Remember what you can do

Confidence In Memory Performance Helps Older Adults Remember
Believing that you can retain a good memory even in your twilight years is the first step to achieving that goal. Those who believe they can control their memory are more likely to employ mnemonic strategies that help keep memory fit despite the march of time. These are the conclusions of a new Brandeis study published in the Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences.

"One's sense of control is both a precursor and a consequence of age-related losses in memory," says lead author Margie Lachman, professor of psychology and director of the Lifespan Lab at Brandeis University. "Our study shows that the more you believe there are things you can do to remember information, the more likely you will be to use effort and adaptive strategies and to allocate resources effectively, and the less you will worry about forgetting."
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Luke Skywalker: I don’t believe it.
Yoda: That is why you fail.

This is not Tinkerbell here. You don’t get it by believing in fairies. You get it by believing in yourself. In what you can do. In your ability to find ways to make things better. Because that is the first step in making things better. Once you believe, you will take the remaining steps that are needed to make things better. If you don’t know what those steps are, you will find out. If you believe you can find out.

And this is not just about memory, either. Memory just happens to be an instance that illustrates the effect of directed self-confidence. Note the qualifier. Directed. Confidence in what you can do. About some specific goal. And the confidence is just the start button. It changes what you do. What you do gets you to that specific goal.

You could call it the self-directed life. If you believe in what you can do.