Don’t feel 100% great about yourself? Join the club. Most of us could use a little boost regarding our opinions of ourselves. Affirmations can be an effective way to boost your self-esteem.
 
The key to using affirmations is to state them in the positive and to use them religiously. Repetition is key in the beginning – until you feel the shift in your thinking.  Even then, keep going!
 
Use this process to harness the power of affirmations to enhance your self-esteem: 

1) Determine the weak areas of your self-esteem. In what aspects of your life do you feel negatively about yourself? It might be related to work, your relationships, your health, your body image...whatever it is, it is time to undo that conditioning! Hone in on the areas of your self-esteem that need the most work - the first step is awareness.

2) Create affirmations that address these areas. Suppose your self-esteem regarding your work is less than you’d like. Be kind to yourself and create powerful affirmations even if they seem over the top. For example:

• I am a highly capable person and a strong member of my team at work.
  
  
• I contribute regularly and in a meaningful way – with confidence and certainty.
  
  
• I am excited that my work and effort are routinely acknowledged with promotions and pay increases.
  
  
• I am calm, cool, and collected in all work situations.
  
  

Try to come up with a minimum of 10-15 affirmations. Make them positive and in the present tense. Avoid words that will keep you focused on the negative (i.e. “I am NOT forgetful”…should be worded “I easily remember all of my tasks”).

3) Create an audio recording of all your affirmations. The technology that we have now has made this an easy feat! Use your standard smart phone apps to record your affirmations – or, even better, make a video that you can watch and/or listen to! Your recording doesn’t have to be professional quality but give it your best effort.

• Read each affirmation at a normal speaking pace and speak clearly. Leave a short pause between each affirmation.

4) Write or type each affirmation clearly on a piece of paper. Carry your affirmations with you everywhere! That could mean putting them on a small piece of paper or having an electronic version on your phone or tablet. The more you are aware of your affirmations and intentions, the quicker they will be accepted into your identity. Just knowing they are in your pocket is a great way to keep them top of mind!

5) Spend some time each day listening to your affirmations. Your identity prioritizes information that comes from your own voice (which is why negative self-talk is SO damaging), so listening to your recording (Step 3) will strengthen your internal belief system. Ideally, listen to them while you’re lying in bed in the morning and in bed at night when your mind/brain is at is most suggestive. Put on your headphones and listen to your affirmations repeat over and over. If you can fall asleep with your affirmations in your ears, great!

• Take a walk at lunchtime and listen.
• Using an audio software (GarageBand, Audacity, etc.), you can put your affirmations “under” your favorite song – and play it over and over.
  
  

6) Spend some time writing your affirmations each day. Pull out a pen and some paper and write them by hand. Typing doesn’t count. This a highly effective way of implanting your affirmations into your subconscious.

7) Read your affirmations. You’ve be listening and writing. Now, it’s time to read them. Pull out your list of affirmations and read over them a few times each day. Let your subconscious know that you’re serious. Keep at it.

8) Consider a little electronic help. There are free programs you can get for your computer that will flash your affirmations on your computer screen. You can program them to flash for periods of time so short that you can’t possibly see them consciously, but your subconscious mind will see them. Imagine soaking in your affirmations all day long while you work! YAY!

Affirmations can be a useful tool for increasing your level of self-esteem. With more self-esteem life will be more enjoyable, and you’ll be more capable. Create a few affirmations to start with - write them, listen to them, and read them. You will begin feeling differently from the inside – which will impact your experiences, your vibration, and what you are attracting into your life!
 
If you want to learn how to speed up the process and integrate new belief structures quickly and easily, contact Karen LoGiudice at karen@newmoonselfdevelopment.com for more information on her revolutionary program: Sculpting Your Life – Heal your past…Find the Present…Create your Future!

It can be difficult to change your life. There’s so much uncertainty and potential failure that sometimes it can feel unsafe to try.  But what if you could view your life as a science experiment of sorts? You wouldn’t take the results personally. You’d just be a scientist observing the outcome. You could simply judge the results and plan your next step.
 
