How would you spend your time? Aside from the time you spent creating your “living” (if that’s your path), how do you want to occupy your days? Going to school or studying to improve yourself in your chosen field? Reading in the comfort of a cozy armchair in your own home? Traveling to exotic destinations all over the world? Surfing at the beach? Meditating on a grassy hillside? Working out? Hanging out with friends? Cherishing time with your family?
The choice of how you live your life is YOURS.
It really is.
You just have to decide what exactly it is that you want.
Realize it. Name it. Claim it as your own. And now, let’s start creating it!
Here is your Day 3 Challenge:
If a genie appeared in front of you right now, and said you had three wishes to create your perfect life, what would you ask for? Use the questions above to write 3-5 sentences describing your ideal life. We’re going to call this your Aspiration Statement. When you finish writing these sentences, finish your paragraph with: “This is what I want. And I will achieve it”.
Want an example? Here’s mine:
I want to make a living helping other women become the most confident, best versions of themselves, so they feel as though they can take on the world, because the world NEEDS more confident women. I want to create my living in this way, so I have freedom over my own schedule to dedicate time to my family and my passion of performing. I want to be able to travel, spend time with my family, and cultivate a home life that gives me peace and fulfillment. I want to live in San Diego with my husband and my dog, and move overseas or to another state in the next 3 years.
This is what I want. And I will achieve it.
Keep this paragraph close by. Or better yet, hang it in a place of prominence in your daily life. We will be coming back to it often!
4.
Goal-Setting
“A dream without a plan is just a wish.”
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What are your goals in life? What do you want to achieve?
For some of you, the answer to those questions might be easy, and top of mind.
For others, you may really have to think about your goals… and you wouldn’t be alone!
Numerous studies have shown that less than 3% of Americans have set goals, and less than 1% review and rewrite their goals on a daily basis.
Let that sink in: less than 1% of people in the United States have ever written down the things they want to achieve most in this world...
That’s crazy!
And when we look at that 1%, what we find is pretty amazing. The people who not only write down and document their goals, but also rewrite them and revisit them consistently, are at least 10 times more successful than their non-goal-writing counterparts.
So why is goal-setting so important? Yes, it will help you become more successful, but why is that?
This is because: If you create the habit of being able to set goals and achieve them regularly, you will have unlocked the key to success.
If you think about it in the simplest terms, all achievement in the world comes down to setting goals and then achieving those goals. Every big goal can be broken down into a sequence of smaller, more achievable goals, in the same way that any huge task can be broken down into smaller, more achievable tasks. From there it’s just a matter of time and continued effort until each goal is achieved.
So, if you want to achieve your goals, if you really want to turn your thoughts, your dreams into action, the best place to start is by writing them down.
These goals can be big or small. They can be things that you want to accomplish today, this week, the month, this year… even in the next 10 years or at some point in your life!
And truth be told—you should have goals for ALL these time intervals. Starting with your lifetime goals, you can break down the action steps, then map them to years, months and even days. But we’ll cover this in detail in Week 5: “Taking Action”.
That being said, you can probably guess what today’s challenge is going to be...
Here is your Day 4 Challenge:
Based on your realization statement from yesterday, craft three goals for this year.
A great guideline to follow here is to create: one relationship-based goal, one financial or achievement-based goal, and one health-based goal.
These can be long term (several months) or short term (this month) goals, but they should all be goals you want to achieve this calendar year.
Write them down right now.
And then tomorrow when you wake up and you are making your plans for the day, write them down again. There’s only three of them, so this shouldn’t take you longer than 60 seconds.
5.
Responsibility
“For the way you act, the way you feel, and the way you live: You are responsible.”
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Here’s a saying that you’ve probably seen or heard before at some point in your life: “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
I love this quote so much because of its simplicity—whether we can or can’t control something, our response and our actions are still OURS to take.
We are responsible.
At any moment in time, you are responsible for the words that come out of your mouth. Whether they are positive or negative, encouraging or discouraging, helpful or hurtful.
At any moment in time, you are responsible for the actions you take. You are responsible for how you spend your time, the people you spend your time with, and how you treat yourself and others. You may not be responsible for the problems you encounter, but you are fully responsible for your reactions.
You are responsible for your priorities.
You are responsible for the thoughts that live in your head.
You are responsible for your own life.
There’s a saying in theatre that I learned when I was very young: “acting is reacting”. Meaning, that in its truest, most basic form, “acting” is reacting to the world and the people around you. And you are responsible for your “acting”.
