Stop Looking Forward for A Hot Second 

We are in the process of adopting our teenage foster daughter.  She’s amaze-ballz. She is intelligent, a hard worker, thoughtful, generous, and silly. She’s also so full of head trash from her past foster homes, sometimes she forgets how wonderful she is. 

But isn’t that true for all of us? 

Sometimes, we all let our past get us down or make us feel less than fabulous

That headtrash around perfection can really stop us from moving forward, creating paralysis instead of forward momentum. Why? Because we get so involved in looking at how far away our goals are, we forget to throw a little party for ourselves over how much we’ve accomplished – and we get all discouraged.

That discouragement is a motivation KILLER!!!! **Insert horror movie music here**

The necessity of invention that parenting presents on a near-daily basis (we have two teens and a tween- yikes!) is the ultimate mother of invention. And so, in a desperate attempt to help her out of her funk, I decided to try something a little different than just telling our daughter how truly wonderful I think she is. 

I asked her to think about all the progress she’s made toward her goals in the time she’s been with us. I remind her where she started and let her fill in where she feels she is now and the progress she’s made.

Thinking about how far you’ve come is such a game-changer!

It works every time.  When we do that, she walks away energised and motivated, so much so, that I started doing it for myself.  Turns out, my little experiment has some root in the way our brain works anyway.  Check out THIS article from Psychology Today to learn more.  Tell us how far you’ve come in the comments!

Live in grace my friends,