Change Your Mind and Change Your Life !
By Dr. Frank B. Smoot, DD, MA GHF's
Success & Personal Growth Coach
You Are As You Think: The Power Of Your "Cognitions"
Cognitive psychology is a product of the last few decades
of the last century. The central premise of cognitive psychology is
that what you think determines how you feel. Understanding this connection
will be central to your success at fitness or anything else in your
life is.
However, people are sometimes reluctant to accept this
basic truth, because it requires them to acknowledge responsibility
for what they experience in their lives. Some people prefer to believe
that their feelings either precede their thoughts, or exist independently
of them. Yet the truth is that our feelings, good or bad, are the products
of our own thoughts.
It's impossible to have a feeling about something until
we first become aware of it. This means we have to think about it before
we feel it. For example, if your mate gets upset with you for some reason
during the middle of the day, but you don't find out about it until
later in the day, at what point do you have a bad feeling about the
event?
No matter how upset he or she was with you all day long,
you had no feeling about it because you didn't think about it. Many
people suffer needlessly because they have this relationship backwards.
If you believe that your feelings come before your thoughts--that
your feelings come out of nowhere and land in your head like a flock
of stray birds--then you place yourself at the mercy of whatever feelings
happen to be "descending on you" at the moment.
Taking Responsibility Gives You Power
To gain the power you need to make positive changes in
your life, you can't afford to see yourself as a powerless victim of
external factors. This denies you the responsibility for your own experience,
and prevents you from enjoying the power that is rightfully yours.
To use that power, you need to understand how it works
in connection with your beliefs.
It isn't that believing actually makes things happen--though sometimes
it does. But when you believe something strongly, the "how to"
of achieving it comes to you virtually without effort. What you need
to know and do somehow flows magically into your awareness.
In other words, the power of your belief becomes a magnet
for the precise solutions you need. The stronger the belief, the better
solutions you attract. This phenomenon is at the core of our human creative
process. Once we are fully focused on what we want to create, and then
believe we can create it, our results are virtually assured!
Stated another way, once we're sufficiently clear about
what to do, we need not struggle to figure out how. You see, much of
the failure of traditional weight loss is the result of trying to force
something to happen. Effort, struggle, and relying on will power are
all signs that we're fighting with ourselves, that we're at cross purposes
with our own deeply held beliefs. But when our beliefs are clear and
positive, all we need to do is "let it happen."
What Is Your Stage Of Fitness Consciousness?
With anything you do in life, psychologist Abraham Maslow
tells us there are four distinct stages of consciousness you can be
at:
Stage One: Unconscious Incompetence. This is where we are
when we aren't reaching our goals and don't know where to look for the
problem, or may not even know that there is a problem. An incredible
number of people are at this stage concerning weight loss and fitness.
Stage Two: Conscious Incompetence. At this stage we have
become fully aware that what we're doing isn't working, and we know
we need to be doing something else, even if we're not sure what it is.
This is where most people are when they start working with this success
system.
Stage Three: Conscious Competence. After the first 3-4
weeks of Success Exercises, you will have identified your problem beliefs
and attitudes and very consciously will have begun to replace them with
self-supporting ones. You are now solidly on your way to...
Stage Four: Unconscious Competence. This is your ultimate
destination. At this stage of development, you now automatically and
effortlessly do the things that keep you fit and at your ideal weight.
You may or may not get there in 7 weeks, but you will be unstoppably
on your way if you stay with the program.
If the task of changing your beliefs seems a bit overwhelming,
keep this in mind: Every single belief you have right now was put into
your mind with your own cooperation. In other words, you're already
a "seasoned pro" at creating beliefs. However conscious or
unconscious the process may have been, you played a central role in
the adoption of all of your current beliefs.
And it is you who keeps them alive today and lets them
run your life by not challenging their validity. Not a single one of
your beliefs can survive without your constant support. You are the
only one who can keep your beliefs alive, and you are the only one who
can replace them.
But, contrary to many people's notions, your beliefs are
not just a bunch of thoughts confined to your mind. Your beliefs are
interwoven into your body and spirit as well. Have you ever gotten a
"sinking feeling" when you heard bad news? Have you ever felt
like you were hit in the stomach when a lover did you wrong?
That's how we humans are built. We're multi-level, multi-dimensional
beings, and to ignore that fact while we try to make changes is to guarantee
failure. And that's also why you should never try to change your beliefs
through mental processes alone any more than you could change your weight
through physical processes alone. Instead, you need to take the much
more powerful approach, by involving your body, mind and spirit in all
you set out to do.
So, if it's a new experience of life you seek--even on
the physical level--you need to begin the process in your mind. Your
mind is the control center for your behaviors, and your behaviors are
what determine how you look and what you accomplish. If your current
experience of yourself is not to your liking, don't run off to the gym
or seek out the latest diet. The secret of your success is much closer--between
your ears. If you want to change your life, start with your mind!
How To Become A Success Story
GHF is delighted to be able to offer you a proven Success
System that has already made major changes in the lives of those who
have used it. (To read their comments, please click here.) To get full
details on how you can put this life-changing program to work for you,
please click here.
I sincerely hope this has been time well spent for you.
Life is simply too short not to understand how our own minds and bodies
work, or to be wasted on activities that can never get you where you
want to go.
I wish you total success in the coming year!
This article was provided by Dr. Frank
B. Smoot, DD, MA GHF's
Success & Personal Growth Coach. Click
here to visit their site for customized exercise and nutrition programs,
hundreds of exercise instructions and video demo's, a free fitness analysis,
and much more. Members now receive FREE fitness tracking software and
unlimited fitness consulting from 34 fitness, medical, and nutrition
experts!
