 As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. The power of our thoughts and words have been spoken about by many philosophers, preachers, authors, teachers, and individuals who have been able to use them to change the course of many events in their lives or witness others do so. Words by themselves are merely a part of human evolution and our need to communicate. However, when words are strung together in a certain way, rooted in strong belief, they become powerful tools for those who wield them. The power of words is open and non-discriminatory. Just as it can be used to build, it can equally be used to destroy. This practice and belief system can be traced to ancient Eastern religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, and its effectiveness has been backed by modern neuroscience. And with all belief systems, it either works for you or it's not exactly your cup of tea. I'm sure most of us have come across or heard the phrase mind over matter, where some humans have achieved superhuman feats with the power of their minds and thoughts. Things that are otherwise seemingly, I mean impossible to the average person. People have achieved them. So words, whether written, thought, spoken, or chanted have been proven to have a lot of power when they are harnessed properly. Now from these ancient practices, many other ways have been born or many other methods have been born, where people can use mantras and words of affirmation and other things or other methods to achieve certain things that they desire in their lives. Just by meditating on those words for as long as it takes to have them manifest while believing they would happen. I have loosely experimented with these practices at different times in my life, but last year was the one year that I saw it manifest the most in my life as I began my freelance journey. Now for the first year of my freelance journey, I decided to go with the simple mantra of do, learn, repeat. That was me for the year. It was a year of experimentation and learning. That was what I wanted to do. This was a chance for me to actually test the waters to see how best I can manage myself as a creative entrepreneur, somebody who was starting on his own. And so these were the words that I decided to build all my experiences on everything that I did. And that was to simply do the things that I think about, not second guessing all the things that come to mind because I'm a perfectionist, and then learning from these mistakes and other outcomes of the experiences and things that I go through through evaluation and then lastly going at it again and again from all the things that I've learned to try and get better and better. Just with this simple mantra, I managed to have honestly I managed to have one of the best years of my adult life because mentally I was in a space where I genuinely wanted to just do a space which was more accepting of my flaws because I needed to make mistakes and learn from them and then lastly or finally repeating the process with these experiences or things that I explored. Now that a year of experimentation has passed, where do I want to move from here? Where do I go from here? What do I want to do? Or what do I want to achieve? And how can I streamline my processes to get better at harnessing my abilities, building better relationships and of course ultimately benefiting from all of these things? That is the question or these are the questions. Now I'm truly happy that I went with the mantra of do learn repeat because for me it has now become the foundation from which I want to build everything else. Everything else will be built on this. So my new mantra for this year will not be a standalone mantra, it will be very much influenced by the same DLR which is do learn repeat. This year based on the things that I want to master or get better at my mantra will also be three powerful words which are disciplined intentional and determined. Now when I look back on this experimental year which was 2020, although I did so much, I did so much I believe, I mean this was fueled by the simple word do, it wasn't necessarily all very well organized or tracked, it was kind of a messy lab if I should put it that way. But it was fun, it was fun because I allowed myself not to concentrate so much on the results, I just wanted to learn, I just wanted to do things. My goals were wide and open because most of them were threaded on less, try this and see what happens mentality, it was easy to go at it. However this year, I'm aiming for more specific things and I know that I would need a lot of discipline to achieve them. Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. So if that's the case, I think I'll need a lot of strong bridges built this year. This automatically ties into the second word in the mantra which is being more intentional because everything has to count for something that leads to achieving the ultimate goal or goals and objectives for the year 2021. Like for example, how I manage my time, allocating them properly to the things that actually serve me well, what I do or what I choose to learn to help my career and also hobbies to you know, feed the mind and the soul or the projects that I take on both personally and externally and how to strategically plan for all these happenings while trying to rest in between. So hopefully learning to be more self-disciplined will make these you know processes much easier to manage and give a booster to achieving these goals. That is what I want to try and I think on top of all of this is the self-explanatory final word in the mantra which is determined. I want to do this and I will persevere and that's it. That is my mantra for the year 2021, disciplined intentional and determined and in the spirit of sharing please feel free to also use this for yourself if it isn't something that you're already practicing and if it's something you're already practicing of course our needs are not the same so you may want to also have a different combination of words that work for you. What matters is that you believe in the power of these words and you use them as a guide you meditate upon them and in the midst of all of this while you're allowed to also have words of affirmation which you meditate on to change the course of things in your life all you need is the belief and the consistency and the good thing is sometimes you're not even conscious about it but the belief holds power over your life and everything you do so speak goodness into your life. If you like this video please give it a thumbs up like it yes and subscribe to my channel if you already haven't done that. My name is Kwame and I'd love to hear from you about your experiences with this particular practice in the comments section below. So yes it's always nice to have you on the channel. Until next time it's peace for now.