All through my tenth grade I faired miserably. By early January when most students started wrapping up their year long studies I could only see things slipping away. In fact I don't even remember having a favourite subject that I was well prepared with. I was disorganization personified. Just when things started to get out of control my father introduced me to the concept of "Positive Reaffirmations". The basic premise of this "strategy" was that the only way you could change things was to believe that you could. What seemed to be thoroughly irritating initially turned out to be one of the most efficient and effective productivity techniques I've come across that was actually not Japanese. I surrendered myself completely to this, almost engraving it in my sub-conscience.
As part of the "transformation process" I had a set of "Affirmations" written on the first page of every notebook. These affirmations were basically the changes I wanted to bring about in me. For eg: I always wrote my answers sans question numbers; this despite being reprimanded several times in school. So to tackle this problem my corresponding affirmation said, " I write all my question numbers". Every time I sat to study, I'd spend a minute reading my affirmations, reminding myself that I was set to change. Gradually a lot began to improve. The handwriting became neater, the study table cleaner, the hours of studies longer and me, a lot more calmer. I had never cleared a Math paper in school that year. A 40 on 150 was my score for the prelims - algebra-geometry clubbed together and an overall percentage of 42. The magic of positivity is what I experienced when the results were declared. I got and overall percentage of 73 - a 31 percent increase and a score of 122/150 in Mathematics a 53 percent increase.
Today whenever I come across a problem that seems insurmountable...I just know things can be changed....provided...I believe
