even lost their loved ones. In addition to that, the pandemic has enormously impacted countless people’s mental health. Businesses have also had to permanently close, due to financial hardship and/or lockdowns, resulting in entire areas being shut down in many parts of the world.
While I am certainly not happy that all this has happened, I do want to share some good things that have happened because of the pandemic.
I am doing this in the hopes of helping people to feel less pessimistic about it, even if it’s only to a slight extent, to help people accept the current situation (regarding the pandemic). Accepting the current situation is going to do a lot more for us than resisting it and living in the past ever will.
Personally, I have found that consistently reminding myself of the following points have helped me tremendously to evade excessively negative states of mind, and I truly hope they will have the same effect for you.
We have become more aware of how we manage our time (and hopefully more skilled at it):
The pandemic has made me much more conscious of where I put my time. Working in the comfortable and relaxing environment of your home requires so much more discipline and time-management skills than working in an already structured environment, like a typical office setting, where there are little to no distractions around us, there are very clear deadlines and task assignments, and we can clearly see everyone else being productive (which motivates us to be productive via social accountability).
As a result of these changes, there is now an increased need for these skills. Without having that additional environmental structure, and unless we develop these skills, it is so much easier to get distracted and remain unfocused in the freeing privacy of your own home.
Having complete control over how we manage our time forces us to have no choice but to become increasingly aware of how we use our time, which blatantly highlights any struggles we might have with it. Whereas in a formal work setting, these areas of struggle are often masked by the many productivity-boosting aspects of the environment.
Hopefully, this increased awareness is resulting in us actually becoming better at managing our time, but even if that’s not the case for most of us, at least we now have a better idea, more or less, of where and how we can improve. While it might not seem like a big deal, possessing this knowledge can actually be a very useful and wonderful sign that we truly are growing (but perhaps extremely slowly!) and are on the right track, as the very first step to lasting change always begins with the simple awareness that there is room for improvement. After all, making long-term improvements in your life doesn’t happen overnight and there is often a steep learning curve involved.
I know I definitely had many days where I would just do nothing, and this phase lasted longer than I’d like to admit. But the important thing is I was eventually able to overcome it, which was just a matter of recognizing my areas of struggle, coming up with small, simple strategies that could help me in these ways, and sticking to them consistently.
For example, I started imposing a time limit on getting ready in the morning, even on days where I had nowhere to go, since I found that I frequently wasted most of my time in the mornings, spending a lot of it either on my phone or chatting with those who live with me.
If you also struggle with time management, you can easily figure out where most of your time is going by using time tracker apps on your phone and/or your computer, to enhance your awareness of your time even more, so that you can become more intentional with it.
On my phone, I use RealizD to track my screen time, which is FREE.
On my computer, I use a FREE screen-tracking chrome extension app called Intention.
We have become more self-aware in general:
Increased time and opportunities to self-reflect have allowed us to become increasingly aware of our internal experience of the world. Specifically, many of us now have a better idea of how we feel about the way we are living our life, if it’s in need of a change, and what exactly we are doing in our life that increases our energy, versus what drains it. Again, this increased awareness—whether it involves discovering good things about ourselves or bad things—is truly a blessing, as it’s a necessary precursor for positive self-transformation.
We are specifically becoming more aware of our relationship with solitude:
What is your relationship with time spent alone like? Does it feel healthy, refreshing, light, natural, and necessary, or does it feel depressing, claustrophobic, heavy, toxic, and empty?
Unfortunately, practically everyone is far too well-acquainted with their responses to these questions, as a result of the increased amount of time spent alone at home.
If your relationship with solitude feels toxic, this may signal a need to work on the quality of your thoughts so that you can enjoy the time you spend with yourself more.
Many people unrealistically expect happiness to be something they can stumble upon effortlessly. However, even those with the most fortunate lifestyles often end up being miserable, as our state of mind has little to do with outside circumstances, and is almost entirely an internal dilemma. The fact of the matter is that everyone needs to constantly work on the state of their mind and spirit to keep it strong and healthy, so there is no shame in giving it the attention it both needs and deserves.
