The Formula for Change: Decision + Commitment + Belief + Action = SUCCESS

 Paul McKenna has of late been showing the way.  In his book I Can Make You Thin (Book and CD)he uses relaxation and hypnotic suggestion to help with re-programming your mind.  But just going out there and buying his kit isn’t going to make a scrap of difference without your own personal decision to change, commitment to make it work letting nothing come in your way and believing that you have the power.  That’s not as hard as you think, its just a case of getting into the mindset, after that help from a programme like Paul McKenna’s or from any hypnotherapist, life coach or NLP practitioner is useful to maintain momentum, but in the end its all down to you and your decision, commitment and belief.

I should know – I bought the thing, listened to it umpteen times and I’m still the same weight I was then.  I bought a Yoga video and watched it all the way through but its not helped at all.  Maybe that’s something to do with the fact that I didn’t get off the sofa and do the postures along with the video?  Probably.   My mindset wasn’t right.  I had decided to do it but wasn’t committed enough and most likely didn’t believe in my inner resources either. 

But you’ll be glad to know my resolve is back and I’m now doing what it says to do in the instruction manual and change is starting to happen.  They say nothing succeeds like success so watch this space.  

One thing about commitment, its a good idea to show your subconscious mind that you are genuinely committed by actually doing something positive towards your goal right now.  That might be clearing your cupboards of all the foods that you know will hold you back, signing up for the gym, buying some new exercise equipment such as running shoes or getting out your old bike and giving it a good overhaul ready to hit the road. 

Believing is sometimes a little more difficult and the other stumbling block where most people like me find ourselves back at square one very quickly.  Sometimes we set very high ultimate goals and that's all we think about but in fact its much easier to believe if we set a series smaller goals and focus on just one at a time without thinking too much of the ultimate result.  That way you give yourself something to celebrate very quickly and a success to build on for the next success.  The first goal might not be related to your weight but just be to join that gym and use it for the first time or choosing to eat one healthy packed lunch instead of a high fat sandwich from the deli today.  Lots of small changes lead to big results and that's easy to believe, so just believe in something little to start with and let the rest take care of itself.  Before long, you'll be believing in yourself to reach your next goal and the next and your ultimate goal will seem so much closer and reachable. 

Christopher Howard has a good saying: "If its humanly possibly, consider it within your reach".  I keep saying that to myself now and it spurs me on to self belief no end.  

It doesn't matter what action you take to create the body shape and size you desire, whether that's following a particular diet or healthy eating plan, going to the gym, taking up a new form of exercise or all of the above, none of it will work without the foundations of decision, commitment and belief, but you absolutely have to take the action too.  Paul McKenna suggests you don't follow a diet at all but you change your way of thinking around food and exercise which to me, makes a whole lot of sense.   

So, you decide what you're going to do, you actively commit yourself to achieving it, you believe that you will succeed and you take the action. Easy! 

Why Diets Fail – Positive and Negative Thinking

There are a number of reasons the diets themselves fail.  One is that all you do on a diet is think about is food and being fat.  You plan what you’re going to eat, you feel guilty when you eat something you “shouldn’t”, you wonder how many calories everything has, you wonder if you've lost weight that week and how horrendous you look in a bikini.  Food, calories, weight, fat – that’s all you think about.  And its now pretty much common knowledge among psychologists, scientists and successful people across the globe that the more of what you focus your mind on, the more appears in your life.  So instead of getting less food, calories and weight, guess what you get more of!!

I said it all at the beginning of this article when I said I had struggled against fat for most of my life - all I thought about was what I didn't want not what I did want which was to be slimmer, healthy and active. 

Traditionally when you embark on a diet or attend a slimming class you are focussed on LOSS and what you DON’T, CAN’T or SHOULDN’T eat.  The bigger the loss, the bigger the success.  Psychologically speaking, that’s a complete contradiction and is doomed to failure.  In your subconscious mind you’re focussing on the word LOSS.  Loss is a negative word that implies FAILURE.  So now that’s two negatives you’re focussing on already as well as focussing even more on food and eating, when what you need to do is keep your thinking positive – thinking less about being fat and more about being slim, thinking less about eating and more about exercising, thinking less about losing weight and more about gaining a fit, healthy lean body, thinking less about being fat and more about being slim. 

Biologists, nutritionists, doctors – all the diet experts tell you that its normal to hit a plateau.  After an initial weight loss you start to level out and the only way around that is to think even harder about food, how much you’re eating or exercising and either settle for a continually slowing down of results or adjust the intake and output again.  You hit a plateau and you immediately feel or perceive failure because what you consider to be success, ie a substantial weight loss isn’t happening.  So now you’re focussed on FAILURE and even worse, believe that its your FAULT. 

Whenever you focus on the positives and not the negatives and you will have positive results, no matter what you’re working on whether its weight control or any other aspect of your life you want to improve. 

