In the fourth week of the Purposeful Living Program, we focused on developing positive affirmations and finding clues for success. And this is how I took on the challenge.
More from the Purposeful Living program:
This week, Bianca gave us two homework assignments. Firstly, we were asked to write down three positive affirmations for ourselves to affirm that we’ve achieved three of our goals. Then she gave us a choice of finding either a) a teacher, coach, mentor, manual, book or audio program etc. to help achieve one of our major goals; b) find someone who’s already done what we want to do; or c) ask someone if you can shadow them for the day and watch them work.
My positive affirmations
As regular readers will know, my primary goal for the Purposeful Living Program. And, first thing first, I’ve decided that at 7am every morning I will stand in front of the mirror to say my affirmations. When I think about things I’ve already achieved in this process, I firstly considered my writing ability, then I thought about the vision I have and the things I don’t have the skills to pull off/are outside my control and consider the work I’ve done so far. Finally, I look at my character and what I can say about myself – outside of my professional abilities – and what I’ve done to build my platform, the little bit that I (and Melissa) already have.
So, looking at my writing skills, I contemplated what I want to be as a writer and broke it down to three things, talent, knowledge and morality. So I picked out some positive words for myself.
So I chose “talented”, “enlightened” and “inspired” as my positive words for this affirmation to reflect the three things that I value in any journalist or writer. And I know that I have a certain flair for writing, that I’ve spent the last 10-15 years of my life cultivating the talent I recognised in myself as a teenager. I’ve expanded my knowledge and am able to write about several fields of interest with relative authority. Finally, I think I’m doing this for all the right reasons. Ethics has always been my number one concern, above everything else. I didn’t get into journalism for the money – I got into it because I wanted to make a positive impact on the world and shed light on various issues. So finally I had my first affirmation:
“I am a talented, enlightened and inspired writer, fighting for a better world.”
Then I thought about my vision for the Essential Millennial when Melissa and I first decided to start this small blog at the end of 2019. I wanted a blog that could fundamentally change the nature of the media industry through innovative monetization mechanisms that enforce media ethics and reward journalists for doing their damn jobs.
And I know there are challenges. The world also has to change a little bit around me for this to work. But I’m confident that we have a vision that will eventually catch on and I will eventually be able to grow this platform through conventional means in the meantime. I therefore need to affirm to myself everyday that I’ve made progress and that I’ve shown commitment, that Melissa and I have put the hours in to populate the site with content, which is the ultimate determinate of our success. So, with all of this in mind, I was able to come up with two positive affirmations, using the positive words “visionary”, “committed”, “focused”, “optimistic”, “intelligent” and “worthy”
“I am showing commitment and focused on fulfilling a meaningful vision.”
” I am intelligent enough to be optimistic about my goals and I’m worthy of the success that will follow.”
I deliberately made my third affirmation forward looking to remind myself that successfully achieving my goals is not only possible, it’s likely; and that this only boils down to my commitment; that I have everything I need to achieve what I’ve set out to do.
Picking up the breadcrumbs…
Where’s the first place I go to when I need to find out who’s out there that can help me? Google of course. I googled “Best way to grow your blog in 2021”. And, wouldn’t you know it… I stumbled across something that’s really going to help me with all the technicalities behind achieving the kind of growth that I need.
It’s another blog called Location Rebel. The blog, featured in Forbes, BBC, Psychology Today and Entrepreneur. This guy, Sean, clearly knows what he’s talking about. Location Rebel is actually a marketing website but he has an entire section on blogging, with stories and videos titled “You Must Do These 5 Things During Your First 365 Days Of Blogging” and “How to Become An Affiliate Marketer (Even If You Have No Clue Where To Start)”. Not only does the channel appear to have all kinds of things I need to know about blogging, but also the marketing mechanisms that I don’t have any real skills for. I’m very excited to run through every piece of relevant material on this site and incorporate it into the Essential Millennial‘s content strategy and/or back-end work.
All in all, this felt like a very constructive week in the Purposeful Living Program and Bianca’s advice about positive affirmations and digging up a few secrets to success. I feel like I’m starting to reach a point where I’m able to see a clear pathway to take and I’m also feeling more confident about the possibility of success.
Join us next week for the next step in Bianca’s 12 steps to personal living. We will be re-posting the video from her YouTube channel, where you can find more videos about the program.
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