Do This And You'll Succeed

I talk often about the importance of creating one’s own best environment to encourage healing and growth, and there are many components that might go into that.

Stress reduction, employing a support system, positive information intake, the presence of a soothing and encouraging home atmosphere, and regular goal setting are just a few of the things that might help you to construct the optimal environment for yourself in a given week.

But at the end of the day, what does a person really need in order to keep moving forward and to find healing and personal progress? Well, three things actually.

• First, you need to value yourself. If you don’t value yourself, then there is no point to caring for yourself. If you don’t value yourself, there is no point to working on yourself. If you don’t value yourself, there is no point to setting goals involving your future. Valuing yourself is the first step to reaching a better future.
• Also, you need to believe that progress is possible. You must believe that your efforts matter. When time is combined with them, progress WILL happen.
• Finally, refuse to give up. Don’t allow fear, doubt, or detractors to get in your way.

These three things - valuing yourself, believing with a capital B, and refusing to give up - are the keys to success.

If you value yourself and believe that good things await you in the future, you will never give up on yourself.

It’s hard to stop such determination. Impossible, really.

If you believe that personal progress and healing are 100 percent possible and indeed the logical results of your work combined with time, then you will never give up on yourself.

Good things are simply going to happen that way, even if it takes some time.

Valuing Yourself:

Your heart, your mind, your time, your talents, your potential, your soul, your future. These things are priceless, and they are to be cared for as such.

If you look around at a lot of the sad situations in society—if you look around at people who are chronically stressed, drug addicted, perpetually angry, or severely depressed—I think that a lot of times a lack of self-value sits at the heart of the situation. It is hard to be calm, sober, joyful, or motivated for the day if a person sees himself as worthless.

However, if a person sees him or herself as valuable, then there is always a chance to build a brighter future accordingly.

If you see yourself as valuable, then you care how you talk to yourself. You care about how others talk to you. You care about what you put into your body. You care about what you put into your mind. You care about how you spend your time. You care about if you reach your potential. You care about receiving the love of God. And you care about your future.

And if you care about these things, then you are bound to keep moving forward. There is no other way.

Believing:

This is the second part of the equation. You might be convinced that you are valuable, but if you are also convinced that the universe simply has bad things in store for you—no matter what you do—then it is going to be difficult to keep moving forward in a meaningful way.

Avoid cynicism. Avoid a victim mentality.

Instead, you must believe that there are good things in your future! You must believe that your efforts matter. You must believe that bad times will always give way to better times.

Another term for this would be faith. You must have faith that what you are doing will pay off, in ways that you can dream of, and in some that you can’t even imagine.

There are some people who are utterly convinced that the future will be bad, no matter what they do. This is an absolutely destructive pit to fall into, and it brings a person to the very edge of giving up.

If you ever find yourself beginning to think “It just doesn’t matter what I do, nothing will get better,” then it is time to check your thoughts and talk to someone who can lift you up.

Never Giving Up:

As I’ve said many times, everyone experiences down days and times of feeling hopeless, but the key is to never “wallow” in those experiences. Instead, stay resolved to always find a way to crawl (or get pulled) out of the pit of negativity and faithlessness when you find yourself slipping. That way, you will always be brought safely back onto a path of progress.

And if you come back to that path, over and over, no matter how many times you slip, then you will see good results.

Remember, your life—your body, mind, and soul—is priceless, above monetary value. That is what you are working on right now—your life. This isn’t meaningless suffering. This isn’t wasted time. This is a labor of love. And it will produce favorable results for you if you keep at it.

That truly is the only failure that can occur in life: giving up on yourself. As long as you don’t do that, you will succeed and find personal progress and healing over time.

Value yourself. Care for yourself. Stay determined.

Have a blessed week,

Michael