My First National Speech In 2016

Lots of times when I talk about Self-ValYOU I share about how I started developing the program over 3 years ago. I will be 16 this summer so sometimes people do the math and yes, I was working on it when I was 12 (I guess it has actually been 4 years!). It was not really that much of a leap though because I had already been living it before that! So, it was really a matter of organizing my thoughts about what I had been doing and putting it into a form that I could share with other people, and then once I did that it grew from there!

The other day I was going through old videos with my family and we found this video of the first speech I gave back in 2016 after officially naming Self-ValYOU. The first time I gave this speech was in June of that year, and then in this video it was November and I won a national award for it! Yes, I look like a baby 😂 I am excited to share it with you here though because it shows how my program grew with time. You may have seen a post on my page here a while ago where I shared video of me giving a speech about body image in 2015 (I REALLY look like a baby in that one). That was when I was starting to learn about negative self-talk and realizing how important it was to talk about it and turn it around. By the following year, I had worked on my program more, and it had a name and tools, and I had my presentation and was designing the materials I give out!

Sometimes staying positive and on-track can be hard when life happens so it makes me feel good to watch these because it reminds me of the big picture. I love these two videos because they show how this is something I have been working on and living with for a long time now, and how far I have come, and how much more I want to do. I know that good things take time and if you believe in yourself and work hard and stay patient you will turn around one day and be amazed at everything you have accomplished even though sometimes when you in the middle of it, you don't realize all the progress you have made!

If you want to see my 2015 speech where I look like an infant (lol) it is also on my page that I have made to put my speeches.

www.selfvalyou.org/speeches.

#valYOUable