Believe in Yourself
“Believe in yourself. You are braver than you think, more talented than you know, and capable of more than you imagine.”
Amal’s journey was full of surprises and learning. Every week I faced different challenges that taught me new things each time. I have learned several things that had an impact on me. Few are:
- Personal and professional goal
- Life Maps
- SMART goals
- Strengths and weaknesses stories
- Act of kindness
- Amal Totkay
- Mentorship
- Gratitude
During a group meeting with my members, we shared our goals and the “WHY” behind them. I observed that everyone wrote their small and big aims that they want to accomplish and, they were clear about their goals, yet they were unsure about how to achieve them. We suggested to each other the methods that we can apply in our journey to accomplish our goals.
But those methods didn’t work for me. I am the kind of person who wants to try various things in her life. I love to learn new skills, take new courses, and even work on my bad habits. I tried several methods before but, nothing worked for me. When I took the online lesson from there, I learned about SMART Goals. I decided to give it a try. I was unsure whether it would work out or not but, I thought it never hurt to test different approaches. So I made my goals into SMART goals. Besides that, I also make a goal tracker that makes it look more realistic and achievable.
I gave myself the challenge that “You only have to do it for a month. If it didn’t work for you, you are allowed to quit.” I want to increase my typing speed. My speed was 35wpm without complete keyboard coverage. Therefore my goal was to improve my typing speed with full keyboard coverage.
The first lessons were difficult for me, and I see the results after the first lesson that I have 9wpm speed with complete keyboard coverage. I was not happy with the results, and it also made me think that it is another failure? Then I told myself not to care about the outcomes. For now, I will complete the first month of the challenge.
After a month, I noticed that my 9wpm speed with complete keyboard coverage improved to 23wpm. That was surprising for me, and it also gives me the energy to keep going. Therefore I made another goal tracker for a month. It’s been almost two months since I practiced typing, and my typing speed is increasing day by day. Nowadays it is between 28–35wpm.
I started Typing as an experiment because I wanted to test this new approach. I used to believe that people who learned typing in their childhood or people who have to type due to their profession are those; who master typing. I did start it doubtfully because of these thoughts. But all of these thoughts proved wrong. I perceive that everyone can type like a typist at any stage of their life. All we need is passion and dedication to achieve our dreams.
The thing that helped me the most was the people around me working on their weaknesses and goals. Everyone was doing what they love to do. That also pushed me to work harder to prove that I can also achieve my goal.
Starting something is always hard, but I have amazing people who encourage me in my aim. There were also some days when I forgot my daily goal of typing due to my busy schedule. I became dispirited because of them. At that time, my sister told me that “A single day didn’t describe your whole journey; it shows how passionate you were regardless of the hurdle that came in your way, and you didn’t stop.”
Now, whenever I look back at my past self, I perceive that my way of looking at things and methodology took a 180-degrees turn. I’m glad that I build wondrous habits.
In the end, the most important lesson is to look for new methods to get things done and test them. Challenge yourself to test your limits. Never underestimate your ability and potential. Don’t self-reject.
“Believe in your infinite potential. Your only limitations are those you set upon yourself.”
