Why it Matters

Every image you come across has the potential to affect your mood, including and especially the image of yourself.  inside and out will help you pave the road to self-improvement and acceptance. Coincidentally, your hairstyle is one of the many factors that can change the way you feel about yourself. If you are attempting to create a high level of self-acceptance and self-love, but feel bad about the way you look, a new hairstyle change may be a great option to consider. Once you begin to feel comfortable in your skin (and your hair), you will gain the approval of yourself no matter how you feel. A fresh new hairstyle can always boost your self-confidence, as long as it’s done professionally to prevent any damage.

A New Look on Life

Taking a look back, there are many celebrities and well-known people that have changed their hairstyles drastically due to life changes and unfortunate circumstances, including their mental health. This goes to show that an individual’s mood can and will affect their hairstyle and vice versa. However, recent studies show that It’s an overall sense of the way you distinguish yourself and the world around you. Happiness is vital to the way you perceive your own image. It can be glorified and accepted based on the way you feel about your looks or hairstyle. There are many hairstyles that you can subtly try without making too big of a change and risking your perception of yourself, such as a color change that can be converted back easily.

Becoming Your Best You

Considering the amount of influence that your hair has on your mental wellbeing and the way you perceive yourself, it’s important to make sure that you never make drastic changes during an emotional time in your life. When your emotions settle, you may be suffering the loss of more than just your emotional wellbeing. The next time you consider chopping off your hair or making a radical change, it may be a better idea to try  such as getting a pet or trying a new healthy diet. However, if you are feeling low and depressed about the way you look, take a trip to a reputable salon and have your hair professionally managed to create a new version of yourself, and boost your mental wellbeing in the process.

The post Boosting Mental Health Through Your Hairstyle appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

Why it Matters

Every image you come across has the potential to affect your mood, including and especially the image of yourself.  inside and out will help you pave the road to self-improvement and acceptance. Coincidentally, your hairstyle is one of the many factors that can change the way you feel about yourself. If you are attempting to create a high level of self-acceptance and self-love, but feel bad about the way you look, a new hairstyle change may be a great option to consider. Once you begin to feel comfortable in your skin (and your hair), you will gain the approval of yourself no matter how you feel. A fresh new hairstyle can always boost your self-confidence, as long as it’s done professionally to prevent any damage.

A New Look on Life

Taking a look back, there are many celebrities and well-known people that have changed their hairstyles drastically due to life changes and unfortunate circumstances, including their mental health. This goes to show that an individual’s mood can and will affect their hairstyle and vice versa. However, recent studies show that It’s an overall sense of the way you distinguish yourself and the world around you. Happiness is vital to the way you perceive your own image. It can be glorified and accepted based on the way you feel about your looks or hairstyle. There are many hairstyles that you can subtly try without making too big of a change and risking your perception of yourself, such as a color change that can be converted back easily.

Becoming Your Best You

Considering the amount of influence that your hair has on your mental wellbeing and the way you perceive yourself, it’s important to make sure that you never make drastic changes during an emotional time in your life. When your emotions settle, you may be suffering the loss of more than just your emotional wellbeing. The next time you consider chopping off your hair or making a radical change, it may be a better idea to try  such as getting a pet or trying a new healthy diet. However, if you are feeling low and depressed about the way you look, take a trip to a reputable salon and have your hair professionally managed to create a new version of yourself, and boost your mental wellbeing in the process.

The post Boosting Mental Health Through Your Hairstyle appeared first on 51³Ô¹Ï.

Introduction

If you are studying to become a part of the beauty and barbering industry, chances are, you are passionate about making a real change to people’s lives. Beauty is much more than skin deep; it is intricately tied to your health and happiness. If you can make others more self-confident, then you are indeed fulfilling an important role. To shine in this field, in addition to learning theoretical and practical/technical aspects of beauty, you should also be aware of the importance of ‘soft skills’ such as teamwork or the ability to visualize positive transformation. These are five of  to aim for if you want to boost your chances of success in this industry.

Working as Part of a Team

Whether you are working on a film set, at a studio, or in a spa, you will form part of a team. Each member of which has their respective roles, goals, and procedures. Teamwork is a wide category that encompasses a variety of factors – , to supporting team members, for instance by seeing any mistakes they make as opportunities to improve the way work is completed.

Keep it Clean

Teamwork also means happily taking turns with tasks. , for instance, is something all cosmetology team members should take part in. Although you may naturally take to working with guests or learning new techniques, you should also be willing to fulfill day to day tasks like cleaning and tidying up. A neat appearance will give your salon or spa a professional, hygienic look that top clients demand.

