How you go about your daily routines ultimately determines the life you live. How can you fill your life with abundance and fulfillment? How can you create the life you truly desire?

The answer is to form empowering habits that ensure you live the life you seek.

Habits are Critical to Creating the Life You Desire

Life is all about your habits: Form Empowering Habits

1. Daily routines, or habits, makeup most of your life. What you do every single day over and over again combines, over time, to become the very foundation of your life.

2. Habits are automatic behaviors. When you develop a habit, it takes that action out of the realm of having to make a conscious choice every time you do it. You don’t have to think about it or make yourself do something once it’s a habit. You just do it automatically.

3. Habits can be empowering or inhibiting. Positive habits help you get what you want while negative habits hold you back, preventing whatever you want from ever happening.

4. Positive habits create the life you desire. If you form positive habits, you’re more likely to enjoy the riches and fulfillment of the good life you want.

Your habits are the most basic elements of your life. Whether you look at your day-to-day routines or your overall life, it’s made up of all the behaviors you do. Those actions practiced consistently are your habits. So if you establish positive, empowering habits, you’ll live the life of your dreams. Form Empowering Habits

The Science of Habit Development

New research by Phillippa Lally and others at University College London has truly shed light on the science behind habit development. Form Empowering Habits

Here are the results of their research and some suggestions for creating new habits based on their findings:

1. A behavior must be repeated 66 times consecutively before it forms a habit. If you’ve ever tried to establish a habit by performing a behavior every day for 14 or 21 days, it probably didn’t work because you didn’t do the behavior enough times in a row in order to successfully develop the habit. Try it again, but this time for 66 days.

2. Repeat the behaviors in the same setting or situation. You’re more likely to form a habit when you keep doing a behavior in the same place and/or situation. Where you are affects habit formation.

> In essence, if you’re in the same place when you’re doing the new behavior over and over, you’re more likely to successfully form a habit.

> Ideally, perform your behavior in the same room for the first 66 days. Whether you do the behavior in your home, office, or elsewhere, keep it in the same locale at first, and then you can expand to apply it in other places after you’ve established it as a habit.

3. Forming a new habit is “cue-dependent.” Whetheryouforma habit depends somewhat on cues in your environment and behaviors. There are 2 types of such cues, according to Lally and the other researchers: situational and contextual.

> Situational cues originate from your environment or location while contextual cues are other behaviors you do in conjunction with or related to the new behavior.

> An example of a situational cue is what you see in the morning when you first enter your kitchen: you see your coffeemaker and then make some coffee. Your coffee maker is, therefore, something that triggers you to make your morning coffee, which you do every morning (out of habit).

> An example of a contextual cue in this case of morning coffee is that as soon as you shut off the alarm and put on your robe, you head to the kitchen to prepare your coffee. Getting up and putting on your robe trigger you to go make your coffee. Form Empowering Habits

4. Consistency is an important key to establishing habits. Results of the research also emphasize the importance of consistency when trying to form a habit – especially at the beginning stages of creating the habit.

> Although the researchers found you could skip a day when trying to establish a habit, it’s unknown how many total days you could skip during the 66 days and still successfully form a habit.

> During the studies, those who skipped days initially during the 66 day period were less likely to successfully establish a habit. One could theorize that you’re setting up your brain to become accustomed to a habit early on in the process.

> Make a pact with yourself to repeat the behavior for at least 66 days without fail. Start the new behavior at a time that you’re fairly sure you can repeat the desired behavior without interrupting your new routine.

5. Pair the new behavior with one you already do regularly. For example, if you want to start flossing your teeth, lay the package of floss right beside your toothpaste, or even on top of it, to be reminded to floss after you brush your teeth. Be consistent about flossing your teeth every single time you brush them.

Focusing on what you really want it life and developing habits that support those goals will ensure you live the life you seek. Applying the information from this research will help you succeed in developing these new, positive habits.

