Simple Trick to Believe in Yourself

Hi SparkPeople Members

First, my apologies! I had a technical issue with my email last week. This was supposed to go out last week.

I hope you are still going strong with your 2016 goals! Remember: we are not doing New Year's resolutions. Instead we are making a healthy lifestyle change. I am right there with you making some fun healthy changes this year like lowering my sugar intake and raising my fitness level.

Last week I talked about using some form of a daily planner to help you stay on track and in control of your days. This is from the Focus Cornerstone of the SparkPeople System that helps you get clear about your goals.

This week in Week 2 of my 10-week series showing you techniques that I personally use to reach goals, I will talk about a simple but important topic:

BELIEVE

Believe in yourself
Believe that SparkPeople can help you reach your goals

For believing in yourself, this is such a key point. Our top recommendation to help you believe in yourself is to set and reach one small goal at a time -- even if it's the smallest step possible like eating one fruit and one vegetable 4 times per week or doing just 10 minutes of fitness 4 times per week. Or even just walking to your mailbox and back one time. As you set and reach one small goal at a time, you will build your belief in yourself and self-confidence. Soon you'll wonder "what's next?!" Do this consistently and you'll be ready to take on the world.

For believing in SparkPeople, I can tell you that over the past decade, I've seen countless lives transformed from our many millions of members, so I do know this works if you stick with it. And we will be here every step of the way with you.

This "Believe" topic comes from the Fire Cornerstone which is about helping you stay motivated to reach your goals since it can be easy to set goals, but then fall off when life gets busy.

I figured this is a timely topic since now is the time when many people start losing momentum from their 2016 goals -- especially during dark, cold winter days depending on where you are located.

Affirmations

As I thought about this, I decided to pair this with another motivational tool called affirmations.

I found a great definition of affirmations on a site called mindtools.com:

"Affirmations are positive, specific statements that help you to overcome self-sabotaging, negative thoughts. They help you visualize, and believe in, what you're affirming to yourself, helping you to make positive changes to your life and career."

I first read about affirmations in a book by Dilbert cartoon creator Scott Adams way back in 1997. He used affirmations to help his career. Specifically, he wrote as an affirmation, "I Scott Adams will become a syndicated cartoonist."

Sure enough, by being so focused on his goal, he vastly surpassed that goal to become a world-famous cartoonist.

This struck a chord with me because at the time I was a first-time entrepreneur and things were bleak. I ended up having $50,000 on my credit cards and was working 80-100 hour weeks every week for 2 years under enormous stress because our auction website crashed all the time because of the rapid growth.

I started writing affirmations including one saying a more specific variation of "I WILL do my part to make Up4Sale succeed". I liked writing down the affirmations on real paper because I read that writing something down creates a strong impression in your memory.

I even wrote Scott Adams an email at the time thanking him for the motivational technique and he wrote me back -- woohoo!

To make a long story short, our small team of 5 people grew our little auction site into eBay's leading competitor and eBay acquired us just prior to their IPO. This made me a very big fan of affirmations and also earned me the capital to eventually start SparkPeople to help others.

In today's blog, I'll share links to a few resources on affirmations if you'd like to learn more including some recommended techniques. One link shares more about how Scott Adams used this technique.

This Week's Challenge

Your challenge this week is to figure out at least one affirmation that represents your goals. Then start writing it down or typing it regularly if you like this idea.

Let me know what you think about this or share your affirmation on today's blog!

I hope you get as excited about this as I do! These are the types of strategies -- especially when combined into a logical system -- that truly can transform your life without too much effort if done consistently.

Remember our statement of the year: We will be RELENTLESS about reaching our goals in a FOCUSED and MEANINGFUL way.

Thanks for reading!

SparkCheers!

Chris "SparkGuy" Downie



Chris (SparkGuy)

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