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Title: Mindful Moment: Strengthening your willpower

Are you looking to make a positive change in your life but finding it hard to get started? Maybe you have a goal to get in shape, eat healthier, save money, or start a new hobby. Thinking of the end goal can seem like a lot of work. It can be hard to not only get started but also to maintain energy towards your goal.

In the book "The resiliency rEvolution", Jenny Evans shares her strategies for managing stress in bitesized manageable bursts. She calls them microbursts. A microburst is simply 60 seconds of high intensity movement that can be done anytime you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed. Microbursts release positive chemicals in your brain that can help reset your frame of mind. You can do these throughout the day to fuel your energy and motivation.

Like the microbursts, Jenny also talks about setting small achievable goals to build your willpower so you can sustain the drive towards reaching your goal.

In her book, Jenny states, "Willpower is exactly like a muscle: The more we use it, the faster it gets exhausted, but we can strengthen it through strategic, repeated use."

By setting small goals, each time you achieve a goal, you also get a release of positive chemicals in your brain. Overtime this trains your brain on this new positive behavior and builds your willpower to keep going towards your goal. As Jenny explains, this is consciously associating a behavior with feeling good – so we want to keep doing it!

If you're looking at the end goal and starting to lose hope, I'll leave you with one last quote from Jenny, "Success is doing something instead of nothing, and there is always little something we can do."