We can tend to our mental health by regularly engaging in self-care practises that nurture our mind, emotions, spirit, and body, which leads to my next point.
We are taking self-care more seriously:
This relates to the last point, as becoming more aware of one’s mental health can emphasize the necessity, importance, and value of nurturing oneself through the practice of self-care. Many people I know are starting to take self-care more seriously because the pandemic happened and they’re becoming more aware of their burn-out, as well as their harmful and negative thought patterns, which they are now seeing need to change in order to improve their quality of life. This might have never happened if it weren’t for the pandemic.
I wrote a post about financially accessible self-care practises that seem to be the most beneficial from a holistic perspective, with a special emphasis on practises that predominantly target the mind, emotions, and spirit, which you can read here.
We are becoming bolder and more courageous:
For many of us, not being in the public eye as much, and hence being exposed to less scrutiny from the outside world, can be quite a blessing. With the greater amount of privacy and time allotted to us due to remote work and more time spent in the comfort and safety of our home, many of us feel more free than ever before to explore and experiment in different ways, whether it’s with starting a new business venture, going on a very adventurous and/or risk-taking trip, or simply trying out new, bolder looks or hair colours.
These changes can cause us to feel more alive, spontaneous, inspired, spirited, creative, and free, as well as in awe of all the abundance, opportunities, and beauty around us, which we might not have noticed as much before.
We are spending more time outdoors:
We are spending significantly more time outside in nature than we normally would because so many places have shortened hours or are closed due to the pandemic, providing us with much fewer options in terms of places and events to attend that aren’t outdoors. This has especially been the case when entire cities—let alone provinces/states, or even countries—have been in lockdown.
This has caused many of us to develop a stronger appreciation for nature. One person I know who never thought he would ever want to go camping now wants to go camping and do outdoorsy things all the time!
We feel more gratitude:
The pandemic has taught us to value and appreciate the little things in life that we may have taken for granted prior to the existence of COVID-19.
Especially when the pandemic was more serious and vaccines weren’t yet publicly available, some of the many things we realized we missed dearly during that time included being physically present at work or in school, dining at cafes and restaurants, and even just being able to touch and be closer to things and people, which enhanced our experience of them (for one thing, it’s definitely harder to hear people through a mask and/or a face shield). Many of us even missed things we thought we hated, like our commutes to work. Luckily, however, most of these things have since gone back to normal in many countries.
We now also feel more gratitude for the things that are still available to us, but are less frequently experienced because of the pandemic. For example, I miss how much longer stores used to be open pre-pandemic, so when I come across a store that has longer-than-normal hours, I tend to notice it and appreciate it more than I used to before. And because stores often close sooner than they did before, we now have to be more intentional with how we plan our time, (as I’ve mentioned in my first point), otherwise we might not be able to complete all our errands in time before places close.
We might have never noticed how much happiness we derived from these so-called “little things” if the pandemic hadn’t prevented us from experiencing them to some extent. So when we are lucky enough to experience them again—especially now that things are slowly picking up and are returning back to normal—our appreciation for them is consciously felt, and on a whole other level, as well.
What aspects of the pandemic have been beneficial to you? Let me know in the comments section below!
Feeling lost in life is typically regarded as an objectively negative experience. This is completely understandable, considering that these phases are often accompanied by feelings of emptiness, apathy, cynicism, jadedness, victimization, envy, insecurity and incompetency (even though you might actually be extremely competent and hold a lot of potential), isolation, a lack of passion, and so on. As if that weren’t enough, this phase also often involves having absolutely no idea what to do next, while feeling a terribly exhausted, burned-out feeling of fear and hopelessness towards the future—all of which feed into each other, as well as your sense of stagnation in repetitive loops.
Many people understandably don’t appreciate the feeling of being lost because they fail to see any meaning or value in it. And how could you when you feel all these negative emotions all the time? But I want you to know that it is possible to gain a lot during these times, and I will show you how in the suggestions below.
