“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called opportunity and its first chapter is New Years day.”
Edith Lovejoy Pierce
What are you going to put on your new blank pages for 2016?
I know we have been told over and over again to start the New Year with resolutions. The problem with starting the year with resolutions is that we seem to focus on all the frustrating disappointments from last year.
Before we can create something new for the future, it is actually more productive to focus on our strengths and successes instead of our failures.
One of the skills that is a productive practice to start the New Year is the skill of speaking Affirmations or Positive Self-Talk.
Basically, positive self-talk is our inner dialogue with our self to keep us focused and energized when we are going through challenges and disappointments.
Similarly, affirmations are a way to speak out even to our self; confidence statements about our strengths, our gifts, our positive qualities, and our successes.
It is not just an exercise to talk you into positive fantasies or a false inflation of your ego. It is actually programming your brain to focus your energy and actions on positive problem solving instead of repeating negative outcomes.
There are numerous studies now looking at the success of athletes, CEO’s in large corporations and a variety of people in many professions and life situations that are using the strategy of affirmations or positive self-talk.
The studies showed that practicing this strategy helped them get through tough times such as medical challenges, rough financial periods, losses in relationships and family difficulties.
It also showed that these people were not only able to overcome their challenges and losses; but they went on to create new success.
My many years of experience developing the skills of Affirmations and Positive Self-talk for my clients and practicing it myself, confirms the validity of these studies.
Of course, it always creates an opportunity for success when we lay out plans for our new goals. But we want to be sure we are not laying the foundation for new goals on frozen ground.
Practicing skills like affirmations and positive self-talk help to plant the seeds on fertile ground because they inspire and strengthen us. This then helps us to take risks to accomplish our new goals with creative problem solving.
I am excited about working with you this year to open you to new ideas and skills that will enable you to fill your blank pages for 2016 with success and satisfaction.
Warm Regards,
Louise Cohen, MSW, LCSW
louise@positiveattitudecoaching.com
Copyright – January, 2016 – Louise Cohen