The idea of self-experimentation has several benefits:

• It removes the possibility of failure. You’re testing the effectiveness of an idea, possibly someone else’s idea…you’re not testing yourself!
  
  
• You’re actively attempting to enhance your life. You have a goal and a plan to achieve it. You’re taking action.
  
  
• You analyze the results of your experiment and then, once you know what works for you (and what doesn't), tweak your actions move even closer to your goal. What could be more effective than this?

 
Experiment in your life, be curious, and enjoy the process of discovery:

1)  Choose a theory or two that you’d like to test. There’s plenty of self-help advice to be found. Find an interesting theory and test it. Pick out a money-making program or a workout program.  Try eating vegetarian, eliminating gluten, or test out the health benefits of “oil pulling.” Find something that interests you and has the potential to impact your life in a positive way.

• Other ideas include diets, changing sleep patterns, dropping a bad habit or adding a new/positive one, meditating, fasting, [ahem…shameless plug] releasing emotional blocks using clay [ahem], or anything else you can think of.
• You can use someone else’s plan or develop your own. What interests you the most? Educate yourself by actually measuring your own results before and after.

2) Learn what you need to know. Get the necessary materials and map out your plan. For fun, write down your predictions of how it will work out.  (Keep in mind, however, that we are doing this to make positive change, so go into this experiment with positive expectations and keep an open mind.  The placebo effect has been proven over and over – if you believe it won’t work…it won’t.) 
 
For example, imagine that you want to see what will happen if you limit yourself to 100 grams of carbohydrates per day. You decide to:

• Track your carbohydrates, body weight, blood pressure, mood, and waistline.

• You commit to sticking with the diet for four weeks and taking measurements before you begin and after each completed week.

• You theorize that you might be hungry and tired at first, but expect those symptoms will disappear after the first week.
  
  
• You predict that you will to lose 3 pounds per week and lose inches off your waist.
  
  

1. Put your hypothesis to the test. Perform the experiment on yourself. Follow your plan and see what happens. Find out if you were right or wrong in your predictions.
   
   
2. Evaluate your data and formulate a conclusion. What did you learn? Could you tweak the process to improve it? Or was it a horrible idea that deserves no further investigation?
   
   
3. Consider the next step. What do you want to do next? Do you want to continue down the same path or choose a completely different topic?

 
Do you have a hard time making changes in your life? Try viewing aspects of your life through the eyes of a scientist. Be the witness. Create your theory and test it:

• Will making 10 prospect calls each week guarantee an appointment with a client? Who knows? Put it to the test and find out.
  
  
• Can you do one additional push-up each day until you’ve reached 100 push-ups? Find out.

• Will dressing more professionally at work result in receiving more respect? Dress up every day for a month and see.

 
There’s no reason to wonder. You have yourself to experiment upon. You can find out definitively what does and doesn’t work for you. Imagine all the incredible changes you could make after a couple of years of living this way!

What is your experiment going to be?  Please share...it will be interesting to see how our experiments go!

Fear is probably the biggest roadblock to success. Fear is a constant companion if you’re attempting to grow and achieve. The most successful people are often those that manage fear most effectively. Unfortunately, those whose fear controls them tend to not live up to their true potential. Learning to push beyond fear is a valuable skill that greatly increases your odds of success.
 
Conquer your fear and achieve success:

