Hit A Target

By Diane Holz

Most companies have one year, three year, five year and ten year strategic plans. I used to call them the pie in the sky. In our personal lives, do we even have a strategic plan? I used to not bother with the pie in the sky in my personal life. Then, I learned about affirmations. It is a simple thing to do. Write a sentence that states positively or affirms your goals in life. One sentence that I started with was “I have a thousand dollars in my savings account.” When I reached that goal, I changed it to “I have two thousand dollars in my savings account,” and so on. That doesn’t mean that I never spent any of it. I did, over and over again! But somehow repeating that affirmation made it easier for me to put money in savings and harder for me to take it out.

Many of our goals are to stop doing a certain activity; stop spending money, stop gaining weight, stop procrastinating. But as we teach in the class, when you tell your brain a negative statement, it only hears the positive part. So if you keep telling yourself, “I will not spend beyond my limits” your brain recognizes that as a command to spend beyond your limits, and happily complies.

Start thinking about your own goals and write them down as affirmations. Remember, they should stretch you; they should feel uncomfortable. Be sure to include anything you can imagine-education, hope, love, achievement, invention, caring for others, security, you name it.

I still have one affirmation that I keep working on. “I am 125 pounds and my firm, tight body enjoys thirty minutes of exercise every day.” Miracles have happened, right?