Color Matching

Whether you specialize in makeup or hair, getting your color matching right is vital to creating the right look. For instance, if you are an esthetician, you need to know the right palette to select depending on the client or occasion you work with. Your selection needs to represent the perfect blend between shade and light, and enable you to use different shades to complement, and contrast with, your main colors. You will also need to refresh yourself on basic color theory, particularly when creating a look such as camouflage makeup.

Continual Education in Beauty and Barbering

Top professionals need to be on the ball when it comes to new trends and techniques. You should also be aware of new tools that can enhance your client’s skin, nails, or hair. Take the skincare industry. You may specialize in facials, but if your client is unhappy about acne scarring, you should know about the best lasers (e.g. radiofrequency and resurfacing lasers) to recommend. These treatments will make a significant improvement to your client’s skin, even if you cannot perform them yourself. You should also be able to recommend useful yet gentle equipment to your clients. This can include suggested brands of ceramic irons, hot rollers, electronic facial cleaners, steamers, etc., which they can use to upkeep their skin, nails, or hair, between visits.

Managing Your Time

A barber, nail artist, or esthetician often has many tasks to carry out in one day. These include preparing materials, products, and ingredients for use with your clients, cleaning up after a treatment, and obtaining medical or other information. Or on the customer service side of things, dealing with clients and client complaints or charging clients for your services. Being on time for each appointment requires an estimation of time required by each task. You’ll need the ability to break down available time into set tasks to be completed during the day. The more you perform the same tasks, the less time they will take, meaning you can get more and more done in a day.

Creative Thinking

Creative thinking involves , instead of being locked in one. There are many problems or situations that will  before coming to a conclusion. Say your guest expects a service beyond what is contracted. If you are managing a spa or salon, you need to think very carefully before giving the guest an answer. On the one hand, it is important to perform the work contracted; on the other hand, lucrative clients can harm you if they take their business elsewhere. Each and every client will challenge you in different ways. The key is to rise above the obstacles in a calm, mindful, reasoned state of mind.

Problem Solving

Creative thinking – the ability to think up innovative solutions to everyday problems – is just one of many skills you need to make it as a cosmetologist. Working with hair, skin, and nails is ideal for sociable types. This career enables you to cross paths with a wide array of interesting people. However, ‘people jobs’ can also be more challenging, because each client is different. Maintaining their loyalty and interest requires a great deal of patience, creativity, and vision.

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Transformation is pretty serious. To achieve a whole transformation requires change at your very core. By word alone, it’s no little thing. But what does it truly mean? It is a shift in the very core of a component of your life. It’s not an easy task. But, nothing worth doing was ever easy. Some people find a large priority in adjusting their health and seeing that change physically, some find themselves unhappy with where they are in their current state of life. No matter how visible the transformation is to be, the role mental adjustment plays is more necessary than often discussed.

Overview

Abraham Lincoln is quoted to have said,

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”

It’s easy to rely on tomorrow. We wake up and push off the dishes, that email you’d rather not send, or the groceries it’s too cold to retrieve. But ultimately, tomorrow is a construct. We truly can only operate in the present. If we are unwilling to step forward and do what needs to be done in the now, we may never accomplish it. Often, we find it convenient to think about changing our lives, about transformation, but we spend more time wishing after it than making it happen. This leads to a difficulty aiding in the transformation of others. It also causes a serious mental roadblock when attempting to address that we cannot control.

Visualizing Your Success

“Successful people are simply those with successful habits.”

Brian Tracy

No matter the kind of change you are seeking, the first step is always the same. It is coming to terms with your own mind. Muhammad Ali spoke often of the importance he placed on visualizing success in his fights before they ever happened. A similar sentiment was expressed by Michael Jordan as he related that he always mentally pictured his last shot before ever taking it. Positive visualization is a life-changing practice. Waking up slightly earlier in the day and focusing on , or one like it can spark the mental preparation it takes to succeed. The second step is simple in a word, but challenging in execution. When you need to get something done there is only one option to accomplishment: doing it. You could never win a fight without entering the ring.

We often draw stark lines between the personal and professional, but ultimately this is a mistake. When we ignore the aspects of our everyday lives, we ignore the impact that they clearly have on our work. When we are unwell at home, it is a challenge to maintain successful professionally. Similarly, when things have overwhelmed us at work it bleeds over into our home life. We must address ourselves as a whole person, looking at everywhere we are. That is the mindset we must have to wake up earlier before work. Work is more than just an activity we go to, but an investment in our lives. When we wake up earlier and take personal time to visualize our professional success, we prepare ourselves for the best and bar against adversity.

