Author: Joe Van Deuren

When we are very young we believe we can do anything. We can fly, dance, sing. We are a ninja, superman / woman, astronaut. There is virtually nothing that we believe that we are not able to do. Then shortly we begin to be influenced by others, society and the stories we tell ourselves.

These beliefs are created in many ways. Much of the time they are learned from others, but we create our own beliefs from our personal experiences. But the funny thing about them is that most of them are not true and the only reason we think they are true is because we have decided or agreed that they are true.

For children they may feel they are not old enough or big enough to make a difference. For adults they may feel they are not enough, do not have enough or do not deserve to have success.  Our goal at Balanced Life Skills is to help every student to have the awareness that through determination we can accomplish whatever we set out to do. First we need to realize that many of our beliefs are influenced by what others say and we have decided to agree. Then if we choose to stop agreeing with beliefs that are limiting us and test out a new belief by taking actions toward our goal we will soon see that we are overcoming what was seen as a “limitation”.

The hard part now is that after making these decisions and taking a few steps – we must not give up – we must be determined to reach our goal. Putting limitations on ourselves is one of the most common ways of lowering the amount of happiness and joy we get out of life. If you just read this and thought to yourself that might be true of this, but it does not apply to me in this situation – you are limiting the amount of success you can have.  Respect for ourselves begins with not limiting ourselves.

One final example: So many students we have had at Balanced Life Skills have come in lacking confidence in their ability to do physical acts, to perform skills, to learn to speak up or to jump rope as the kindergarten and first graders practice. Once they Think they can do it, Feel they can do it, then they just Go Do It!

Even when we have a goal in mind it may seem that some things come easier for us than others and that can be hard to understand.  However all of us have strengths and weaknesses, and the real question is how well we know ourselves and what are we doing to live up to our potential, using our strengths and not allowing our weaknesses to hold us back.

Strengths are talents that we have that just seem to come naturally to us.  Skills are different than strengths in that skills are things that if you wanted to learn you could take the time and learn to accomplish.  Strengths are innate, while skills are learned.

Weaknesses on the other hand are things that you have the power to improve in yourself.  It may be a professional or social skill or it could be not being able to restrain yourself from eating, but in the end the weakness is a habit that could be changed or a life lesson that you could have learned and not made the same mistake over and over again.

Determination can strengthen all the innate abilities or strengths that you have.  Determination will give you a decided edge in all of the areas that you naturally excel at.  Determination will also help you to improve the areas that may seem weak.  If you are determined to accomplish a goal – even if it looks like you do not have the natural ability to do so – with practice, asking for assistance and staying focused, you will very likely come out with a victory.

Determination Wins!!

Determined people set goals for themselves in many areas of their life. We may have a goal for exercise, for work or grades in school, we might be learning a new skill that we have not quite got the hang of yet. If we want to reach our goal there are a couple of little tricks about setting the goal that will help us stay determined to reach our goal.

First it should be very SPECIFIC. That means no vague or general goals. If you want to exercise more that is general, if you want to run a 5K that is specific and it is partly the second step be MEASURABLE. A 5K is measurable but then add a date to accomplish the 5K by and now we have a deadline that can be measured.

We should ask ourselves if the goal is ATTAINABLE? Any goal is attainable if we are willing to stay determined. Interestingly though, when you identify what is important to yourself – your brain also begins to find the ways for you to answer the questions and reach your goal. Now is it REALISTIC? Having a goal of playing soccer on the moon by next year may be specific with a timeframe, but not really realistic for most of us. However we do not want to set our sights too low, because a low goal exerts low motivational force and therefore less determination.

Finally is your goal TANGIBLE? If it is then you will be able to experience it with one or all of your senses even prior to achieving. Make your goal one that you can picture in your mind you doing, one that you can feel, taste, smell, almost touch. Now it is real.

Determined people “Think they can do it, Feel they can do it and then GO DO IT!

Determined people do not get into habit of blaming others for what does not go the way they would like them to or when they do not get what they want. When we have a goal in mind we can get very frustrated when what we expect to happen fails to happen, but determined people do not say, “I can’t”, or make excuses. Rather they put their frustrations aside and GO FOR IT!

One of the most common reasons individuals do not get to their goals is not just frustration but rather PROCRASTINATION. When you procrastinate you put off until a later time or date to do what you could have do or maybe should have done today. Why do we procrastinate?

Sometimes because we want to do something else more fun at the time, or we are afraid of failing and so we wait. On the other side of that question though is that we may be afraid of being successful. “If I do well then there will be more expectations of me.” Or fear of being overwhelmed with new responsibilities that will come about due to success. One more reason some procrastinate is a strong desire for everything to be perfect and that actually causes paralysis to set in and nothing gets done.

On our Balanced Life Skills Student website we set out seven steps to reaching your goals – not procrastinating – but actually getting things done, in a determined way.