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

by Jen Sincero

Going to the spiritual gym involves any combination of the following: Studying self-help books, unearthing your limiting thoughts and beliefs, and doing the work to get over your blocks—even if the work includes stuff like cooing “You amaze me” into the mirror each morning or singing a love song to your shadow self. (You must be willing to do whatever it takes, no matter how excruciating.) Meditating. Listening to powerful speakers. Journaling. Making gratitude lists that leave you sobbingly aware of what a miracle your life is. Reading biographies of people who inspire the crap out of you. Exercising. Listening to music that makes you feel like an invincible pillar of joy, strength, and don’t-mind-if-I-do. Saying affirmations over and over and over until they become your truth. Making a vision board and staring at it, all of the time. Ensmartening yourself. Breathing slowly, intentionally—deeply sucking in the good, fully breathing out the bad. Stretching. Writing down your manifesto and visualizing yourself in your new life to the point where you can feel it, taste it, own it, get all choked up and grateful for it.

Write down five beliefs/complaints/activities/environments that are constant buzzkills in your life, and then write down the specific ways in which you will immediately upgrade them.

do pay attention, but don’t smother yourself with so much depressing information you can no longer speak without sobbing. Figure out where your personal tipping point is, and when you feel yourself about to cross over from staying informed to becoming paralyzed by hopelessness, place your focus on something that lifts you up and energizes you.

Set a timer today and every hour get up and drink a large glass of water.

When you stand up for yourself, you give everyone the opportunity to grow taller too.

There are no stressful situations—only stressful ways of perceiving situations. And lucky for you, you are in control of your thoughts. The next time a challenging situation presents itself, take a pause and make the conscious choice to meet it with curiosity or humor or the knowledge that this too shall pass. You have nothing to gain by freaking out.

Choosing to hang with people who light you up and lift you up is a requirement for badassery.

it’s important to look at the breakup with someone toxic as you being nice to yourself, not as you being mean to them.

Success = your dreams + fear + doing it anyway

The Moment of Truth or Poof.

Make sure every single decision you make today is in alignment with your goal. “Is this sandwich I’m about to eat in alignment with my goal?

Your attitude steers the wheel that determines the course of your life.

things we have no control over: the weather; the fact that we will die; other people’s actions, reactions, opinions, beliefs, their love of puns, their inability to see how cute my dog is even when he’s jumping all over them because he’s so excited, which I know is annoying but his cuteness totally overshadows that. . . . Change what you can change, accept what you cannot change, and every time you find yourself about to start stewing on something scary, irritating, or worrisome (practice staying aware of when this is happening, please), say to yourself, “I choose to forget this,” and move on.

If you want to reach a new level of success in any area of your life, you absolutely must surround yourself with high-vibe people, or at least one high-vibe person whom you’re in constant contact with. Spend time with people who remind you—and who show you—that anything is possible. People who share their resources instead of their worries, who see your strengths, encourage your dreams, celebrate your successes, pooh-pooh your excuses, inspire you, stretch you, help you, and adore you. Badassery doesn’t happen in a vacuum. If you’re serious about changing your life, get your power posse in place.

Fear not the judgment of others; fear living a life in which you keep your wild, wonderful, weirdo self in a cage.

Someone wise once said that you should meditate for an hour a day, unless you’re really busy, then you should meditate for two.

Your job is to connect to your heart; get clear on what you desire; and align your thoughts, feelings, energy, and actions with this desire. That is your job. The Universe will decide the how, the when, the where, and the what. That is the Universe’s job. Have patience, faith, and gratitude, friend; patience, faith, and gratitude. It’s all on the way. You are closer than you think.