In my Newspaper column in the Newcastle Journal a few weeks ago, I explored why people’s life experience can have a massive effect in how they are living their own lives now, click here to read. The newspaper article was actually based on the post I have reproduced below, unfortunately there is a finite amount of words to play with in a newspaper, but I can use poetic license on my own blog :-)………….
Ever wonder why when you decide you’ve had enough, you can’t take it anymore and you want to change, but no matter how hard you try, you never quite get the results you want.
You could have all the plans you need – the “perfect” training plan, perfect nutrition plan, perfect job, great relationship, even to get to be before 10pm. But if there is something else going on inside your head, maybe something you’ve struggled with for years, all these plans won’t help you. But what if I showed you that a simple mindset shift will allow these plans to work for you, to allow you to have the healthy lifestyle you desire?.
For Example, everything is going well, but for some reason you are never able to maintain this success, you move two steps forward and three steps back every-time, you lose 2 stone in 6 weeks, but 8 weeks later you are back where you were and finding it even harder to get back on the ‘wagon’ you fell off and eating more junk food than ever before.
Or you say you are only going to have one glass of wine but you drink the whole bottle or you want to get up at 6.30am and go for a run but when it comes down to it you sleep in until 9am. Even though you know your fed up of the hangovers or you are fed up of feeling fat and not having the body you desire and you have tried so hard to get before, determined not to let it happen again, you’d got every single thing in place to make sure you’d follow through this time, you’d got pictures on your wall of the person you wanted to look like, you’d told your friends to hold yourself accountable. Yet even though you’d done all this and more, you still find yourself not being able to stop yourself drinking on the Saturday night, eating that bar of chocolate, having a coffee and talking yourself out of the gym once again.
The question is why do you keep doing this?
It’s because your values, your neural pathways in your brain and beliefs don’t match up with want you want!
You see it doesn’t matter how much willpower you have, how bad you want something, if deep down in the back of your subconscious mind doesn’t believe the same, you will struggle.
For example your trying to get into great shape and you really want it, but for years you’ve been overweight, had bad sleep patterns and you’ve never been able to stick to a gym program, you’ve failed so many times its practically a fact right? This is what you have trained your mind to believe and so your mind will try and keep you that way!
If your deep subconscious beliefs are that you have bad genetics or you’re not a athletic person and will never be in great shape, it doesn’t matter how hard you try to achieve to lose weight or get fit, your body will try and sabotage it because when you wake up in the morning your mind is constantly asking why are you doing this?, we can’t stick to this “diet” for life, we never do, it’s not possible, we have fat genes, when we stop exercising we’ll just get fat, so eventually you do stop etc etc.
Or you have neural pathways in your brain associated with junk food making you feel good and overeating something you always do, if you have these, willpower alone won’t solve it. do you really think you can use willpower every minute of every day to stop yourself wanting that junk food, when deep down you still think it makes you feel good, or that you will always have a big appetite and when you start eating, the brain literally tells you to continue as its the person you are.
If you can relate to this you can solve it!
Remember impossible is just “I’m possible”. You can do anything you want but you do need to make some serious changes, no matter how hard it is, once these are done, you will find yourself being the person who gets up and runs in the morning, loving healthy eating and looking great.
But to do this, you need to reprogram you, literally rewrite your neural pathways, change those beliefs, otherwise success is never guaranteed, but think of it this way, if you truly believe you only eat foods that nourish your body, you live to look great and be lean, then suddenly you have a brain the tells you to live by these rules and helps you every second of everyday, without even thinking you just do it because it’s in your programming.
Unfortunately, this is not a simple process and only you can do it. But if you do do this, success is yours for the taking and forever.
So here is what you need to do.
If you like junk food, then we need to change this, because you only like it for what it does for you in the short term. However by playing it out in your mind longer next time you crave it, remember what it does long term. Reinforce the pain it gives you, think of what its stopping you achieving – its stopping you having the body of your dreams, being confident about the way you look. Now do the opposite with healthy food, when you eat clean foods, do it with your favourite music playing and tell yourself how great it feels to nourish your body and know this food makes you look and feel great and you love it, literally install the beliefs you love to eat this way and you always will.
Next is a bit deeper, this is your ingrained beliefs about who you think you are. Grab a pen and paper and write down everything that you think stops you achieving the goals of that body you want, ask yourself what you truly think about yourself, do you think you have bad genetics? or are you afraid of looking great, is the fat you carry, a safety net?
Once you have these, rewrite them, decide what you what them to say. If you think that the reason a diet never works for you is because, “I’ve always been overweight and that’s just the way it is”.
Then change that! it’s not true, it is just your belief! You need to change that and to do that first. Tear apart that current belief, use some experiences you have to disprove it, have you lost weight before? then the above is not true (this is not easy by the way) and don’t stop until you are laughing at the current belief you have, now rewrite it to what you want it to say, to something that will help you live by a code of always being the way you want. For example “I look brilliant at 12 stone and its why I’m always 12 stone and follow a lifestyle that keeps me like this.”
Once you have done this, read these new positive affirmations to yourself every day, reprogram your mind
This might all sound a bit fantastic and to easy to be true, but it works, do this and watch your life change forever.
The power to be great is in your control, no one else, so take it, take the power of your mind and make it work for you!
To your Health & Happiness
Dean
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