Let’s take a look at negative habits and their consequences, substituting positive habits for negative habits, and developing new, empowering habits. Form Empowering Habits

Negative Habits and Their Devastating Effects

Consider the habitual behaviors you exhibit that eventually lead to unwanted, negative situations in your life.

Negative habits can produce results that are completely contrary to what you desire.

You wouldn’t consciously choose to keep yourself from what you truly want. But you keep repeating those habits anyway just because they are what they are: habits.

Honestly evaluate how what you’re doing is affecting your life. Maybe you haven’t achieved your work goals or your health isn’t as good as it could be because of your negative habits. Form Empowering Habits

Subconsciously or even consciously, you experience some type of benefit from continuing to perform these negative habits and that’s one reason you continue them. But is that benefit more important to you than what you’ve dreamed for your life?

CASE VIGNETTE #1

Tom wants to play basketball with the men in his neighborhood who get together every Saturday at 10 a.m. He used to love shooting hoops in college and for a few years afterward when he first started working. He was also in better physical condition then.

Even though he talks all the time about wanting to get back into shape, it’s a challenge because Tom is now 30 pounds overweight and already struggles with high cholesterol. After work during the week, Tom’s just too tired to do anything. And he loves to sleep in on Saturdays.

Tom feels entitled to stay in bed on Saturday mornings after getting up at 7:00 a.m. to go to work all week. So, he sleeps late — until around 9:00 a.m. Then he has his favorite breakfast: sausage, gravy, and biscuits with 2 glasses of milk, a glass of orange juice, and a banana. By the time he prepares and eats his breakfast, he’s in no condition to play basketball.

In this example, what are the benefits to Tom to keep repeating his Saturday morning habits? How is he being reinforced to continue the behaviors that are actually keeping him from what he truly wants?

1. He gets to lie in bed longer, which he apparently longs to do.

2. Tom loves the tastes of his breakfast. It feels decadent to him to eat a breakfast so full of fat, calories, and flavors. Frankly, it just tastes good. Form Empowering Habits

3. There are no real demands on him during this time. He doesn’t have to get dressed, go out, or accomplish anything.

4. Tom deserves it. He’s convinced himself he deserves to lie in bed as long as he pleases, eat his unhealthy breakfast, and choose not to play basketball. Emotionally, he sends himself the message that after working all week, he can behave however he wants, regardless of the consequences long-term.

The fact is that Tom’s Saturday morning habits of sleeping late, eating a breakfast loaded with calories and fats, and avoiding playing basketball set the tone for his entire week and maybe even his life!

Tom has consciously convinced himself he’s doing what he wants. But is he really? After all, he’s repeating a series of bad habits.

Which would he truly choose — being in good physical condition by playing basketball and hanging out with the guys on Saturday morning or continuing to stay in the shape he’s in?

Your turn…

Take a minute or two to ponder the situations in your life you’d like to change. Are you like Tom — engaging in negative habits from which you consciously or unconsciously derive benefits?

How are you reinforcing your unsavory habits? What do you say to yourself that encourages you to continue repeating these actions? Form Empowering Habits

If you see a bit of Tom in yourself, you might want to begin consciously focusing on the things that are more important to you to obtain a different, more pleasing result.

You’ll benefit even more from establishing a positive habit than you derive from repeating a negative habit.

Substitute Positive Habits for Your Negative Habits

To interrupt a negative habit, you could substitute a positive habit. Basically, you’re replacing an old, negative habit with a new, positive habit. Those positive actions will aid you in achieving the results you want in life.

Considering Tom’s scenario above, let’s apply this information. Form Empowering Habits

Tom’s best bet is to realize the effects these habits are having on his life. Once he consciously connects with the damage he’s doing to himself by practicing these habits and decides that he truly wants to change, he can then begin work to build the life he truly seeks.

