Becoming Coco

I am learning that everything we think and feel we create in our lives. Growing up it was easy to blame my feelings and behavior on the circumstances around me because I had a difficult childhood and lots of drama at home. But all that blame did was prevent me from learning what I needed from the situation to become resilient. The truth is it’s my own thinking and attitude that determine how I feel.  I always thought when I become an adult I will make better choices, make my dreams come true and be happy. But really when I became an adult I was the same person with the same limitations. It took me a while to recognize the pattern. Eventually, I realized that no matter where I lived, no matter what job I had, which friends I had, whether I was single or in a relationship, had money or no money, I basically had the same inner thoughts, feelings and problems. There always seemed to be a person, place or situation to blame or an excuse to make. There also was always a set of c...

How do you stay positive when you feel so totally the opposite? This is the age-old question. I’ve found the totally unsexy truth is - discipline. Literally, you have to decide to speak, think and act the opposite of how you feel until it becomes your new truth. It sounds simple, but it can feel like the hardest thing in the world to do. That’s why so many of us lack discipline. Discipline means doing the things you don’t feel like doing at the moment you don’t feel like it. It’s easy to go for a run, do your chores or think something happy in a moment of high energy, but many other times we don’t want to do anything and that’s when you need discipline. We usually have more discipline for things that bring immediate consequences. For example, being late for work tends to have a more immediate consequence than thinking something negative about yourself for the 1000th time. That’s why using your willpower to think positively and choose a better perspective is one of the hard...

When you are a streamer or gamer and spend most your time with friends online, it can be a little overwhelming entering a huge social gathering like twitch-con. You may be so excited about meeting your twitch community irl, but you may also find yourself getting stressed, overwhelmed or anxious. I was feeling anxious myself and worried about how I was going to fit everything in so I came up with these tips. I hope they help you because they are helping me . Twitch con anxiety tips: Most important is having the right mindset: you are here first and foremost to make friends and enjoy yourself. Yes, you are here for building relationships and learning what new things are coming to streaming. You are here to learn. That’s good! But you also may be feeling too much pressure to do EVERYTHING ! Tell yourself it’s OK to miss some things. Choose just 3-5 things that are absolutely necessary to attend and then tell yourself if you don’t get to the rest it’s ok. I promise nothing here...

Growing up I usually quit anything new I tried that I wasn’t immediately good at, which no surprise was pretty much everything. I had some weird belief that if I wasn’t immediately good then that meant I was a failure and an embarrassment. I wrongly felt like all the other kids my age were better than me and that I would never be that good. It never occurred to me that I could get better if I tried because my self-esteem was unable to handle the small set-backs.  Now that I’m older I look at all the things I never stuck with: figure skating, art, karate, ballet, hip-hop, tennis, rock climbing, piano, surfing. I was afraid to fail, afraid to get hurt and afraid to be myself. If I had stuck with just one of those things I could be a master by now! Oh how youth is wasted on the young.  But this is why it’s so important that we get this message across to everyone. You CAN achieve your goal, you CAN reach your dream and YES it is MEANT to be this hard! Yes you are ME...