Whether you’re just finishing school, elbow deep in rug rats, or an empty-nester, there’s a restless piece of you that still has dreams to fulfill. Before you resign yourself to “this is as good as it gets,” imagine how different your life would be if you actually went after what you really wanted and achieved your most audacious goal? As a personal development and performance coach, every day I get to help women identify what they want in life and help them get there. And I have news for you. No matter where you are in life, you too can still achieve those dreams.
These seven steps will get you started quickly:
1. Define Your Vision
Write out a vision of what you want — what it looks and feels like. Be as specific as you can. Specificity allows both you and the universe to match up what you desire to its fulfillment. What does your vision look like, smell like, feel like? The clearer your vision, the easier it is to achieve.
2. Declare Your Vision
One of the most powerful ways to jumpstart your vision into action, is to declare it publicly, whether it be through social media or some other channel. If you are going to lose 30 pounds this year, let your friends know that you are committed to losing 30 pounds by a specified date. Publicizing your goals not only keeps you accountable, but allows others to support you on your path. Who knows? You might learn from someone who just accomplished what you are setting out to do or acquire a new workout buddy.
PREPARE YOUR EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT FOR SUCCESS
3. Prepare Your Environment for Success
Benjamin Hardy, in his book Willpower Doesn’t Work, advocates that we must prepare our environments for success. Remove everything from your environment that stands in the way of your success. In the weight loss example, for instance, remove unhealthy food from your home. If your goal is to write your first book, setup a space in your home that is conducive to quiet and productive work. It may sound simple, but it is powerful!
PREPARE YOUR INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT FOR SUCCESS
3. Identify Your Limiting Beliefs
Why is it that you haven’t already achieved your vision? What has been standing in your way? Identify what has been holding you back, and you’ve just identified your limiting beliefs.
The good news is that limiting beliefs are just that — beliefs. They are your stamp on reality. But they aren’t true. Change your beliefs and you’ll change your reality.
Our beliefs are passed down from our parents, school, traumas, religious groups and society at large. We accept them without question and interpret everything that happens to us through their lens. If I grew up believing that I’m not good enough or pretty enough, I’m less likely to introduce myself to that attractive man at the party. Notice how my belief that “I’m not good enough” determines how I act in a social situation. Our thoughts create words, words create beliefs, beliefs create actions, actions create habits and habits create reality.
Ultimately, you want to create new, success-engendering habits. But to do so, you must change your underlying beliefs, which means rewiring your brain.
4. Rewire your brain
Changing your limiting beliefs begins with awareness. Once you identify what your beliefs are, you need to change the underlying thoughts and words which are feeding these beliefs.
Dr. Caroline Leaf, Cognitive Neuroscientist says, “It takes around twenty-one days to rewire neural pathways and begin building a new way of thinking and forty-two days (for a total of sixty-three days) to establish a new habit. The talk between the conscious and nonconscious mind requires discipline and practice.”
5. Develop New Successful Habits
What habit do you need to develop to achieve your vision? Rather than overwhelm yourself with a 63-day commitment, just begin with the first step. What do you need to do today to achieve your vision? Repeat that action tomorrow and the next day.
If you find yourself falling off the proverbial habit-forming wagon more than once, it’s most likely you are thinking or believing you are living in the present, but there is a good possibility that your body is in the past, which creates a feeling from the past.
What is happening? We produce a chemical reaction of feelings from the past, like an emotional addiction to our past, then we react from a past belief system in our present situation. For example, it will be very difficult to instill a healthy weight loss habit, if your limiting belief is that you cannot lose weight because you’ve tried and failed countless times before. That belief is what we rewire. To do so, examine your toxic thoughts/beliefs, become aware of when and why they come up, and create an actual step, idea, or phrase to replace it with. Do this daily.
6. Practice Gratitude Daily
A study at Indiana University Bloomington grouped students who sought counseling services into three groups. Along with their counseling, one group was told to write a letter of gratitude to someone once a week for 12 weeks, though they did not need to send the letter. The second group was told to write about their negative feelings once a week for 12 weeks, and the third group did not practice a writing exercise.
The study found that the group that consistently wrote gratitude letters reported better mental health four and twelve weeks after the conclusion of their counseling. Further, fMRI scans showed that, even twelve weeks later, those who wrote letters of gratitude experienced a greater activation in the medial prefrontal cortex than the group that journaled about their feelings, and the control group.
What we think about we bring about. Gratitude changes the chemical structures in our brain, which affects our thoughts, beliefs, actions and habits.
Develop a daily gratitude practice, such as writing down five things you are grateful for before going to sleep. Remember that it takes 63 days to create a new habit, so be consistent and patient with yourself.
7. Resource Up
Whatever you dream about can be yours. But it will require you to make significant and uncomfortable shifts from the inside out. Great goals require great commitment. Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “Insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.” The reason most people won’t become who they want to be is because they are to attached to who they have been. If you are feeling STUCK in life, it’s a signal that one of your most basic needs is not being met…time to explore that.
When you’re ready to experience a life dramatically different from the life you’ve been living, you will need to resource up, which means learning the skills, acquiring the tools and developing the mental toughness to get you where you want to go.
The right coach can provide the discipline, accountability, tools and consistency you need to create the life you want. Isn’t it time you started living your best life?
If you are ready, I am ready to help you. Since I believe in you so much, I want to offer a complimentary 1-hour vision session to get this process started. Are you ready to detach from what has been keeping you stuck?
Visit https://lof.clickfunnels.com/optin-1738398119801783 or email me at [email protected] with the subject Thrive: Comp Session. Excited to chat!
– Coach T