To start off with, I find that simply asking myself the following questions can instantly provide me with some level of clarity, equanimity, and faith “needed” during these times:
During this time so far, have you learned anything important about yourself or developed any positive qualities within yourself? Has this ever happened before, when you’ve felt this way (lost and empty) in the past?
Could these periods of feeling lost potentially be necessary parts of your journey to becoming the very best version of yourself that you can possibly be?
Is it possible that these phases have helped you to find yourself and become more authentic, self-aware, compassionate, humble, and/or strong?
In addition to asking myself the questions mentioned above, I also ask myself what lessons I can derive from these experiences.
For example, perhaps these moments are trying to teach you to look more inward for answers, value, or meaning in life if you can’t seem to find any in the external world, which may be causing you to feel lost.
Or, perhaps these experiences are trying to teach you to develop greater faith and trust in the process, while also addressing your attitudes towards the future. Many people unconsciously try to resist experiencing uncertainty in particular (which is inevitably experienced when thinking about the future) at all costs, as the fear it generates is almost intollerable for them. This explains why numerous people – when given the choice, as well as the privilege to be able to choose – choose to stay well within their comfort zones (in many different ways) for their entire lives.
Maybe the fact that a lot of it feels beyond your control or remains unknown to you makes you feel afraid or insecure on some level (which is completely understandable), and these experiences are challenging you to accept these feelings and learn to feel comfortable with uncertainty.
The fact that we even need answers, or that we even “need” anything during this time shows a level of mistrust in the unknown and discomfort with uncertainty (which is completely normal). That is precisely why it’s often worthwhile to end this process of exploring questions and seeking answers with a gentle reminder to surrender to the unknown; in doing so, you will embody the true essence of living earnestly in the present moment.
Try to connect with a sense of gratitude for not knowing what the future holds. Doing this allows you to be receptive to the gifts of the present moment.
It may be helpful to remember the corny saying that “uncertainty is the spice of life.” As cheesy as it might sound, life would never feel fulfilling or interesting if it came with an instruction manual on how to live your life every step of the way. In fact, you would probably feel even worse than you do now, as you would literally be a slave to life.
I recommend recording your answers to the questions above in a journal (both digital and written formats work fine), rather than just answering them mentally, as written responses are often more precise and detailed. This makes them easier to reflect on and learn from, which might help to give you the clarity you seek.
How Our Expectations and Associations Define Our Experience
We tend to attach negative associations to the experiences we fear exploring. These associations are created out of the emotional expectations we have for those experiences. We then mistakenly assume that these associations are derived from reality itself, rather than recognizing the truth, which is that our mind produced our own version of reality out of fear, and so we never even gave reality itself a chance to be experienced (free from our biased associations).
Likewise, in regards to feeling lost, many of us tend to wrongly assume that the associations we have with it (e.g., low energy, hopelessness, cynicism, apathy, etc.) are automatically produced as a result of experiencing this lack of direction, when in reality, these associations may actually have little or even nothing to do with this experience.
We often live through associations as opposed to experiencing things just as they are to “protect” us from uncertainty, as well as the insights we might find if we were to jump into the present moment and surrender to “not knowing.”This is because many of these insights could potentially be negative ones about ourselves. Instead, many people unconsciously opt to see themselves, others, and the world around them how they want to, as deluded as their perceptions may be.
In essence, our experience of the world, as well as our inner clarity, gets significantly reduced and filtered through our predefined emotional and mental conclusions for the circumstances we’re in, due to our resistance to being fully involved with the present moment out of fear.
It is entirely possible to feel lost without also feeling other negative emotions that are associated with it, if we courageously release our resistance to uncertainty, the present moment, and reality itself, rather than living in our own deluded preconception of reality, which is created mostly out of assumptions, associations, fear, flattering ideals, and ignorance.
View This Phase as an Opportunity
I believe that viewing this phase in your life as an opportunity—to develop certain positive qualities within yourself, to reconnect with yourself, to get to know yourself on a deeper level, or to learn something important about yourself or the world in general—rather than as a simply negative experience, devoid of any real value—can help us avert the negative accumulation of emotions that are often accompanied with feeling lost.