He can replace his negative habits with positive ones. To do this, Tom can:

1. Set his alarm on Saturdays for 8:30a.m. He’ll still get an extra hour and a half of sleep.

2. Choose to eat a smaller breakfast of one piece of sausage, one biscuit, and one egg to experience the flavors he truly enjoys.

3. Show up to play basket ball with the guys at 10:00 a.m.

4. Allow him self a couple of hours to rest after he shoots some hoops.

5. Repeat this behavior every Saturday consistently for 66 times. In the least, Tom should avoid skipping Saturdays during the first months of his new behavior.

6. Ensure he’s home on Friday nights so he’s in his own home (the same location) on Saturday mornings.

7. Establish situational cues to trigger him to perform the positive behaviors that will lead to habit formation. For example, Tom can lay out his basketball clothes and shoes so they’re the first things he sees when his alarm sounds.

Apply this type of thinking in your own case. Read the next hypothetical vignette and review the steps to changing behavior from a negative habit to a positive one.

CASE VIGNETTE #2

Maybe you want to be healthier and lose a few pounds. But for the last several years, you’ve taken the no-fuss, easy way out at breakfast time. You started your day with a cinnamon roll or doughnut. It’s an easy breakfast and you can just reach for it and go.

How can you change this continuous loop of starting your day off with a negative habit to doing something that leads to your good health— a positive habit? Form Empowering Habits

1. Acknowledge to yourself that your cinnamonroll /doughnut habitis a negative habit. It’s something you do over and over again, even though you feel you shouldn’t.

> Consciouslyconnectwhatyou’redoingtoitsnegativeeffects, which in this case could be high cholesterol, excess pounds, and late morning headaches due to a lack of protein and overload of fats and carbs in your morning “meal.”

2. Consider ways you can replace your negative habit with a more positive habit. Ask yourself, what could I do instead?

3. You could stop buying cinnamon rolls and doughnuts. If they’re not in the house, you won’t engage in this habit.

4. Try purchasing fresh fruits of your choice that are quick and easy: bananas, pears, and apples, for example. When you substitute “positive” foods that could help reduce your cholesterol and help you manage your weight better for your baked items, you’ll eventually develop a positive habit that takes the place of your negative one.

5. Place fruit in the area where you used to keep your cinnamon rolls and doughnuts to set up your situational cue, which is the sight of the fruit. Also, you can’t perform your negative habit (grabbing a doughnut or roll) if the source of it is gone.

6. Choose a fruit to eat every morning. Continue this behavior every day without deviating from your new plan for at least 66 days in a row. If you do, you’ll form a positive habit that replaces your old, negative one. At the very least, skip no days of eating fruit for at least the first half of the 66 day period.

You can successfully replace a negative habit with a new, positive and empowering one. Applying the above process to your own situation will help you wipe out old habits that inhibit you from living your best life. Form Empowering Habits

Develop New, Empowering Habits

There may be times when you don’t have a negative habit that thwarts you from achieving your goals. However, you still may want to hasten the pace at which you move forward to attain them. In this situation, you can develop new, positive habits that support your intentions and automatically lead you right toward your goal.

Once a positive action becomes a habit, you’ll do it automatically without even thinking about it. So positive habits make it easier for you to create the life you desire.

CASE VIGNETTE #3

Here’s another hypothetical case vignette to illustrate how you can develop a positive habit:

Suppose you want to become an expert in your field so you’ll receive a promotion at work and make more money. Although you really enjoy your job, you’ve never really invested any of your personal time in your career. You don’t read journals, trade magazines, or even brief articles or blogs on the internet about your field.

How can you expand your professional knowledge and horizons?

Examine these suggestions:

1. Subscribe to a professional or trade journal in your field. It’s important to have tangible evidence of your goal to become an authority in your field. Place books and journals on a coffee table and your bedside table. These are your situational cues to devote time to your study at home.

