Recently in one of my classes, a friend responded to an attendance question with something along the lines that he is his biggest critic and that he is hard on himself. I, too used to have a similar struggle, until one day I decided that I was tired of saying negative things about myself and doubting myself.

One of the most beneficial things I learned was looking in the mirror every morning and saying something positive about myself, my day or about my life. I am a firm believer in the law of attraction, which is a belief that focusing on positive or negative thoughts can attract or bring about positive or negative experiences.

One of my favorite parts of the law of attraction is the concept that what you speak upon yourself or your life will be what you create, or what happens (to an extent).

When I decided to speak positivity and success upon myself every morning I was not only rewiring my mindset without thinking about it, but I was determining how my day was going to be. If I told myself I thought I was going to have a rough day, sure enough that day ended up being crap—but I spoke it over myself and my day, so what else should have I expected?

I didn’t realize how much the voices in our head or what we tell ourselves can affect our activities until I noticed the pattern of even my biggest skills lacking after speaking negatively to myself. This is because I was not focused on the act I was doing, but more so mentally multitasking with self-doubt and the activity.

After a month or so into speaking positivity and success over myself, I noticed my mindset changing and my abilities being more than I thought they could be. I could lift heavier in my workouts with more efficacy than I did when doubting myself, and my grades went up significantly as well. I will clarify that I do believe that in conjunction with the law of attraction, people must work and put forth effort because a mindset alone, without effort, won’t produce greatness.

What students don’t realize sometimes is that they limit their abilities and don’t give themselves enough credit for how great they are, or could end up being.

People are given this life to create opportunities and ultimately live. If people limit their atmosphere and what they believe they can be or achieve, it is not surprising when they don’t go beyond their own self-limitations. Our days are only as bad as we let them be, and our lives and interactions are only as negative as we allow them to be.

Once people realize that they cannot control what happens in their life, but that they can control their mentality and response to what happens, they can conquer (almost) anything.

Liz Stephens is a junior journalism major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or ejstephens@eiu.edu.