By choosing to think of this experience as an opportunity, you can rewire your attitude towards this phase as being something positive, providing you with value, rather than defining it as the absence of something, as you might have done previously.
The more you challenge yourself to do this and strive to see experiences as they truly are, without relying on any expectations or associations to define them, the more you might find that feeling this way isn’t as negative or as frightening as you initially thought it would be.
Furthermore, think about what else you have been doing throughout this period that might have been useful or beneficial for you in some way.
We often feel lost or depressed when comparing our current situation to the past. Nostalgia often has a way of making everything from the past look better, brighter, and happier, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it truly was so.
In fact, you might find yourself in the future longingly looking back at this moment—that’s just the nature of nostalgia and our minds always craving what we can’t have. But there’s probably at least one very special thing that you have now that you didn’t have before, which is definitely deserving of praise and gratitude.
Embrace All Emotions without Clinging to Them
There will inevitably be fluctuations in your emotions and moods all throughout your life, but all of them will inevitably come to pass at some point. This is a vital thing to remember, as it will help you to avoid remaining “stuck” in the emotion.
You can allow this moment of feeling lost to pass by accepting the experience and allowing it to flow through you, rather than resisting it, or clinging too much to it. This can be done by simply observing your experience with a sense of openness, acceptance, and curiosity, rather than judging it or attaching any other emotions to it.
Even if your experience is unpleasant, or you’re noticing that you’re not feeling okay, try to not judge your experience and remember that there’s nothing wrong with not feeling okay sometimes and continue just observing it (more about this below). If you do this for a long enough time, you will eventually notice your inner reactivity, stress level, and resistance to the present moment will go down.
Remember It’s Okay Not to Feel Okay
Again, try to not judge your experience, as that often creates more inner reactivity, which adds to the original source of stress. Trying to resist any kind of negative emotion only makes it worse. The key here is to observe anything you experience in a loving and accepting way as it passes, without forcing any emotion or thought towards you or away from you; just let them be as they are.
Allow yourself to not feel okay, if that feeling is true for you in the present moment, with openness and acceptance, as there is nothing wrong with not feeling okay sometimes. In fact, if we release our resistance to feeling this way and have the courage to be completely honest and vulnerable with ourselves while turning inward, this feeling can reveal invaluable information and insight about a change that needs to happen in order to improve our life.
Negative emotions in general are often instrumental to improving life. Most people need to experience something fairly unpleasant or even traumatic to acquire the humility, awareness, and motivation necessary to make huge changes that were desperately needed in their lives.
However, for these positive transformations to have happened in the first place, you first needed to become conscious of and acknowledge how you were feeling, to even know that something was off and that a change needed to happen in your life.
It is so easy to get caught up with the distractions and demands of daily life and social conditioning, that many of us never even notice the numbing feeling we’re experiencing deep down.
Additionally, observing your own suffering in mindful, loving, and non-judgemental ways can often exceptionally increase the amount of compassion that you feel for others (as well as yourself), as you begin to more strongly relate to the pain of others.
This is because our thoughts of others and the world around us are projections of our own feelings towards ourselves. If you regularly practise mindfulness, which is a form of self-love, you will respond to others as you do with yourself—with more love, understanding, acceptance, and compassion, instead of judgement.
Many people remain unwilling to access and explore their deepest emotions and vulnerability for their entire lives, and hence never end up growing into better versions of themselves.
In this way, accepting your emotional experience without judgement can serve as your first step toward a better life. Ultimately, doing this can even help us to discover our deepest, truest selves and lead us to where we really should be in life. We just need to be willing to follow the feeling and to try out different things until the feeling gradually dissipates or gets replaced by excitement and faith in both the future, as well as ourselves.
Meditate on Your Mortality
Meditating on your mortality might sound like an incredibly morbid and distressing idea, but it is really just a meditation on change, impermanence, and gratitude, which, on the contrary, can be incredibly life-giving.
This kind of meditation can be beneficial in so many ways (if you can remain open-minded about it), and there is even a fair amount of research to back this up.