Transformation and Others

The truth is that when we are struggling with our own transformation, it can be hard to be there for others and their success. However, it is entirely necessary. In the beauty and barbering industry, there is an incredible opportunity to be an integral part of people’s lives. Whether it’s a regular haircut or special occasion makeup, each service plays a role in your client’s self-image. The co-workers that we spend our days with are also focused on their own goals and self-actualization. We are constantly surrounded by other human beings just hoping to be their best selves. Forbes recently released an article that states  To aid others is to get our own minds into the place of success and establishing those positive relationships can beautifully shape opportunities for others to return the favor and help us as well.

The goal-focused mindset demands realistic positivity. When we have that good faith at our core it makes it easier for us to support the success of those around us without growing bitter. Talk to your peers about their goals, both in and outside of work. Encourage each other to pursue excellence in everything. Sometimes this will be very hard. It is always easier to surround yourself with negativity and give in to the pressure to just complain along with the tide, but resist. When working with your clients, challenge yourself to recall details about their lives and plans. When you engage with them in this meaningful way it will reap gratefulness and encouragement for both of you. Love towards others is rewarded.

The Unchangeable

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

Maya Angelou

Unfortunately, in life, there will be things that cannot, or will not easily, be changed. When we are faced with this adversity, we have to turn inward. We have to change ourselves. It’s important to be honest with yourself about the situation that you find yourself in. Sometimes it’s appropriate to learn that we need to change our situation. Sometimes we learn that there are things that we cannot control. There are plenty of things that we .

Positivity is infectious. When you have established valuable relationships of support with those around you, they can come to your aid when you need it. If you find yourself in an unchangeable situation, visualize it. Decide your next route. Reach out for support. Then begin doing what you can to move forward. Accept that sometimes, just taking care of yourself is all you can do. Decide that that is enough.

Conclusion

Transformation is a strong thing to value. As members of the beauty and barbering industry, we deal with physical transformation all the time. But to truly place this accomplishment into our own lives, we must also work with the other values we have previously examined. Fun, love, excellence, and the way we approach them help lead us to the final destination that is achieving that personal transformation and making the most of what we’ve been given every day. And when you are doing your best it truly can be FELT.

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translates as ‘coming together in common purpose to achieve an outcome’. In Rwandan culture, this means members of the community call upon their family, friends, and neighbors to help complete a challenging task. The last Saturday of each month the entire country closes down in the morning so that an individual from each family can complete an act of community service. Such a strong focus on community involvement inspires Rwandan people to carry out community projects more than once a month. As a resut, Umuganda has a whopping 91.3% participation rate. It’s no surprise that Rwandan people are dedicated to improving their and coming together for a larger purpose.

Community Impact

At 51³Ô¹Ï, we found this dedication to community inspiring. Can you imagine if this practice was adopted in the United States? Just think about every person from ages 18-65 participating in a few hours of community service; the impact would be incredible. Of course, the community would benefit immensely, but the sense of togetherness we feel would be life-changing. Simply knowing that once a month you get to be a part of a country-wide movement is exhilarating.

Our Umuganda

In 2013, 51³Ô¹Ï sponsored the creation of the Dream Beauty Academy in Kigali, Rwanda, Africa. During that trip, our owners and staff first learned of Umuganda. The team was struck by this beautiful tradition and knew immediately this practice needed to be a part of their campus culture. Each year at locations in both Springfield, Missouri and Austin, Texas the students and educators disperse into the community and do what they can to give back.

Read below to see how each school impacted their community.

Springfield

In Springfield, this included the Gardens, the Ozarks Food Harvest, the Dream Center, Quail Creek, Maples Nursing 51³Ô¹Ï, and Harmony House. Students from all programs offered up their skills. All throughout the community, we offered haircuts, styles, manicures, and makeup applications. Making our neighbors feel beautiful and confident in their own skin is invaluable.

Another group of students packaged enough food to provide over 6,000 Thanksgiving meals. Not only did students perform acts of service, they built relationships. In my own experience with volunteering, it is these relationships that have the strongest impacts. While the haircut might only last a few weeks, the personal connection and the feeling of togetherness can last a lifetime.

Austin

In Austin, the team worked in the Community First Village, SafePlace, Lifeworks, and Foundation Communities. Offering beauty and barbering services to those in need helps them to feel whole, to feel like they are a part of a community. When you do have regular access to these services, it’s easy to overlook the importance of having control over your image.

Each year we see success, both in literal accomplishment and the phenomenal effect of spreading positivity throughout the community. We hope that by beginning this tradition with our students, we can influence them to continue to live a life of service even after graduation.

Quick Question

Now that you know how we celebrate Umuganda, what do you think? Do you see the benefit of a national day of giving? Do you know how to give back? I would love to know your thoughts! You can reach me at bethany@aohd.com.

Sincerely,

Bethany

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