You Are a Badass Every Day: How to Keep Your Motivation Strong, Your Vibe High, and Your Quest for Transformation Unstoppable

by Jen Sincero

Not only is loving yourself a more joyful way to walk through life, but you never know what brilliance might sprout up from your temporary failures. It’s possible you will wind up creating something far more beautiful than what you set out to create, and that you would never have even known existed, if you hadn’t “screwed up.”

Breathing is one of the most centering, relaxing, and profound activities we’ve got going. By taking a few moments to stop, turn off your brain, and breathe deeply, you allow yourself the space and the focus to connect with Universal Energy and to tap into your most powerful self. An excellent method for breathing deep down into your core is by imagining that you’re “smelling the rose.” When you smell a rose, you inhale all the way down to the bottom of your feet, you close your eyes, you’re focused on the moment, you relish the breath, you fully expand. Remember to stop and smell the rose as often as you can.

Not-so-great thoughts, impulses, and ideas only grow if we feed them. If you’re pretending you’re addicted to the sugary pull of immediate gratification brought on by negative impulses, keep in mind that staying disciplined is simply a matter of waiting and refocusing, it’s not some untamable beast. Living a life in which you’re constantly letting yourself down and feeling powerless against distractions and impulses is hard; waiting a few seconds and retraining your focus to achieve success is easy.

You have countless things all around you at every moment to be in awe of, grateful for, excitedly tugging on people’s sleeves about, squeeing in delight over, motivated by, in love with. All you have to do is remember to pay attention.

Enjoy the present moment instead of wasting it by trying to predict future unsavory events that may or may not happen. Focus on stuff that energizes you and propels you forward, not on stuff that makes you paranoid and terrified and covered in an alarming amount of hand sanitizer. If we do get hit by a giant piece of space debris or if your business does tank or if you do get your heart broken, so be it. All worrying will do is make you live through the misery twice.

Start seeing your low points and temporary failures as starting points. Instead of giving the many mishaps in your life the power to destroy you with disappointment, instead of hightailing it out of there by any means possible (including unsustainable, unhealthy, self-destructive means), instead of labeling yourself a giant loser who will never get it right, hang around for a minute and appreciate the architecture of your fail—learn from it; be curious about it; and if it applies, be impressed by just how colossally gigantic a fail it was! And then carefully, thoughtfully, and with a robust sense of humor, plot a new and better way up and out. You’re so lucky to have a clean slate to start from, with nothing to lose.

The sooner you change your life for the better, the longer you get to live with those awesome changes. Stop screwing around and just do it already.

What comes out of your mouth comes into your life, so choose your words wisely.