First, becoming more conscious of the impermanence of life has a way of enhancing your inner clarity. This causes the desires and fixations that don’t truly add much inherent value to your life to fade away from your mind, resulting in spending your remaining time more wisely and intentionally, due to a significantly elevated sense of urgency. It can also cause you to become much more clear on what you deeply want and need, as well as what you no longer want in your life, which can be such powerfully transformative knowledge to obtain.
Additionally, becoming conscious of your short time here can intensify your experience, zest, and reverence for life, making your current experience so much more joyful and beautiful than it was before, even if nothing changes (externally) and you don’t do anything different in your life than before.
This may explain why those who are told that they only have a short amount of time left to live experience remarkable amounts of inner transformation and clarity during the time leading up to their death. It may also explain why survivors of life-threatening illnesses often consider this past threat to be a blessing, as it awakened them to countless insights and invoked them with such a strong appreciation for life like no other experience ever has. This then drove them to live the rest of their lives with so much more intention, passion, and vigour than before. These effects become even more pronounced the closer an individual is to death.
Death has a way of humbling us and violently unmasking our vulnerability, fears, and repressions, allowing us to become significantly more receptive to the truth about ourselves, lessons to be learnt, and where there is a lot of room to grow, as it painfully dissolves our enormous, self-loathing egos that cannot bear to see any perceived “mistakes” or “failures.” As the (somewhat cliché, but very true) saying goes, “death is our greatest teacher.”
How to Do This Meditation
To get started with this meditation, imagine you have a life-threatening illness and mentally answer the questions listed below, in as much mental and emotional detail and imagery as possible. Take as long as you need to do this. In fact, the more time you can spend thinking about each one, while fully connecting to your vulnerability and the huge range of emotions you would feel in such a situation, the more beneficial this meditation will be for you. If there are too many questions for you to think about all at once, consider answering one question each day, or coming back to them when you’re ready.
What would give my life a greater sense of meaning, aliveness, and fulfillment?
What is missing from my life?
How would I live differently if I only had 2 years left to live? What about 6 months? Three months? Three weeks? What feelings come up and why?
What would I stop doing and what would I start doing? Why?
What fears would I have if I was told I only had 2 weeks left to live? What specifically is it about those fears that scare me the most? How can I address those fears right now?
What would I truly feel most reverence for in my life?
How can I add more genuine happiness, freedom, and truth to my life in 1 year before my death?
During my dying hour, what regrets would I have? How can I change the narrative now and die without having those regrets?
Tangible Things We Can Do to Feel Purposeful Again
Learn More About Your Interests and Potential Career Paths
This tip might seem more obvious and basic compared to my other tips, but this list simply wouldn’t be complete without it, and it’s never a bad idea to do it.
While the value of researching your interests is an incredible first step to take, it certainly doesn’t exceed the importance of my next tip (which is to try things out in person). You can’t really make a fully informed and accurate decision about what’s right for you without ever trying things out in person. There are certainly limits to the depth of knowledge and understanding you can have about something, without experiencing it firsthand.
However, the benefits of learning more about your career interests are 3-fold and cannot be overstated: 1) researching potential careers (in addition to trying them out in person, if possible) helps you to make a more educated decision about whether it’s right for you, 2) you have a greater chance of succeeding in any given pursuit if you are more knowledgeable about it, and 3) making this first step can really set you in motion towards your goal. Building momentum after being stagnant for so long can feel so empowering and propel you forward like few things really can. Like someone I know always says, “95% of the work involved in anything is starting it.”
Try Things Out in Person
Try doing activities related to the occupations you’re considering in person (if possible), prior to formally pursuing it as a career, to see if you even like it. If you do this and find you don’t like a job, then you can easily just pursue something else, since you haven’t yet invested in the formal process required to pursue it, saving you a lot of unnecessary stress, time, money (especially if it requires additional schooling), energy, etc.
This might sound kind of obvious, but it’s one thing to read about things that interest you online, and quite another to actually try doing these things in real life, which many people seem to forget.
I personally believe that you can’t ever really know if you like something until you actually try it out yourself, in person. And I believe that if you actively keep trying different things out, you’ll eventually stumble upon something you like.