2. Schedule time in your day to read about yourprofession and explore trending topics related to your job. Even 30 minutes each day will whet your appetite to delve more into your profession and the specific areas that interest you. If you can, establish your study time to occur at the same time, say from 7:30 to 8:00 p.m. during evenings at home.

3. Join a local business organization that addresses your type of work. Attend the meetings consistently, whether they’re weekly or monthly. Remind yourself you’re working to establish the habit of cultivating your work interests to be more successful and achieve your goals.

4. Engage in activities to cultivate your special interests. Checkout library books, meet co-workers for coffee to discuss work for an hour a week, and surf the internet to see what’s going on in your profession.

Starting new behaviors that you want to develop into a positive habit takes a certain amount of self-motivation, focus, and effort on your part.

As you can see from the above illustration, if you want something badly enough, you must take action by performing behaviors repeatedly and consistently. Then, you’ll establish positive habits that will lead you to the life you dream of.

Summary

Recognize how your habits impact your existence. Your entire life is made from the cloth of all the habits you perform day after day, week after week, and month after month. When you work to establish positive habits related to your goals, you’ll be more likely to obtain the life you seek.

Research regarding habit development reveals that you must repeat a behavior 66 times, ideally, consecutively (without skipping) in order to establish a habit. If you learn to set up situational and contextual cues to trigger you to do the new positive behaviors, you’ll be more successful in forming positive habits that will provide you with the existence you desire.

Consider how your negative habits negatively affect your life. Be honest with yourself about the results of your behaviors. Then, take conscientious steps to replace your negative habits with more positive ones. Also, work to establish positive habits using the research on habit development.

When you include your life goals in your daily routines by forming and continuing positive, empowering habits, you’ll create the life you desire.

9 Building Blocks of Personal Empowerment

Are you pleased with your life journey? How do you spend your days? Do you engage in projects that bring fulfillment to you?

When you’re living a life of personal empowerment, your passion will overflow onto those around you. And as the passion permeates the very air you breathe, you’ll feel confident and in control of your life because you can produce all the things you want for yourself and your loved ones. 9 Building Blocks Personal Empowerment

This guide will help you live an empowered life. If you follow through with these suggestions and obtain the support you require, your personal power will flourish. Start living the life of your dreams!

Resolve to Succeed

When you decide to succeed, a life filled with adventure, love, and personal empowerment is yours.

Try these strategies to ensure you’re consistently working toward success:

> If you were to finish this sentence, “Success for me would be…,” what would you say?

> Establish your own meaning of success and then live in a way that helps you achieve it.

Making a conscious decision to be successful is an effective way of opening up yourself to the possibilities of achieving your dreams. When you decide that something will happen, you’re more likely to take the necessary steps to ensure that it does. Resolving to succeed is a hallmark of personal empowerment. 9 Building Blocks Personal Empowerment

Believe Positive Things Will Happen

Sometimes in life, difficult things occur that might discourage you from pursuing the path you desire. An important aspect of becoming personally empowered is to believe that bright and beautiful things are coming your way, regardless of the rough waters you may have recently encountered.

When you’re sure that positive things will happen to you, your empowerment level rises.

Putting these strategies into action will pump up your belief in the positive:

1. Train yourself to notice the positive. Some days, events in your life can present great challenges. However, if you can teach yourself to consistently focus on the positive aspects of people, places, and things, you’ll open your eyes and start taking advantage of life’s many possibilities.

>. For example, maybe your co-worker received the promotion you’ve dreamed of getting. If you look at the positive aspects of your current position, you’ll be inspired to continue your quest for a job you love and deserve.

> You could say, “I’m already good at this job, so now I’ll have time to be great” or “I’m going to make this next year my personal best in terms of work performance.”

2. Hang out with people who achieve their goals. It’s usually pretty simple to spot successful people. They pay their bills on time and take good care of their families. They excel at work and are always offering a helping hand to someone who needs it. Their positivity is practically contagious. Building Blocks Personal Empowerment

>. Your confidence will be buoyed when you see the progress others make to accomplish their life goals. Spending time with high-achievers will allow you to observe firsthand how to become goal-oriented and remain positive.

3. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt. Even though you’ll likely make a mistake or two on the road to personal empowerment, learn to see those errors as necessary detours from your path. When you elect to be positive about your missteps, you’ll be less inclined to get held back by negativity.

>. Saying something as simple as, “Everyone makes mistakes and that was one of mine” reminds you of your fallibility as a human being and allows you to move on with a renewed spirit.

A positive mind breeds positive results. Approaching all aspects of life with positivity is one of the most empowering actions you can take.

Keep Your Dreams Fresh

Even if you haven’t thought about it for quite some time, you probably have something you’ve always wanted to do in life. Do you still have those yearnings for the future? How do you react when you’re thinking about your dreams? Do you try to push those thoughts out of your mind?

Never abandon your dreams! Our dreams for the future can keep us moving forward in life, looking, reaching, and achieving. View your dreams as great motivators. Your dreams help empower you to seek out the life you truly want.

Put these strategies into action today to keep your dreams fresh and alive: Building Blocks Personal Empowerment

1. Think about your dreams each day. It sounds simple, but how often do you really reflect on your dreams? Each morning as you’re brushing your teeth, look yourself in the eyes and think about what you’ll specifically do that day to move toward accomplishing your dreams.

>. For example, if someday you want to move to New York City, spend an hour after work exploring the streets and neighborhoods of The Big Apple on your computer.

2. Create a vision board. Fill your board with symbols that represent your dreams. The key ingredients of a vision board are photos and printed words that signify the things you want most in life.

>. For example, in keeping with the dream of moving to New York City, you could find some photos in magazines of buildings in New York and signs of the places you’d love to frequent there, like the Met, Broadway, and Long Island.

>. Cut out those photos and put them on your vision board. Write down some words to show your excitement about your dream like, “I want to see all the shows on Broadway” or “I’m moving to New York” and include them on your board.

>. lace your board where you can see it daily.

>. When you look at your vision board, you can mentally see it happening. This will empower you to live your desired life.

3. Talk about your dreams. When your dreams are alive in your thoughts and words, you’re closer to making them happen. Building Blocks Personal Empowerment

>. Have coffee with a friend and share what you discovered when exploring the aspects of one of your dreams or tell your parents what you want to do. It helps a great deal when others are talking about you and your dreams as well.

4. Take a trip and explore your dream location or devote time to your life goals. Keeping your dream in the forefront means you’ll have tangible bits of it always with you until you can actually make it happen. So, if you yearn to move to a particular locale, visit the area occasionally to soak in the sights and sounds of it.

>. When you set aside time for activities related to your dreams, it empowers you by letting you see that you can one day bring those dreams to fruition.

Holding on to your dreams throughout your life will provide you with steady reinforcement to perform, excel, and achieve. As your dreams stay alive, so do your possibilities to live an empowered life.

Change Your Mind to Change Your Life

You might find yourself in a particular place in life that’s not satisfying to you. When you consider your living situation, you may feel unsure about how or why you ended up this way.

When you find yourself in a position or heading in a direction different from what you’d like, remind yourself you have the power to change your path. Upon reaching this point, knowing how to change your mind and your life are incredibly empowering forces.

When you’re ready, take advantage of these tips to alter your existence: Building Blocks Personal Empowerment

3. Institute the changes immediately. As soon as you’ve determined the direction you want to go and why, begin making at least one alteration as soon as possible. Building Blocks Personal Empowerment

>. If you thoroughly thought things through and arrived at the conclusion to change, there’s no time like the present to begin turning the life you have into the life you seek.

4. Tweak things if necessary. After you shift gears and institute some of the changes, you may notice some other minor things you could do to be headed more directly toward your goal. Go ahead and make the adjustments without holding back.