The idea that you are responsible for your own actions, your own feelings, the direction of your own life is not dependent on whether or not you believe in a higher power, the idea of fate, or any other guiding force in this world. They both exist simultaneously.
It’s SO easy to make excuses. How many times have you either heard or vocalized one of these lines – or something similar?
“I wanted to go to the gym today, but I ran out of time.”
“I wanted to take that vacation this year, but work got too busy.”
“I wanted to save a certain amount of money this year, but I had too many bills to pay off.”
“I wanted to get married, but I guess I’m just not good/pretty/worthy enough.”
There’s a great moment from the movie, “The Holiday,” that explains the idea of taking responsibility for your own life in a way that has always stuck with me.
Kate Winslet’s character, Iris, is down in the dumps, as it seems everything has just gone wrong for her, and she can’t seem to dig herself out of this hole. Arthur, her delightful, older neighbor tells her:
“In the movies, we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. I can tell that you’re a leading lady but you’re acting like the best friend…”
To which she responds: “You’re right; you’re supposed to be the leading lady in your own life, for God’s sake.”
Choose to be Kate Winslet today (and every day). Take responsibility and become the leading lady of your own life!
Here is your Day 5 Challenge:
The sooner you accept and internalize the notion that you (and only you) are responsible for your own life, the better. Say out loud to yourself, right now: “I am responsible.”
Repeat this phrase throughout the rest of your day—when you’re confronted with a challenge, when you need to do something you don’t quite feel like doing… Heck, you can
even use it as a motivational tool! The important thing is to repeat it out loud, and to repeat it often.
I turn this phrase into a mantra that I use to start my days: “I am responsible for my actions and my thoughts today. It’s going to be a great day!”
Give this a try when you wake up tomorrow.
6.
Motivation
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
-Jim Ryun
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The quote above is from Jim Ryun, a former American politician and track and field athlete. I love it because not only does it articulate the role of today’s topic, motivation, in driving your journey towards your ideal life, it also reveals the role of habit in keeping the journey moving. And creating habits is what this challenge is all about!
Motivation is an interesting concept.
If you Google “motivation” right now, you’ll be met with over 1 billion search results(!) There’s certainly no lack of “motivation” available to us, but unfortunately motivation is not found that easily. At least not really.
What motivates one person can be totally meaningless to someone else. Motivation is subjective. It is internal. It is uniquely individual in nature.
And yet it is VITAL to success!
Think back to the last championship sports game you watched, the last awards acceptance speech—it’s pretty routine that at some point in the recipient’s spiel, they thank the people who contributed to their success, the people who kept them going. They thank their motivators.
I have found that motivation really sticks, really persists when it’s tied to relationships. Because relationships really are what drive us as human beings. We long for community and inclusion. We want to be loved. Our relationships fuel us and keep us going, even when not much else can.
Here’s a great example: say you have two people whose goal is to lose 10 pounds. One wants to lose the weight to look better in a bathing suit. The other wants to lose weight to become healthier, keep sickness at bay, and live a long and happy life with her family and loved ones.
Who do you think will ultimately be successful? Maybe (hopefully!) both of them, but you can bet that the second person, whose motivations are tied to relationships, will be more persistent in their journey.
This brings me to another point: As important as it is to find the things (and the people) that motivate you, it is equally important to identify the things (and the people) that do not.
When it comes to relationships, whether we realize it or not, we are greatly influenced by those closest to us. They affect our way of thinking, our self-esteem, and our decisions. There’s a popular school of thought (originally from Jim Rohn) that you are the average of the five people who you spend the most time with. If those people are anything less than supportive, uplifting, inspiring—people who generally make you BETTER—then you need to make some personnel changes.
Here’s a final quote to end today’s lesson on motivation:
“Wanting something is not enough. You must hunger for it. Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way.” -Les Brown
Here is your Day 6 Challenge:
Pull out your handy-dandy journal and answer the following questions:
1) What or who motivates you?
2) What gives you strength? (When do you feel strongest?)
3) What weakens you? (When do you feel most unsure, unconfident, unhappy?)
Once you complete these questions, take an additional 2 minutes to think how you can amplify what strengthens you in your daily life, and diminish what weakens you.
Circle 2 strength elements that you’re going to focus on experiencing MORE of in the next week.
Strike out 2 weakness elements that you’re going to focus on experiencing LESS of in the next week.
7.
Mindset
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.”
