FIGHT like a Soldier!

Today, I've decided to write this message to honor the two ladies that are inspiring me every day to be a better person and to always push forward and Fight Like a Soldier. They are my 2 girls Zoé and Jade. Even though they are only 16 and 10 years old, unfortunately they've already went through a lot.

To make a long story short, my husband (Zoé's dad) committed suicide back in 2008 when she just turned 4 and 5 years ago she started to develop anxiety to a point where one day I literally had to physically drag her to school and there talk with school personnel to get her some help. Ever since that episode she is fighting like a lion every day gain better control over her anxiety so it doesn't control her. I'm sure that her everyday fighting must feel like this...

Of course at first, it was harder but more and more she faught it, the better she got better at it and she is finding her own tools and her own ways not to let anxiety take control over her. Recently, she asked me if for the last 2 years left she as to go to get her high school diploma if she could home school and so she would be able to get a job and work at the same time in order to get money and go for her driver license. She explained to me that the reason that motivated her request is because high school atmosphere and pier pressure was adding more and more to her anxiety. Doing it that way would ease up on her anxiety and she could work on her two goals at the same time.

What is inspiring me so much about her is that when she realized that high school environment was adding more and more to her anxiety is she started to look for solutions. She picked her brain on HOW she could continue her studies to get her high school diploma and since her second goal is to soon be able to get her driver license, she was looking for ways on HOW to reach that also. And when she came up to me, she came prepared, she explained the situation to me and we looked together at different schools websites that are allowing people to finish their high school studies from home in order to get their diploma through their website and the different tools that they are providing. And she also talked to me about the different solutions she came up with for her to be able to work at the same time to save money to get her driver license. What I find remarkable is that she didn't just say to me that she simply wanted to dropout of school, that she couldn't take it anymore, like a lot of teenagers would, no. She looked for solutions, she strategized in order to find a way she could get to her goal in a way where her anxiety would have as less grab as possible on her. Yes, like every single person son this planet, there are some days she is struggling and during these days, simply putting one foot in front of the other feels like this...

But working on our goals and working to up-level our "game" can also mean that sometimes we take a day off to rest and recharge before we continue moving forward. Because you can't keep on pushing and pushing towards your goal and never rest, it's impossible. At some point, you have to take time to refuel and recharge so you can keep on pushing.

What I find remarkable and that makes me so proud as a mother is that this young woman is not only Fighting Like a Soldier against that anxiety of hers but she is also taking the tools and tricks that her support team around her is giving her, because I'm not the only one helping her with this issue of hers, and she is implementing them to see what works best for her. I think that if every human being on this planer would approach their struggles in life like she does, there wouldn't be so much struggle around in this world.

The other little soldier I want to talk to you about today is my youngest daughter Jade, she's 10 years old and quite a handful. Despite her strong persoality, she has an attention disorder and this issue is requesting of her that she has to put a whole lot more efforts than any other kids simply to simply keep her grades high enough that she can go through every school year without repeating classes each year. When she started school, during her first and second grade, she was able to manage but in third grade, that's when everything tumble down for her.

Directly from her first report card, she was failing. And the subjects she was failing were the most important ones: math and french (reading and writing). Since we are from the province of Quebec, Canada she's going to a french school. Poor kid, on that report card, her grades were so low (not even 40% in math and about 50% her reading and writing in french), she was very discouraged. Have you ever put all of your energy into something and it still wasn't enough? That's exactly what was happening to her.

That's when they suggested to me to have a medication support to help her with her learning. I wasn't pleased with it but I wanted to do anything that would ease up her learning process. Witnessing all the energy she was putting in and getting such low grades. Being in her shoes, I wouldn't have been able to keep that up for very long and she was only in 3rd grade. She wasn't even in high school yet. But of course, finding the proper medication wasn't gonna be easy since nobody has the same reaction to medication. We started the process of trying to find the proper medication. The effect of some medication was so bad, she was literally sleeping during class. It was humorous when her teacher explained to me how some of the kids in her classroom were telling the other kids to be silent because Jade was sleeping. Poor thing.

Since she started her 3rd grade with such low grades and she had to go through many different medications until we were able to find the right one, she also had to work extra hard in order bring her grades up to a level where she would not be repeating her 3rd grade. So I worked with her, at school she got additional help too and, it's like this little soldier literally declared war to that attention disorder. Because in the end, since she worked extra hard, she was able to raise her grades to a point where she finished the year with a 70% mark for her reading and writing in french and as for her math, she finished her year at a 58% mark. But, when I talked her teacher at the end of the school year, she told me that she was letting her move up to 4th grade because her 58% mark was not a mark because it's a child that didn't study or work, she knew that Jade worked her butt off to bring her grade all the way to 58%. When I gave her the new, she was so happy.

And now that she's in 4th grade, even though she now has the right medication support, she still has to Fight Like a Soldier and still be putting in all that extra effort to her learning just to keep good grades level. And yes, still some days are very hard because of her attention disorder, they feel like...

Of course, she has her share of tears and anger against that disorder, because she doesn't understand "why she has to go through this?" Even though we don't understand "why" things are the way they are, still, everyday we are pick ourselves up and we keep on going. And, I'm going to make sure that I will be there with her every step of the way and that we are surrounded by people that can provide her with tools and tricks so that like her sister, she can implement, try and see which ones are the best ones for her in order to help her brain learn things more efficiently and so that her learning and studying requires a more normal effort and not all that extra effort which she has to put in now.

