"Motivation Mondays" with Mr. Snipes

Life Coach Donzell Snipes, of Fountain Spiritual Services LLC, visited STL YouthBuild this Monday to give some words of encouragement to our staff and students as we enter our last couple of weeks of the program until current students graduate. Here's what he had to say:

“The name of today’s lesson is titled “Finish What We Start”. This is important at every step in your life, no matter what you might be going through. You can't allow excuses and distractions to dictate your success. I want to give you the steps to making sure you can finish what you start.

1. Develop your priorities. This can be done by understanding what your responsibilities are in your life, and putting those first. For example, when you're here at YouthBuild, you're here to focus and learn, you can't let what you have going on outside these doors put off your focus on those books, so that you can learn with no restrictions.

2. Learning is never ending. Learning the basics is never enough, and everything you come to discover in this program is not as far as your knowledge will go. Some people are afraid of knowledge because they don't want to challenge themselves. Be open to discovering more.

3. Change your negative thoughts to positive ones. Change the wording of what you say. Instead of saying “I’m not good at anything.” Try asking yourself, “What can I continue working on to master this skill?”

4. Focus on making the right decision. Create a plan dedicated to what you have to do in order to see positive results in your life. In order to strategize you must prepare on a daily basis to be ready to work.

5. Believe in yourself (keep going). Allow people to give you the encouragement and knowledge needed to keep going, but also remember that whatever you're after in life, you can get it.

6. Walk it out. Learn to take a different approach. Get up and take charge of your life.

7. Finish strong. Set S.M.A.R.T goals that will help you make it to the finish line!”