Why I Love My bloom Belief Cards by Joshalyn McHargue

I first discovered bloom last summer as I was preparing to begin graduate school. My perfectionistic heart told me I needed a planner that could do it all and do it well: help me meet assignment deadlines, prepare me for class registration, and well, keep me sane.

I purchased a Classic Daily Planner, which served as a bird’s eye view of my schedule, and a Bound To-Do Book, which kept me attentive to my day-to-day responsibilities. When the new year rolled around, I purchased a Vision Planner, which drew out my creativity and challenged me to pursue the year with purpose.

One of my yearly goals was to pursue my love of writing as a professional, so I created a plan to move my blog from one site to another and explore freelance writing opportunities. Simple enough, right? That’s what I thought, too; but anyone with a dream can tell you that putting it into action isn’t as easy as it sounds. After weeks of submitting applications and writing samples with no reply, I was beginning to get discouraged, but I still had a blog to invest in and I wasn’t about to give that up. I scheduled a shoot with a photographer and began looking into props I could feature on my blog. I visited the bloom website to see if any of their accessories caught my eye, and I was drawn to the thirty-pack set of Belief Cards. They were in my possession shortly after, and though they were meant for the blog shoot, I figured there was no harm in sorting through them to pick out my favorites.

Let’s just say those favorites never made it back into the box.

These cards held the very words I needed to hear to keep me from throwing in the towel. I found creative places to plant these seeds of encouragement so that I was sure to run into them each day: in my Bible, my Vision Planner, and my Classic Daily Planner. I designated the Daily Planner as holder of my future writing tasks and stuffed its pockets with cards that reminded me of how talented of a writer I am. I made myself read those cards out loud until I believed them: “Yes I can, and yes I will.”

I found so much encouragement from the belief cards that it felt like a crime to keep them to myself! I began attaching them to my coworkers’ morning beverages, and as a dear friend was preparing to move to another state, I stuck a few in her belongings. It was heartwarming to see the cards taped on my coworkers’ computer screens and receive a thank you letter in the mail from my friend.

I realized that the people around me needed encouragement just as much as I did and that there is so much power in believing in yourself and hearing a friend say they believe in you. That belief turned my dream into a profitable writing career within months and got jemchargue.com running on a website more conducive to my writing services.

Now, I am constantly looking for new and creative ways to use the belief cards to encourage myself and others: whether it's taping them to a bathroom mirror or sharing them with a server or cashier, the opportunities to bloom where you are planted are endless! And if it’s true that we become what we believe, then why not believe for a better self and inspire others to do the same? I guess my belief cards won’t make it to that blog shoot after all!

xoxo,

Joshalyn McHargue