- Know that the first 4 – 6 weeks will be the hardest as you set out on your goal of creating a new habit but as it becomes part of your routine it will become easier. Commit to those first 30 – 40 days. Keep tabs on yourself each week and create mini rewards for meeting goals.
- Try exercising first thing in the morning. It is then done and you won’t have to squeeze it in later in the day. If you can’t exercise first thing, schedule it into your diary as an appointment and delegate a time in your day that you will complete it like any other work task. Commit and prioritize this appointment.
- When that alarm goes off and you just want to roll over for that extra hours sleep; get yourself up and out of bed and into autopilot. Tell yourself you will thank yourself later. Some days are a struggle even for me and I enjoy exercising daily. On the days when I feel like that extra hour sleep and my body tells me to roll over, I tell myself something is better than nothing. I always feel better for doing it. On most days that I feel like this, I find it is only the getting going that is hard. Once I get moving usually I achieve more than I thought I could that day, and if not I have at least done something.
- Find a friend who wants to create the same healthy habit and meet them for your sessions. Feeling responsible for someone else is a great motivator, ironically seemingly a better motivator than being responsible for ourselves!
- Tell your colleagues about how great you felt when you get into work after your exercise session that morning. Not only will you perhaps motivate them but you are using a form of positive reinforcement rewarding your behaviour.
A good friend of mine, Diane Porteous, recently put together an article which may help you when creating your new habit… it is about getting rid of that little voice that tells you you can’t… sound too familiar? Have a read below!
Yours in loving life,
Caitlin xx
Say No to Negative Self Talk
With Love and Inspiration, by Diane Porteous (MPowerment Consulting)
Wouldn’t it be amazing if we allowed ourselves to live a life free of negative self-talk? Imagine if we didn’t limit ourselves with our own continuous negative thinking? If we were just able to say to ourselves “No, not now, I’m choosing not to listen to you little voice in my head! No thank you, not today, today is too precious”.
Well the truth is, we generally don’t… We give in to those negative thoughts and beliefs and usually get caught up in the story we have created around them. This is one of the main ways we limit ourselves in our life and keep ourselves smaller than we need to be. If only we could take away some of those limiting self-beliefs then we could fulfill so much more of our true potential.
“There is no man living who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can do – Henry Ford
Have you ever stopped to reflect on just how many of those self-beliefs are actually negative and not serving you? Well, the truth is the average person is pretty harsh on themselves…
Beliefs are such an interesting topic, as along with our values they are a key component to who we are and what we do, or don’t do in our life. In essence, a belief is really just a feeling of certainty we have about the meaning of something based on our perception of what happened at the time.
These beliefs can either limit you or liberate you…
Now let’s take a moment to think about some of the most common thought patterns you have about yourself. We all typically have our ‘stories’, about ‘why we are, the way we are’… We use these stories (both positive and negative) to sub consciously drive our thought patterns and the decisions we make. So imagine how empowering it would be if we chose to have more ‘positive stories’. .
When I did my NLP master practitioner course (thank you Wilburt Molenaar my master trainer!), I remembered hearing the story about two people with different ‘stories’ about themselves based on their core beliefs.
One person believed “Life is a struggle” and “everything I try and do never works”,compared to the other person who believed “Life is an opportunity” and “The universe always supports me if I give things a go”.
Can you imagine the difference in the quality of these two people’s lives? Yes, that’s right, the difference in the quality of their daily experience is massive! Their difference in attitude, motivation and behavior means they will both lead a very different life. If you haven’t already, ask yourself, which person resonates more with you?
In order to gain control over your life and give yourself the best chance of living the life you want to live, or achieving those goals that are important to you, you need to start becoming more aware of your core beliefs and changing those that are holding you back.
As an NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programing) master practitioner, the most common challenge I find my clients facing, is holding onto old negative beliefs that are limiting them in their current life. The underlying core beliefs have often been created a long time ago and are completely irrelevant now. So often the client doesn’t see that these beliefs were just decisions they made at the time that they have chosen to continually reinforce to be true.
A process using NLP takes the client back in time to the first significant event that occurred where they formed this belief. It is around this first instance that the client is able to view the old situation with fresh eyes and through the process gain a different perspective from when the old belief was initially formed. This powerful process literally allows you to reprogram the way you view something.
Quite often, these core beliefs were formed based on a statement that was made by someone else at the time, that made such an impact that they then held on to that as a belief for the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years later…The positive point here, is at least these people have now let go of that old belief that was holding them back. Many of us never assess these beliefs and hang on to them so they affect us for the rest of their life.
So when is the right time to start assessing those beliefs you hold about yourself that are not serving you? Well, I’d say why not NOW, why not today??? When you realize that no one is really holding you back in your life but you ….You control your thoughts, you control your behavior, therefore you control your destiny.
One of the most beautiful gifts we have as a free spirited human being is the freedom to choose in any moment how we wish to live our life. Remember, Destiny is the plan, Free-will is the action. Experience is the result. That’s what being human is all about…
If you are interested in learning more about how to resolve those negative beliefs that are holding you back, then Diane uses Belief Change processes using NLP in her coaching. See the $95 coaching promotion below. Also, her upcoming workshop “How to set Winning Goals and Overcome challenges” focuses on becoming aware of and then changing negative beliefs that are holding you back.
To find more about Diane’s upcoming workshop on goal setting please visit http://selz.co/1jFIxJ9