Allow yourself the time and space to change the things about your life that are leading you astray. When you’re fully following your dreams, you’ll feel empowered and ignited with the passion to create the life you seek.

Take Action: Go After What You Want

Have you ever felt like you wanted to live life differently than how you’re currently living, yet you’re unsure where to begin? Your dreams have always been in the back of your mind, tantalizing you to do something. However, you feel uncertain about how your life will go when you do begin the path toward the good life.

Follow these steps for how to begin to live the very life you’ve always wanted:

1. Know that you deserve to have the life you want. Rather than saying, “My partner wouldn’t want me to do this” or “My life will be harder if I give up the salary I make now to pursue my dreams,” consider the idea that you deserve the life you long for, regardless of what it takes to do it.

>. When you truly connect with the fact that you’re entitled to have everything you want, those feelings will push you forward toward empowerment. Building Blocks Personal Empowerment

2. Think it through and problem-solve. Refuse to let discouraging thoughts stop you. Talk to your partner if you fear they may not support you. Listen to their position and then share your hopes and dreams with them.

>. Ponder together how you could live on less money, if that’s what it will take to get what you yearn for.

3. Complete the first step toward your dream now. If you want to become an actor, take an acting class in the evenings at a local college or university. Test the waters and incorporate your ultimate goal into your current life. Fit in parts of your dream whenever you can.

>. Satisfy your craving to do what you want by taking baby steps toward it.

>. Becoming empowered is all about pursuing what you want, even if it’s an inch at a time.

4. Do your homework. When you research what you want to accomplish, it will push you into action. Plus, doing your homework is taking action.

5. Ask for support. If you require childcare twice a week to pursue your interests, ask your parents, brother, sister, or friends to help you.

6. Offer a trade. When you require some type of assistance to pursue your dreams, mention that you’d be happy to help out your neighbor, friend, or family member with a task they want done if they’re willing to assist you too.

> For example, you could say, “I’ll feed and walk your dog while you go on that get-away weekend if you can do something for me.”

> Using the barter system to complete tasks is a valuable tool of empowerment. You’ll recognize that you can practically accomplish whatever you want with the assistance of others as long as you can barter your own skills and energies.

7. Create a step-by-step process for how to reach your desired life. If you think concretely about what you’re required to accomplish on the road to the end result, it will lead you toward your goal. Check off the steps as you achieve them.

> Keeping with the example of wanting to move to New York City, what must you do first to eventually get there? Maybe your step one is researching the industry available there to determine if your job skills will transfer. Find out what they have to offer.

Taking action to achieve your dreams will bring feelings of strength and incredible anticipation. Imagine how it will feel to know that you’ve taken the bull by the horns and are heading toward the greatest adventure of your life. Living the life you want is the ultimate objective of self-empowerment. Building Blocks Personal Empowerment

Be Willing to Work Hard

We’ve all encountered the person at work who goes so far above and beyond that they make everyone else look bad in comparison. Some of us may even admit that we wouldn’t mind being that co-worker that everyone else is praising and admiring.

Begin working harder by:

> It’s no secret that it’s much easier to locate information and data when it’s alphabetized and neatly filed rather than in stacks of papers on a desk. Building Blocks Personal Empowerment

> Put all your effort into each project you work on. When you show interest in something, the end product reflects it.

4. Competing with yourself. What if you were to look at tasks as a way of showing what you can do?

> For example, when both the filing bins are filled with files to be put away, how long will it take you to do it? Two hours? Forty-five minutes?

> Jot down your times in your calendar to see if you can beat your filing time today.

5. Nixing the complaints. Many of us may have complaints about what we do in a day. But it’s wise to recognize that while we’re complaining, we’re losing our momentum with work. During the time we’re complaining we could, instead, be accomplishing something.

