Do you believe that?
Like short blogs? This is the one for you. It’s really late and I’m busting this out because I’m committed to getting this out to you all each and every Monday.
Two weeks ago, the blog focused on the difference between viewing your goal as a one-time achievement or a lifestyle change. Click Here for your free worksheet.
Last week, I talked about clearing out room in your life to accomplish your new goal. The most critical place to create space in your life is in your mind.
The next step to permanent change is the way you talk to yourself about that change.
When I’m on track for achieving something, my thoughts go something like this – I’m excited. I wonder how much closer I’ll get today? This is going to be great. How can I do this? What should I do next?
I know I’m not going to get very far when I think like this: I’m struggling. I’m falling behind. I hope I can do this. I’m not very good at this. I haven’t done well, I need to do better. I’ll do better tomorrow.
You might not think that how you manage your mind is the major factor in achieving change, but I beg to differ. Look at the thoughts in the first example. See how many of them are open-questions? The person thinking that way is already on their way to finding more opportunities for success.
So how to do you come around to that way of thinking?
- Each day – fill one side of a notebook page with positive thoughts about your goal.
- Then restate your goal.
- Then ask yourself how you feel about your goal.
- If you feel positive, ask yourself what action you should take.
- If you feel negative, ask yourself what other thoughts you could have and what action you can take to overcome that negative feeling.
Write all this down on paper, keep the pages together. Do this for 30 days.
Review the pages and think about what you learned.
Here’s what I learned when I did this. First off, it feels great to give yourself a daily cheering on for a full page. Second, half the time I would repeat my goal statement and feel negative or doubtful and half of the time I would feel positive. I could always think of something I could do to help me with my goal.
After a while, I realized that my feelings about my goal weren’t actually accurate. At any given time I might be upbeat or pessimistic, yet there were always other ways to look at it and action I could take. The way I felt stopped being such a big deal. I started to choose to feel positive. The more days I took action, the more success I had, the more enthusiastic I became and the more success I had.
It’s a giant flywheel for change – belief, action, results, belief, action, results.
So step three for permanent change is to start to take active steps to manage your belief.
If you want help learning how – I’d love to walk you through it. Try a 25-minute session free – sign up here.