Believe, learn, practice. That is a cool mantra.

Believe in possiblity, learns the skills, practice to internalize the skills.

Great things to remember when you feel stuck and the self-doubt creeps in.

I’ll just add this tangent: When those negative emotions do creep in, don’t fight them. Greet them. Make friends with them. They don’t have to scare you. They are temporary.

When I was a teacher I used to get anxious as the first day of school approached. This happened to me every year. Somewhere along the line, thanks to reading Thich Nat Hanh, I learned to greet that anxiousness. And just say, “oh yeah, you. I know you. You’ll be here for a while but then you’ll go away.” I know that it isn’t always possible to do this. (Right now my novel is on submissions and I’m a bit anxious.) But the more I can greet those emotions, the more I will be able to do that in the future. Practice. And the more that will free me up to learn.

Brain research is a complex and ongoing phenomenon, and I depend on reliable sources to give me my information…Barbara Fredrickson, in POSITIVITY, talks (on p.74-5, if you’re interested) about cell renewal.

She says that since scientists have “suggested that you replace about 1 percent of your cells each day”, we get a whole new “us” in three months.

My personal, nonscholarly opinion, is that we don’t understand enough yet about memory and where it “resides”…but we do know now that the human brain cell change and renew itself. In Dr. Fredrickson’s words, “Every part of you can change, and the brain is no exception.”

“You can’t teach old dogs new tricks”? Well, apparently that’s not true anymore!