Set Goals and Plan Them Out
In terms of other practical, concrete things we can do to provide us with a sense of direction during these times, setting goals can certainly help.
Try breaking your goals down into baby steps as much as possible and plan which mini steps you hope to accomplish on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, and be sure to PRIORITIZE THEM.
If you find that you’re still not completing anything, then you might be unrealistically setting goals that are either too large or too numerous to complete. This can make you feel overwhelmed when thinking about everything that needs to get done, which can actually cause you to do nothing at all.
Regularly completing very few small tasks is certainly better than not completing anything, so try dividing your goals into extremely small steps and only challenging yourself to do no more than 1-3 of these steps each day (you can assign yourself more to do once you finish everything). This can help keep stagnation and crippling anxiety at bay by making the whole process seem much easier and more manageable. Additionally, actually finishing tasks on your to-do list throughout the day if you’re not used to doing so can boost your self-confidence and be very empowering.
If you’re still feeling overwhelmed by the baby steps you’ve assigned to yourself, then break them down even further, until they seem very easy and simple to accomplish. With practise, you will get better at knowing the perfect amount of work to assign to yourself each day—an amount that is both realistic and will prevent you from feeling overwhelmed, but still challenges you.
Creating a vision board for the near future (for the next few months or the next year) can help us get clear on what we want our life to look like. It might sound frivolous or unnecessary, but doing this can specifically help us set well-defined and fully envisioned intentions for the future. This can then provide us with a sense of direction by supplying us a tangible idea or vision of which concrete steps to take next, which can also help us to feel inspired and motivated enough to pull through with them all the way to completion, if we always know what to do next.
This can definitely zap us out of a feeling of sluggish aimlessness and replace it with the opposite—focused, purposeful action, which actually sets us on a path towards something.
Vision boards are so effective because they tend to keep us focused on what we want in the present moment and near future, allowing us to avoid feeling lost or lacking in purpose, goals, or intention. Additionally, they can serve as a powerful source of inspiration, as well as a crucial reminder of our goals and intentions, and why we are doing what we are doing, which also helps us to feel purposeful.
Don’t Neglect Self-Care
Lastly, practising any form of self-care can also help one to accept any kind of negative emotion (e.g., feeling hopeless and lost) and build resilience towards it.
Self-care can also effectively function as a proactive self-protective measure. Experiencing negative emotions can become such a regular part of life that we may not even be aware of how much they drastically affect us, our strength, and our ability to handle stress over time. This also impairs our ability to effectively help others.
For all these reasons, I highly recommend you develop a ritual of self-care practises to do on a daily basis.
Since it’s often better to stick to a smaller ritual consistently than it is to challenge yourself to a larger ritual that you are not able to maintain in the long run, challenge yourself to adopt a smaller self-care ritual to begin with, and work your way up once you find yourself being consistent. Seeing yourself be consistent will also be very empowering and will provide you with the motivation you need to continue.
If performing a self-care practise on a daily basis is unrealistic for you, then strive to do it on a regular basis, such as by assigning it to you on certain days of the week.
If you’re looking for ideas or inspiration on self-care practises to try, you can find a list of highly effective, holistic, and financially accessible suggestions here. This list consists of self-care practises that seem to be the most effective, particularly in terms of sustaining mental, emotional, and spiritual health.
What are some things you do to cope or deal with feeling lost?
Chickpea cookies sound extremely gross and intimidating to eat, I know. But trust me, you won’t be able to taste any of the chickpeas in them! I’m sure others won’t even be able to guess that chickpeas were added to them!
I am definitely not the first person to introduce the concept of using chickpeas in cookie recipes. In fact, I first heard about this idea many years ago, but I don’t remember which website it was from. Nevertheless, I never forgot that I made cookies with chickpeas!
You can find many chickpea recipes for peanut butter chocolate chip cookies online (which are delicious by the way—that’s what I made when I first made a chickpea cookie recipe). But since I’ve always been more into butter cookies and anything almondy, I thought I’d try combining these two food loves by making buttery almond chickpea cookies. I’m so glad I did, because they turned out delicious!
