Believe In Your Dreams - It's Possible!

Hello sweet friends,

This week I'm continuing to keep you posted on my progress with The Success Principles Workbook by Chicken Soup for the Soul Co-Author Jack Canfield. It's my way of motivating myself to strive for my goals, especially as a Domestic Violence Survivor. I invite you to do it with me if you have a goal or two you want to reach as well!

Chapter 6 is titled "Believe It's Possible" and starts out with a lovely quote from Venus Williams: "You have to believe in yourself when no one else does. That's what makes you a winner."

Jack writes that first you must believe your goal is possible for someone to achieve. Once that's established, believe that someone is you. I like this one-two step approach. Ever since I was an aspiring journalist, I've always had a mentor. David Ono, Denise Nakano and Juju Chang are just a few names that come to mind. As Asian American Broadcast Journalists at the top of their game, I really admired their achievements and also their willingness to lend a helping hand. Because I saw tangible examples of what success looks like in this field, I was able to dream more vividly about my future goals.

The thing about believing, however, is that it's a choice. On good days I believe I can reach for the stars. On bad days, I don't think I can even accomplish getting out of bed. The book warns that limiting beliefs will pop up, and it's our responsibility to identify, squash, and replace them with new beliefs.

For example: I'm too old to become a network news anchor --> I'm the perfect age to become a network news anchor.

The workbook makes me write my breakthrough goal and rate how confident I am about achieving it. I gave it a 2 out of 10! I obviously need to take a lot of steps to address my lack of belief. I had to write down three goals to do every morning. Here's what I came up with: 1) visualize my goal being accomplished, 2) pray and seek God's will in accomplishing my goal, 3) fill my mind with positive affirmations to increase my confidence. Did I do all of them every day? I'll probably give myself a C... I forgot, but I did visualize via my vision board and have been listening to my motivational audiobook 4-5 times a week (my latest author of choice is Brené Brown).

Jack reminds me not to worry about the HOW but just focus on believing. He inserts my favorite quote from Walt Disney, which also happens to be the first thing I see when I wake up (it's written on my giant wall clock): "If you can dream it, you can do it."

The following exercises really helped me to change my thinking from negative to more optimistic. First, I wrote five sentences starting with "I can't."

For example: I can't undo this pandemic.

Then, I replaced "I can't" with "I won't" and rewrote my sentence, followed by how that makes me feel:

I won't let the pandemic affect my morale.

When I say that I feel motivated.

Next, I replaced "I won't" with "I will" and rewrote my sentence, followed by how that makes me feel:

I will use this pandemic to my advantage.

When I say that I feel powerful.

There are a couple of tangible things that Jack suggests I do for every time I say "I can't" - either wear a rubber band around my wrist and snap it when I say those words or fill a glass with $1 bills.

The workbook also asks that I keep a "Victory Log" filled with my daily accomplishments. I didn't do this. But I did do a mirror exercise that's been kind of awkward. I stare at myself every evening in the mirror, address myself as "Christine" and then proceed to tell myself about any successes I've accomplished that day. I end with "I love you" and keep staring at myself to feel the feels, if any arise. I'm supposed to do this for 49 days and I'm on week 1! So far it feels weird, but I'm being obedient and hope it'll get easier.

Finally, the book suggests that I display my symbols of success somewhere I can see them regularly. I've had a 12 News microphone that was gifted to me, as well as a Screen Acting Award trophy from high school on my work desk. They help me to feel accomplished as a storyteller and take me back to times in my life when I felt really passionate about what I did.

I'd love to know how you motivate yourself to keep your dreams alive. Going through this workbook has really helped me to keep pedaling in the direction of fulfilling my goals. Sometimes I feel like a duck at a pond - it may look still, but it's still paddling!

Thanks for following my journey and please let me know if you're giving this a try too!

Love,

Christine