Last year I ran a successful year-long program called Powered by Hope. The intent of the program is to help you follow your creative dreams by powering your spirit with hope! I am glad the program was so well received. This year, in addition to new posts, I will also be sharing a few of the best posts from the program. From now until the end of 2015, you will receive a minimum of two posts a month focused on hope. I hope you will enjoy them and that they will inspire you to follow your dreams!

BELIEVE

A several years ago, I started a vision board. You have heard of these things, right? A board where you post your goals, your dreams, your hopes. You put the board up where you can see it each day, and then the idea is that the Universe helps you achieve your dreams by helping you focus on your efforts on your highly visible and visual goals.

Initially, nothing happened with my vision board. I would post a lot of stuff on it and then try to work toward the goals, but it never resulted in anything. An example: I posted the picture of one of my dream magazines and wrote under it “by Monica Bhide”—implying, of course, that I wanted a byline in the magazine. I faithfully sent out queries to several editors at the magazine and gained a respectable email pile of rejections. I began losing faith. I noticed this was happening in most all the areas on the vision board.

Why?

What was I not doing right? I began to read up about vision boards and goals and tried desperately to find out what it is that I was doing wrong. I had the goals, I was working toward them—so why was I not achieving anything other than aggravation and frustration?

Sometimes the answer is so simple. Oprah has “Aha” moments in her magazine, I had a “Duh” moment and realized what had happened.

I had NO faith, none at all, that any of the goals that I had set for myself were achievable. I reread some of the queries I had sent—they sounded more like apologies than like actual notes from a seasoned writer. I have to tell you, it was eye-opening.

To achieve a goal that you set for yourself, you must believe that you can do it. If you don’t believe in yourself, not only will you not achieve the goal, no one else will believe in you, either. Wasn’t it Henry Ford who said something to the effect of—“If you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.”

I created a new vision board that has the missing element—believing in myself and seeing myself succeed. It has worked wonders for me.

Thoughts?

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