1. Control your thoughts. It’s possible to think about anything you choose. The best way to stress yourself is to think about stressful things. You’re not more effective when you’re afraid. You’re less. That doesn’t mean you should bury your head in the sand, but put yourself in a frame of mind that makes you most able to deal with the situation.
2. What would you do if you WEREN’T afraid?  My great friend, Beth, introduced me to this simple but powerful question many years ago.  I have a post-it note on my refrigerator that says, “What would I do if wasn’t afraid?”  If I am fearful about a decision, I look at that post-it, and it guides me to make the decision that my soul knows is in-line with what I really want.  Ask this question any time fear comes into a decision – it will change your life!
3. Breathe. Focus on your breath and slow your mind. Your mind will take reality and run wild with it. Focusing on your breath will calm your mind, and bring your perspective back to reality. Things are rarely as bad as they seem. When stress is at your doorstep, just stop and breathe.
4. Imagine a positive outcome. Raise the level of your expectations. Your fear will melt away if you expect something positive to happen. Create a future that you find exciting and visualize your fear away.   Repeat this exercise several times a day. Eventually, you’ll begin to believe it.
5. Exercise. Physical exertion is an excellent way to burn away your fear and anxiety.  Focus on what you’re doing – be mindful of your surroundings and, before you know it, your mind will be focused on exercise rather than fearful thoughts.  Go for a quick run, a long walk, or lift weights. When you’re pleasantly out of breath, you’ll find your fear has lessened.
6. Seek support. Talk to friend or a mentor. Choose wisely, however! Some of your friends and family are more supportive than others. Find someone who knows you well and will let you air your fears without feeding them. Online forums can be helpful, and you can remain anonymous.
   Understand that change and fear go hand in hand. There’s a reason to be excited when you’re afraid: It’s very possible that you’re at the beginning of a great change in your life.  Nothing seems to change when you’re comfortable 100% of the time. Be excited that you’re doing something that creates feelings of fear. Your life may be about to change for the better.  Remember:  Life happens outside of your comfort zone…GO FOR IT!
7. Make a list of the benefits of moving forward. Create a long list of the positive results that could result from being brave. Think about what it looks like when you’ve finally arrived after pushing through that fear and FEEL what that will feel like. For example, if you’re starting a new business: 

• Financial stability
• Doing something I love and enjoy.
• Being a successful entrepreneur allows me to work on my own.
• The things I feared about opening a business are all in the past!

 
    8. Do it anyway. Fear is a lousy reason for not doing something. Be brave and resolve to do the thing you fear.  Take one small step at a time – each time you conquer a fear, it will be easier the next time. Build your tolerance to fear by facing fear daily. 

Do you allow fear to determine your actions? Fear is a self-imposed roadblock on the path to progress. Developing the skill to handle fear appropriately is necessary to move forward in any aspect of life. When you feel fear, you’re on the verge of making a significant change in your life. Get excited!  Clay is a great way to identify the root cause for your fear – call us today to learn concrete tools to eliminate fear and go for your dreams!  

​It’s unlikely that an amazing life just happens by chance. It’s necessary to spend your time, energy, and focus in an intentional manner. Too many distractions, less important goals, and a shortage of resources can get in the way of living an amazing life. The lack of a clear objective is the greatest obstacle. These are challenges that can be solved with a little effort.
 
Here are some tips to create an amazing life that’s meaningful and exciting to you:

1. Remove what isn’t necessary. Too many responsibilities and distractions are obstacles to an amazing life. Get rid of anything that takes up time or space and doesn’t provide a worthwhile return. It should be important to you if you choose to include it in your life.
   
   
2. Decide on your priorities. You might not be able to walk on Mars, climb K2, become a movie director, or be chief of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins. However, you can accomplish some pretty amazing things over the course of a lifetime.

• It’s important to narrow your focus to a few priorities. What’s the most important thing to accomplish or experience? Keep your list short.

1. Stock up on the necessities. Creating an amazing life requires courage. The more your risk, the more courage you require. But imagine if you had plenty of money, time, energy, and support. You’d need much less courage to chase after that amazing life. Fear will have much less influence over your life. Start building reserves in the key areas of your life.

1. Remove the distractions from your life. It might be the television, social media, or the goals that only interest you moderately.

• Warren Buffett often advises people to make a list of their top 10 priorities in order of importance. He then says to avoid numbers 4-10 like the plague. Those are the things that get in the way of accomplishing the top 3.

1. Deal with negative thoughts. Big goals and ideas stir up negative thoughts and emotions. Failing to deal with these can cause big challenges down the road. Be committed to expecting the best, finding solutions, and staying positive. Negativity takes the wind out of your sails and fuels procrastination.  Clay is a fantastic way to work through and reframe negative thought patterns – more info at:  http://theclaycoach.com/why-clay/
   
   
2. Spend your time wisely. There are multiple ways to accomplish any task. Avoid taking the easy path. The easy way is often the long way. Life is short, so choose the shortest path to your amazing life. This is often the most uncomfortable path, but you can handle it.
   