In the process, whilst you want to be thinking about your new healthy life-style, you’re probably thinking more about FOOD and not only that but the UNHEALTHY FOOD you know is detrimental to success like (as in my case) chocolate.  The more you think about something, the more appears in your life – certainly the more I think about chocolate the more of it I eat.  And the more you try not to think about a thing the more you DO think about it.  Like saying to someone “Don’t think of a red boat”.  What’s the first thing they think of?  Of course, a red boat!  The mind can’t handle negatives because of the way or language is structured.  You have to mention the thing you’re referring to when stating a negative or the sentence doesn’t make sense, and it then becomes a positive instruction.  The only way around this is to always use positives, eg “Think of a blue house”.  When you think of the blue house you’re not thinking of the red boat and blocking out the old thoughts of red boats, RESULT!!  Instead of saying to myself “Don’t think about chocolate” I could try saying: “Think of a banana” or a walk in the park, or reading a good book, or having a cuddle with my beloved …

What I want to say right now to any slimming class leader is: “STOP RIGHT NOW telling your members every time they get on the scales that they’ve LOST weight.  Tell them they are LIGHTER.  Stop encouraging talk of being BAD because they strayed from the plan.  Forget the past and tell them they are GOOD because they have turned up which means they are back on track and are going to have a successful week.  Stop telling them they are trying NOT TO BE FAT.   Tell them they ARE SLIMMER, FITTER AND HEALTHIER by adopting the right attitude and life-style.” 

So, how can you turn around a lifetime of negativity and failure into a future of positive achievement and success at what you really want?

The only thing that works is to get yourself mentally and emotionally in the right place.  Start by being happy with yourself, find and celebrate the good bits of your body and focus on them, show them off (not too much!!) and if you still want to change something, then focus on the change and the solution, not the problem.  The more you think about the problem the bigger it will get.  End of story. 

The next thing to do is to get your belief system right.  BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE THE POWER.  You do, we all do.  But sometimes believing something about yourself is quite hard.  However, there are ways to fool your subconscious into believing something and the best way I know is repetition.  Keep telling yourself with conviction that you have the power and you will ultimately believe it.  The best way to use affirmations like this is to get yourself into a relaxed state at least once but ideally three times a day and repeat a positive statement to yourself such as “I have the power to achieve my ideal weight”.  An even better affirmation would use the principles of imagination and visualisation putting your end result into the present tense, so you could say: “I am now at my ideal weight and fitness level.  I look fantastic and everyone compliments me.  I can buy clothes that I like and am able to exercise without getting breathless”. 

Getting Into the Mindset

At this point its worth mentioning the use of techniques like imagination and visualisation.  Try this at least once a day.  Paul McKenna uses a more in depth version as do most hypnotherapists but this isn't rocket science and doesn't meddle where only the professionals should, so go ahead and have a go. 

When you have 10 minutes or so of quiet time alone, get yourself into a totally relaxed state by closing your eyes and relaxing each part of your body in turn starting with your feet and moving up to your head.  With your eyes closed take deep, slow and measured breaths concentrating on your breathing and putting all thoughts out of your mind, letting go of the ones that creep in.  Using the same imaginative skills that help you to daydream, create an image of your perfect self in your mind.  How do you look?  What are you wearing?  Where are you?  What are you doing?  Most importantly – how do you feel?  How does your body feel?  Do you feel powerful, happy, confident?  Keep that image and those feelings in your mind and turn up the volume, the colour and the feelings as if you were turning up your TV until you have a vivid, bright and living image before you.

Now, step away from you body and float above it a little so that you can see yourself as if looking in a mirror.  You can see what’s going on around you, hear what people are saying, hearing all the other sounds, feeling everything your new self is feeling.  Does it seem like its someone else, or do you know that this is you future self?  Decide right now that this is you.  Set a date for when this scene will be your reality and commit to making it happen in that timeframe.  Now, step back into that body and feel again what its like to be the new you.  Renew the commitment to yourself that this isn’t a fantasy but your future reality that will take place on the date you chose.  Hold that thought for as long as you can, believing its true, and then slowly, gently and lovingly take a slow deep breath and come back to the now.  Open your eyes when you feel ready and have a slow, refreshing stretch before moving around again.  Ideally, go and do something positive towards creating your new reality like taking some exercise, chucking out the nasty, bland-tasting cream cakes you were going to have with a cup of tea, or indulging in some pampering or beauty treatment. 

The important thing about any visualisation is keep it in the present. Don’t say to yourself  “I’m going to do this some day” or “I’ll get around to joining the gym some day” because “some day” never comes.  What does come is a specific date so if you have to put something into the future then put it in your diary.  Set the date and be absolutely specific about what and when you intend to get what you want.  If your goals are huge then set little goals along the way remembering the old saying about eating elephants one bite at a time.  Nothing breeds success like success so the little successes are all stage posts along the way. 

I was finding it quite hard to get into the right mindset but it was one of the fantastic things I learned at the Christopher Howard  event I attended in London last March.  He uses hypnotherapy, visualisation and NLP techniques to really help you to understand the importance of right thinking in achieving anything you want and if you struggle with achievement in any area of your life, I can’t recommend his FREE three-day weekend seminars enough.  They are so powerful they could change everything for you almost overnight. 

Your life coach can help you too by motivating and keeping your thinking sharply focussed on the positives so that you can achieve by tapping into the resources that are stored within you.  A good coach will listen carefully to you and recognise patterns in your thinking that are secretly sabotaging your efforts to succeed and will help you to gently re-focus and understand where the mental blockages are so that you can blast through them with ease and lightening speed towards your goals.

Some Alternative Thought Patterns: 

Whenever you find yourself thinking something from the left hand column, try swapping it straight away for the alternative positive thought on the right.  Do it quickly and with commitment and belief, ideally in the present tense.  There are lots more than the few I've put down here.  Why not try identifying your own negative beliefs and swapping it a positive one?  Your life coach can teach you and work with you as you perfect simple NLP techniques that make this easy by creating habitual positive thinking from negative thinking and achieve even faster.