These Cookies are Extremely Soft, So Be Careful with Them!
What I love about working with chickpeas in cookie recipes is that they keep the cookies incredibly soft and moist, making them seem much more special (at least in my opinion) than the typical hard cookies that you’ll find at most superstores.
Having said that, it is worth noting that these cookies do not harden or stay fully intact like regular cookies. They will be extremely delicate and soft to the touch, especially when you first take them out of the oven.
However, they will harden slightly once they’ve had the chance to cool. So please be extremely careful while handling them, especially while they’re still warm!
They might hold their shape better after 1 day, or if they’re kept in the fridge. But once they’ve had the chance to cool down fully, I would say they’re on par with cookies you would find at a bakery or a café!
Almond Cookie Cereal Idea
Because these cookies crumble so easily, you can make an interesting almond cookie cereal by adding them to milk!
I discovered this accidently as I tried dipping them into milk, and they fell apart in the milk. But I’m glad they did!
Feel free to adjust the texture, as well as the intensity of the cookie taste of the cereal by adding more milk or cookie bits to it, according to your preferences. You could even try adding chocolate chips or other fun ingredients to it (but I have not tried this).
Keto
Having used almond flour instead of white four, and substituted erythritol for sugar, these make an excellent choice for a keto snack (as long as they’re eaten in moderation, as the chickpeas still contain more carbs).
Potentially Vegetarian or Vegan
For both vegetarians (who don’t consume eggs) and vegans, you can omit the egg yolks, and it’s still delicious! If you’re vegan, you can substitute unsalted butter for unsalted margarine. I have not yet tried making the vegan version of the recipe, so please let me know in the comments section how this turns out for you!
Gluten-Free
This recipe should be entirely gluten-free, unless of course one (or more) of the ingredients, such as the baking powder, contain traces of gluten in it.
You can save the unused egg white (this recipe only requires an egg yolk, optionally) for another recipe in the future by freezing it in a container, mixed with a sprinkle of salt (if you intend to save it for a savoury recipe) or sugar (if you intend to save it for a sweet recipe) to better preserve the texture of the egg. You can find more tips on how to reduce food waste here.
Deliciously doughy and moist cookies made from chickpeas (which you can't even taste!) and almond flour. Gluten-free and keto. Can potentially be made vegetarian or vegan.
Course Dessert, Snack
Keyword gluten-free, Keto
Prep Time 10 minutesminutes
Cook Time 10 minutesminutes
Total Time 20 minutesminutes
Servings 16Cookies
Ingredients
3/4cupcanned chickpeas
3/4cupalmond flour
3/4tspalmond extract
3-4tbspalmond flakesfor garnish, optional
1/2tspgluten-free baking powder
1/4cupunsalted butter or margarine (if vegan)
1/3cuperythritol
1egg yolk (save the egg white for another use)optional. Omit if vegetarian (if you don't eat eggs) or vegan.
stevia or monk fruitto taste, optional
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Rinse the chickpeas and add them, as well as all the other ingredients (except for the almond flakes) into a food processor and process until smooth.
If the mixture is too wet, add slightly more almond flour.
Taste the mixture and add a few drops of stevia, monk fruit, or erythritol, if needed. If using, be careful not to add too much stevia or monk fruit, as they both have strong aftertastes and can potentially ruin a recipe. After each drop, taste it to see if it needs more before adding another drop.
Lay parchment paper on a pan and roll the mixture into balls, using about 2 tbsp of the mixture for each ball. Place each ball onto the lined pan, leaving a couple of inches or so of space between each cookie.
Bake them for about 10 minutes.
Remove them from the oven and allow them to cool for at least 20 minutes. Since they are made using chickpeas, they will not harden like regular cookies and will be extremely tender, soft, and delicate, so you may need to be extra careful while handling them. The longer they are allowed to cool, the more “set” and solid they will turn out. Storing them in the fridge is ideal. Enjoy!
What do you think of this almond chickpea cookie recipe? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!
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