-Henry Ford
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Picture this: you’re waiting for the elevator on your way up to work. You’re staring at the mirrored doors thinking, “Man, I really don’t like my outfit today. What was I thinking when I got dressed?”
As you’re staring down your reflection and questionable outfit choice in the mirror, a fellow woman approaches the elevator.
“LOVE that top!” she exclaims. “Where did you get it?”
You say “thank you,” do the required sharing of purchase details, and think to yourself, “Hey, maybe this top is actually pretty awesome!” And you exit the elevator with some renewed pep in your step.
All because someone gave you some assurance.
The brain is funny that way. If you tell yourself something enough times, or if you are told something enough times, you will eventually believe it to be true. (Unfortunately, this works with negative talk just as well as it does with positive talk… but we’ll talk about that in a little while). The good news is, it’s just as easy to believe you’re awesome, capable, confident, deserving, AMAZING as it is to believe you’re not. It’s all a matter of what you choose to believe.
Bottom line: What we tell repeatedly ourselves is what we will inevitably think.
This is why affirmations are such a powerful tool for change.
Affirmations are phrases or sentences aimed to affect the conscious and the subconscious mind.
Through vocalization, affirmations bring up related mental images into the mind, that inspire, energize and motivate… and fulfill any number of desired purposes, both automatically and involuntarily.
And, affirmations can be ANYTHING you want them to be! Here are some of my favorites:
I am bright, brilliant and beautiful.
I am beautiful, strong, and capable.
I can do anything I put my mind to.
I deserve this.
Good things happen to me every day.
Go ahead and repeat one of those out loud right now. Repeating affirmations and repeatedly being exposed to the resulting mental images affect the subconscious mind, which in turn influences behavior, habits, actions, and reactions, and helps create positive, lasting transformation.
Affirmations often receive a bad rap for being kind of fluffy and “woo-woo”, but you can’t deny their effectiveness. Which is why we’re going to use them in today’s challenge, and our final challenge of Week 1!
Here is your Day 7 Challenge:
We’re going to talk about “power phrases” for today’s challenge. When I say “power phrase,” I mean a short, three-word phrase that you can anchor on and repeat to yourself both throughout the day and in times of stress and nervousness.
I find that adjectives work best: adjectives that describe you in your ideal state. The person you want to be, and the person you are more than capable of becoming!
Take a look back at your Day 3 Realization (your Aspiration Statement) and your Day 4 Goals—Are there specific attributes that you need to develop to accomplish those goals? What character traits will serve you along the way to your journey?
Find three words that work for you. Or at least three to start with to create your first power phrase. It can change over time if it’s not working for you, or you can have more than one for various scenarios and needs. The important thing is to start.
Write down your power phrase—in your journal, on a note in your phone, on a post-it note at your desk—and commit it to memory.
Now the fun part—find a place in your daily routine where you can practice saying your power phrase out loud to yourself. A great suggestion a friend of mine shared was every time you use the restroom—after you finishing washing your hands, say your power phrase out loud in front of the mirror. If you’re in a public bathroom, maybe check for strangers first…. (Or don’t! OWN IT!)
Saying these words out loud gives them power. Saying these words out loud gives YOU power. Try it for a week, and see how you feel. I promis
e you won’t be disappointed.
Week 2: Positive Mental Attitude
Welcome to Week 2, A.K.A., “sunshine and rainbows week!” (Just kidding… kind of…) This week we’re talking about all thing related to developing and keeping a Positive Mental Attitude.
Before we begin, I want to clarify the fact that positivity is a state of mind. I once had the honor of listening a speaker who drove home the idea of positive outlook as a choice: “Each day when you wake up, you have the choice to decide whether today is going to be a good day or a bad day.” It’s 100% up to you. Your outlook determines your reactions, which determine your mood.
Positivity is a choice.
Over the next seven days, we’re going to dive deep into the role of positivity (and all things that influence positivity) on the journey to supreme self-confidence. We’ll also go through seven different challenges and action exercises for making positivity a habit.
Let’s do this!
8.
Happiness
“Whatever makes you happy, just do that.”
* * *
I have this special coffee mug I like to use in the mornings. It’s black and white-striped with, “Whatever makes you sparkle, just do that,” written in cursive gold lettering on the sides.
Even on my darkest, most self-doubt-ridden, negativity-filled mornings, this coffee cup makes me happy. Because that cutesy truism that’s printed on the side is a reminder for me that I am on the right path for myself. That by pursuing, “what makes me sparkle,” I am working on living my best life.
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