   
3. Get started. My best friend frequently says, “Eat that Frog!” – which is her philosophy for getting started. Do the thing that you find the most difficult first and you’ll be surprised at how many internal resources are freed up!  The first step is often the hardest. You have everything you need to take a meaningful first step. Avoid waiting for some future event to occur. You can do it today, even if you have kids, a limited income, or limited knowledge. Just get started.
   
   
4. It’s not that difficult. There’s really much less competition in the world than you think. Look at how much time the average person wastes at work and at home. Most people fail to prioritize their time. Most people don’t have goals. Most people have too many distractions.
   
   

• When you choose the direction of your life and eliminate distractions, the road is relatively easy.

 
Is your life less than amazing? It doesn’t have to be. Setting priorities and removing distractions are the keys to creating an amazing life. Use your time wisely. There’s still time to live the life you’ve always dreamed of, but it’s important to get started today.

​You might not believe this…but many things you believe about yourself are simply not true! In fact, many of our commonly held beliefs turn out to be incorrect. For example, we now know that the world isn’t flat and that the Earth revolves around the sun. This wasn’t always the case.
 
Your parents may have told you something they believed to be true, but wasn’t. You may have had an experience that led you to draw a false conclusion.
 
Contemplate what you believe about life and yourself that might not be true. False beliefs can greatly limit your options. It could change everything if you actually knew the truth!
 
You might think that you’re not good at sports or public speaking. You might believe that you’re not talented or that nothing you do is good enough. It’s time to show yourself that many of your beliefs are inaccurate. One of the best ways to find and eliminate false beliefs is through experimentation.
 
Follow this process:
 
1. Make a list of your limiting beliefs for which you don’t have significant proof. Significant proof is repeated personal experience. One experience doesn’t prove a thing. Even two experiences can just be a coincidence. Get some real proof.


2. Start with a limiting belief that you can test easily. Let’s just say, for example, that you have the belief that you can’t make friends. This might be based on the experience of not having friends in your younger days.


3. Learn what you need to know. Do you know how to make friends? It wasn’t covered in school. You might need to purchase a book and educate yourself. Maybe your social skills are a little rusty. Perhaps you need to work on minimizing your social anxiety.

• What do you need to learn or do to put yourself in the position to test your false belief fairly?
  
  

4. Release the belief.  Saying affirmations can help with releasing beliefs that hold you back.  Working with clay is an extremely powerful step in releasing as well (more info at: http://www.newmoonselfdevelopment.com/clay-techniques.html).
 
5. Practice. If you believed that you couldn’t learn to play the violin, you wouldn’t prove it to yourself by picking up a violin for the first time and giving it a whirl. It takes practice to test your belief.

• Likewise, you can’t prove to yourself that you can’t make friends by just walking up to a single person and saying, “Do you want to be my friend?”

• Practice your social skills. Get out of the house and practice interacting with others. Learn how to maintain a conversation. Learn how to be more charismatic. Learn and then practice. Then practice some more.
  
  
• Engage in your interests with others. Join a yoga class or a weekly poker game.

 
6. Test yourself. Make the test fair.

• Give yourself 30 days to make at least one friend. You don’t have to make 20 friends. The whole premise was that you can’t make any friends. One friend would prove that belief to be false. If you can make one friend, you can make two. If you can make two, you can eventually make 50.
  
  

7. Keep your expectations realistic. You’re probably not trying to prove to yourself that you’re the best in the world at something, merely that you’re competent.

• For example, most people only have a few close friends. It’s not reasonable to expect that you’re going to find 10 in the next 30 days.

 
8. Reframe your beliefs. With the proper preparation, you’ll find that 99% of your limiting beliefs are false. Once you’ve proved yourself wrong, be willing to adjust your beliefs accordingly.
 
Now go tackle another one. Challenge your limiting beliefs one by one and decide whether or not they’re true. Use your own personal experience. Test your assumptions whenever you have the chance. You’re likely to discover a whole new world of skills and experiences that you enjoy.