> Reflect on what you can accomplish if you abolish voicing your disappointment with everything you’re not pleased about. Building Blocks Personal Empowerment

6. Establishing set times for unsavory tasks. If filing is a task you typically find less-than-satisfying, perhaps setting up regular time blocks to do the job will help you keep up with it and get it done efficiently.

> For example, you could set up Tuesday mornings from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and Friday afternoons, from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. as filing time.

> Scheduling a task and accomplishing it regularly is the sign of a hard worker.

> Although the work may take some time to get done, you’ll complete it and do so consistently.

7. Pushing yourself. Just how efficient of a worker can you be? You have the personal power to become the type of employee you want to be. Pushing yourself to excel at work will boost your self-confidence and make you feel empowered.

When you’re willing to work hard, many positive things will happen for you. Your end results will be greater and others will come to see you as a model employee. Empower yourself with the abundance that comes with being a hard worker.

Do Something: Starting Small is Better Than Not Starting at All

If you’ve ever felt bogged down with everyday life, you’ll appreciate the beauty of starting small. Rather than not starting at all, beginning little-by-little seems like a much better option.

Start small on your journey to personal empowerment by:

1. Doing something even if you’re unsure. There once was a guy who said, “Let’s do something, even if it’s wrong.”

> The idea behind this statement is empowering because it implies that, even though you’re unsure about how to go about putting your dreams into action, you can try something that could eventually lead you toward your goal.

2. Pushing through the feelings of fear. It’s natural to feel afraid when you want to embark on a new adventure. You might be unnerved at the idea of moving in the direction of the life you’ve always dreamed about. Avoid letting fear hold you back.

3. Keeping promises you make to yourself. Even the smallest step forward can be a powerful indicator that what you promise yourself matters and that you believe in what you’re doing.

> Following through on your promises brings you one step closer to your goals. Building Blocks Personal Empowerment

True empowerment begins with thought, effort, and follow- through. Only you can refresh your existence and begin living a more empowered life.

Keep Moving Forward

As you start putting these suggestions into place, you’ll begin to gain the momentum to continue moving ahead. Momentum begets more momentum.

Keep moving forward in your efforts to build your personal empowerment by:

1. Maintaining your list and keeping it close. When you use paper-and-pen accountability to keep track of your goals for the day, week, and month, you’ll move ahead rapidly. Become the true designer of your life!

2. Planning blocks of time to focus on yourself. Whether it’s doing some research on the internet, reading a book on some aspect of your future, or devoting an hour writing a proposal for funding to start a non-profit organization, give yourself those moments.

> Spend time working on your initiative and you’ll travel towards a brighter future.

3. Showing consistent effort. Sometimes, we’re charged with simply putting one foot in front of the other in order to build up our strength. When we’re consistent, the direction we’re heading is more apparent to us. Our spirits soar when we see the progress we’re making.

You’ll encounter all kinds of individuals, situations, and stumbling blocks on your journey toward empowerment. At times, you may feel like you’ve taken two steps forward and three steps back. By continuing to move forward, you’ll make overall progress that can’t be denied.

Avoid Giving Away Your Power

Because we live our lives surrounded by others and dealing with complex events, there will be times when you’re inclined to give up your power. What does this mean? Some behaviors or attitudes you adopt can reduce your strength and momentum.

Ponder these points to intensify your personal power:

> When you take the stance, “I can’t have a happy life ever because this happened,” you’re giving up your power. Instead, pay attention to what occurred and make an effort to discover the lesson provided by the experience.

> When you learn something during a crisis, you gain knowledge, power, and personal resolve.

As you build your own power, be aware of how you can keep hold of your personal strength. In the end, you’ll come out on the other side feeling healthier, happier, and more empowered.

Conclusion

Although everyday life can be overwhelming, you have the resolve and tools to live an empowered life. An empowered existence allows you to make progress and eventually achieve all your goals and dreams.

Define who you are. As you empower yourself in ways that build your self-confidence, you’ll discover all the sources of your life’s greatest passions.