Featured in Women’s Fitness Magazine
Are you constantly planning how to lose weight? But you find that you either can’t get started or you are perhaps unable to keep up the new regime? Are you constantly looking for motivation only to find that it slips away at the slightest excuse?
If that sounds like you, you will be pleased to discover that you are not alone. Most of us believe that it is our mind that controls what we think and how we behave, when in fact we have the power to choose what we plant in our minds, and how we think and react. A mind possessed with negative, limiting beliefs and fears is a result of bad habitual thinking. The consequence of regularly stating pessimistic and unhelpful thoughts will be low self-esteem, lack of confidence, no motivation and an unfulfilled life.
Our inner voice can self-sabotage our best efforts. Consciously, we may be saying: ‘I am going to get fit and lose weight’, but what is our subconscious mind saying – that inner voice? Is it working for you or against you?
Inner gremlin
It doesn’t matter how intent you may be, if your inner voice (the gremlin) is saying ‘you know that won’t work’, ‘you won’t keep it up’, or ‘you’ll never succeed’, then how will you?
Being aware of your inner voice is one thing, and understanding why it’s working against you can be quite revealing. If you choose to listen and believe negative thoughts, you are, in effect, feeding your gremlin. Perhaps this gives you an excuse not to make the effort to pursue that goal – the ultimate opt-out. Why bother when you (falsely) believe that you won’t succeed?
To stay physically fit we need to exercise regularly. The mind is no different: if we want to feel healthy and balanced mentally,we have to exercise our mind and learn how to break bad thinking habits.
Get in control
If you suffer from negative thinking, some of the following techniques could help you regain control:
Become self-aware: Over a 24-hour period, monitor how you are feeling and what you are thinking. How often are you negative, critical or moaning? What triggered those thoughts and feelings?
Eliminate the negatives: When you catch yourself thinking negatively, switch it off and swap the thought for the positive opposite (be aware here of the gremlin trying to stop you).To help eliminate negative thinking, ask yourself: ‘How is this thought helping me?’ or ‘what evidence do I have to support this thought?’
Just do it: Thinking too much about the goal and how you are going to get there could be the problem – over-analysing can be exhausting and is an open invitation for excuses to stop you. Without thinking, justifying, feeding the gremlin by believing that you won’t succeed, allocate a time slot each day over a period of, for example, two months, and just do it. Nothing more, nothing less, just get on with it. Stop the thinking.
If you’re thinking that’s easier said than done, then you’ve already lost the battle. No doubt, a number of reasons not to do it have surfaced. I rest my case!
