branding.

I often see things that I wish I could brand onto my brain. I was browsing the internet today for exercises on how to increase my self esteem and I saw this list of confidence ideas (full page can be found here):

• Focus on what you can control, not on what you cannot.
• Stop worrying by not thinking about how things could go wrong. Start thinking about how everything will turn out fine.
• Find a way, as often as possible, to be associated with whatever you consider to be beautiful or wonderful. 
• Find something you are passionate about and turn to it often.
• Never let yourself feel pressured.
• Don't be afraid of being wrong.

I want to remember these things every day. I want to live and breathe these ideas. But I will surely forget about them within a couple hours time if I don't actively attempt to remember them.

I thought about printing it out and hanging it somewhere so that I would see it every day. But I've done that before and it just hangs there, unread, until I realize I'm never going to read it every day and take it down.

Then I thought about setting an alarm on my phone with the list so that I am forced to look at it every day. But I have also done this before and I end up loathing the alarm and everything it represents.

Then I thought about making a photo representation of everything on the list. That way, I could see an image and associate it with the message. But how do you take a picture of "Never let yourself feel pressured?" I'm just not that creative. 

Then I remembered something I learned while studying the basics of Buddhism. Chanting. It may sound crazy to some, but hear me out. If I memorize the things that I want to practice daily and repeat them over and over during meditation, it is as close as I can get to "branding" my brain. 

So I have decided to memorize three things today. Eventually, I would like to have more, but I have trouble remembering my own phone number on a daily basis so I figured I would start out slow. The hard part is coming up with those three things, which I have yet to do. The list above is something I would definitely like to remember; however, there are so many more things. So I am off to figure out the most important ones over a cup of coffee and some sunshine...