Although the primary emphasis of my work is to give you a roadmap to high performance and long-lasting well-being, my deepest desire is to help you understand that no plan would be viable without the proper mind-body approach. In the following paragraphs, I will give you the same information that I gave thousands of my clients, to transform their bodies, improve their health, and achieve high levels of performance.
When people hire me to work with them, most have the same intentions you had when you looked for this article. They tell me they want to reduce stress, increase productivity, improve performance, lose weight, get fit, and be happy. But all these intents are not as important as the reason you want this or that. The real question you must ask yourself is “How can I reach long-lasting results?” So, I say to my clients that the only way to get meaningful and lasting results is to align their thoughts with their heart’s desire. I put them on a path to aligning body, mind, and spirit so they can achieve and experience perfect work/life balance.
Why Do You Keep Sabotaging All Your Efforts?
Your mind is like a computer in which many beliefs and hidden expectations have been recorded. Those beliefs and expectations have been shaped and guided by our parents, family, teachers, friends, the media, and the Internet, to name a few. So, when you’re not in synch with your beliefs, you feel anxiety, doubt, and fear.
In my three decades of experience in working with clients worldwide, I’ve discovered that there are two major hurdles to lasting success; the inner image people have of themselves and the inner chatter that keeps feeding those images. This creates a never-ending sabotaging-behavior.
It’s fair to say that most of you, who are reading this, have been sabotaging all your efforts to succeed and regain control of your life. You have been driven by stress, fear, doubts and anxiety that have kept you in a perpetual fight and flight response creating, therefore, a negative feedback loop that keeps you unsuccessful, unhealthy and unhappy.
This fight and flight response is a natural event designed to be triggered occasionally. However, career, family, finance and many other societal expectations all contribute to perpetuating this event. When this becomes chronic it can cause stress-related health problems that are exacerbated by the typical western diet.
Fact: Negative thinking can have a strong and sometimes devastating impact on all aspects of our lives and can keep you from success and happiness.
The human being is like a car that has two engines. One pushes forward, it is our positive aspirations, the other pulls back, it is our fears, our prejudices and false views, our doubts and guilt. It’s not enough that one decides to start exercising or eating well, one must commit to a multidimensional assessment.
“When our lives are lacking or are out of balance, many of us reach for unhealthy behaviors as ways to alleviate or suppress our hunger for life.”
Lack of performance and weight gain are often consequences of long held negative chatter, along with some serious stress-related disorders such as depression, insomnia, heart disease, cancer, obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes.
These conditions and conflicts are all cries for a higher quality of life, but instead of giving ourselves what we really need, we tend to find comfort and solace in foolishness and despair. The problem is that this substitution does not work. If you are not getting the life-energy and vitality you need, you will never be able to get enough to satisfy your hunger for life.
It’s going to require a dramatically different approach from what’s being thrown at you by the mainstream media. But I know you will succeed in bringing your life, health and fitness to their optimum levels.
Happiness is crucial in obtaining long-lasting results; there is simply no way around it. Finding your heart’s desire and connecting to it will put you right back on the path to success.
Is Your Brain Keeping You Fat and Unhealthy?
Let me say this, your thoughts are not you and you are not your thoughts. Thoughts are just that, thoughts, they come, and they go. If we had to control them all we would have to be institutionalized. It’s simply impossible.
What’s more realistic, however, is to not identify or emotionalize your thoughts unless you know they’re conducive to your values, heart’s desires and goals. Long held and repeated thoughts become a manifestation of the object of your thinking. I didn’t invent this; I promise! It was already there when you and I came into this world. There is plenty of research on the topic and so I won’t bore you with the scientific jargon. My mission is to give you as many tools as possible so you can be well on your way to success and long-lasting health and wellness.
What is a Weight Set Point?
The term “set point” is used to describe the weight, at which your body likes to be at; it works much like a thermostat (it works the same way in business too). Your weight set point is determined by factors such as heredity and behavior modification. Maybe you’ve lost 10, 20 or 30 pounds in the past, only to gain it all back after a few months. And just like that, your weight creeps back up to that set number again! Over a long period, insufficient exercise and excess food will override your body’s natural tendency to stay at its set point and lead to a higher, less healthy set point.
“The mind is a wild stallion; it must be tamed!” Only by never wavering and by sticking to your course of action will you able to change your inner identity, set your new body image, and finally experience sustainable and long-lasting results.”
So, what do you do when that happens? And how can you decrease that number?
You have to start cultivating the right mindset by making a decision to change from the inside out. I promise that by being committed to your goals for a sustained period, you will change your set point and be on your way to enjoying your new body identity. Your brain will never fail you again when you match your conscious behaviors with your new and healthier subconscious ones. You will be creating a perfect harmony between the two. When you have the right self-worth and self-image, you’ll automatically do what’s conducive to your health and well-being. The fitter you’ll become, the fitter you’ll act. The process will become faster, healthier, and easier than you’ve ever imagined it to be.
Remember that you’ve already made your decision to get your life back and be on a path to optimum health, wellbeing, and performance, act decisively on it, dismiss all your doubts and anxiety about it, don’t look back, and keep moving forward. Hesitating or reconsidering your new approach would only get you right back to square one.