As you must have noticed, I'm using Wonder Woman as a comparison because I feel the character is truly inspiring as also is the woman impersonating the character because if someone paid attention here, Gal Gabot use to be a model before her first role as actress impersonating the role of Gisele in the Fast & Furious Saga, she didn't had any experience in acting what so ever. She felt she had to be part of their team, she sent a quick video to the producer of the movie, he liked it and they made her part of the family. Talk about up-leveling your "game"! If you compare her role as Gisele in Fast & Furious with her role as Wonder Woman, the first one was small pocket change in comparison with her role as Wonder Woman. Her Wonder Woman role asked way more of her and she had to practice and train for months to impersonate Wonder Woman as we can see below...

But in the end, as we all witnessed, her hard work paid off because the movie was a great success. When we are working on our "game", weather it's a new goal or like my girls, working to overcome anxiety or any disorder that we may face in our life, it can require a whole lot of effort from us. Consistent Daily Efforts, like our example here, physically training for a new role with other women who are part of the cast. But, when, like my girls, we are dealing with anxiety or some mental disorder, instead of training our body, it's our mind that we are training.

Unfortunately, weather we are training our body or our mind, it takes time. If a man for example is training for particular sport title or like here, for a movie. These trainings can last for months and sometimes even years. So when it comes to our mind, it's the same thing. When you're studying to learn a new skill, like a new language for example. You're not going to know everything there is to know about that new language within one single day. Here again, it can take months to be completely fluent in that language.

Even though, my girls are not necessarily conscious of it right now, learning that skill of being able to train your brain so it works with you and not against you with all those fear patterns is a very important and being able to work your way around a disability, it's going to be very useful skill in the future for them when it comes to achieving their goals. And, already, my daughter Zoé has already put her knowledge into practice and came up with solutions for her to be able to get her high school diploma while being able to work to save money so she can get her driver license while minimizing the grip that her anxiety has on her. Way to go!

From my little story today, there are 3 Things to Remember from it all. Which are that when you are working towards a goal, you need to...

#1 - KEEP YOUR FOCUS : Keep your eyes on your goal, ALL THE TIME!! Don't let ANYTHING turn you away from your goal. Because believe me, your own mind is very good at producing all kind of excuses on why you should let go or walk away from that goal and it can quickly become your own worst enemy.

#2 - BE SILENT ABOUT YOUR GOAL : The reason for this is simple, because people around you, they love you so much, specially family and friends and they don't want you to get hurt or disappointed in any way so unconsciously, they will feed you approximately the same reasons that your own mind can feed you to turn you away from your goal so that you don't get hurt if, for some reason, your project doesn't work. You already have to deal with your own mind every single day to be able to KEEP YOUR FOCUS so, if you want to make your life easier, BE SILENT ABOUT YOUR GOAL. Without knowing it, it's exactly what my daughter Zoé did. She came to me exposing her situation only after she found solutions to her problem.

#3 - DISCIPLINE & CONSISTENCY ARE THE KEY : No matter what time you have available to work on your goal everyday, you need to have the discipline to take that time and work on your goal consistently EVERY DAY!! Weather you're looking to learn something new or start a business... You won't be able to learn that skill or start that business if you don't put the effort into it and guess what? Nobody can do it for you. You have to be the one with the discipline and the consistency of putting in the effort every day and making sure that you're taking those baby steps towards your goal every single day. Yes, maybe 1 hour might not seem like a lot but 1 hour every day, 7 days a week, is 7 hours in your overall week and in your overall month, it's 30 hours. Well, if you ask me, in 30 hours, you can get a good amount of stuff done.

So always remember, it's not about How Fast you can go because, even if you're slow as a turtle, but you are consistent, you WILL reach your goal. being faster without consistency does mean anything because there's absolutely no guarantee that you will reach your goal. So, The Secret.... BE DISCIPLINED, BE CONSISTENT and Keep on Fighting Like a Soldier Every Single Day!

I don't know if you've noticed but wars are never won in one day, most of them take years. What do soldiers do during that time? They keep their FOCUS on their goal (winning the war) and every day when they are not in the mist of a battle, what do you think they're doing? Take a look below.

As you can see here, they are training their body so they can be at the top of their shape to be able to give everything they can when it's time to get on the battlefield. At the same time, they are feeding their mind with positive things, they are meditating, reading, learning, etc., because if they are not feeding their mind with positive knowledge, it would be easy for them to fall in the trap of all the negativity a war can bring. So every day, in order to be able to keep their focus, they have to keep feeding their mind as well as training their body so they can eventually reach their goal of winning that war. That's what it means to "Fight Like a Soldier".

So, KEEP ON FIGHTING because...

YOUR GOALS are worth ALL YOUR EFFORTS!!

Before I go, I want to Thank you for sticking with me and reading this through the end, it really means a lot to me. I sincerely hope you got value out of it and what I encourage you to do is, for every goal or project you'll be taking in your life from now on, do like Zoé and Jade are doing. Everyday, you might not be wearing a uniform but it doesn't mean you can not FIGHT LIKE A SOLDIER to make that goal/project happen and who knows, maybe you too can inspire people around you to do the same.

Thanks again my friend and 'till next time. ;)

Sincerely,

Marielle