strong — today is day one — joëlle étienne

One of my favorite words is

'determination'

. Why? Because it not only means

'the deciding of an outcome'

and '

the firmness of

purpose

—

resoluteness!'

, but also because it is a reminder to

NEVER

give up

.

When I was a dancer, I taught classes; it was so much fun, and I'll never forget the experience. However, when I had the onset of pain from a mysterious injury, I was feeling down. The doctors put me into a big, green cast because they couldn't for the life of them figure out what was wrong with my foot.

Then I was faced with a dilemma: should I quit teaching? I didn't want to even think about the looming possibility of my dancing career ending, so I tried to gather my courage and keep moving forward...

So I taught classes with the cast on my foot. 😉 One of my students was even amazingly encouraging enough to create a depiction of my determination, along with a description (on the left).

It's a treasure, lol. I'm never getting rid of it ❤️. The thing about determination is that it stems from something much more precious—

hope

. This is going to be a huge theme in my blog, running throughout everything I write; hope is very important, and it encourages so many incredible strengths

Once you receive hope— and learn to nurture it— you’ll find that you have so much of it, you can share it with everyone around you. So

BE FILLED WITH DETERMINATION

when something comes your way!

—Joelle :)

What's something you really want to do, but feel like you don't have determination to do it? Comment below, and we can get stronger together!

Determination ❤️

Hello, It's Joelle