One of the most important things I've learned as a Health Coach, as well as with my personal experience with health transformation is how critically important a healthy belief system that supports our goals is. Whether you realize it or not you have a mindset. Everyone has it.
A mindset is a set of beliefs, values, and how we see ourselves in this world and our place in it.
There are two elements to mindset:
You either believe or don't believe that you can achieve something.
You either believe or don't believe that you deserve to have it.
And the one sure thing I've learned is that without both any progress you achieve will be temporary. Even if you do believe you can do something, but don't believe you deserve to have it, eventually you'll self sabotage and quit.
You might be thinking - why in the world would someone not believe they deserve to have something - such as a slimmer healthier body? I'll give you a great example. I was coaching a woman that was really struggling with this belief stuff. Much of these issues go back to our childhood so we started talking about her struggles with food as a child. She told me she was not allowed to snack whenever she wanted - a rule which she broke quite frequently, sneaking off food to snack on, which she still felt guilty about. As we were talking about this the realization lit up her face: she believed she was being punished with being overweight for doing this. When she realized how ludicrous this was, she was able to break through this belief barrier and successfully lose the weight.
So perhaps you are realizing that you do have a problem with believing in yourself. You know, when we fail at something over and over again - such as trying to lose weight - it knocks you down just a little more, and belief that you can is nowhere in sight.
Okay, so you realize you have some challenges with this level of mindset. What do you do to change that? Let's use weight loss for an example. The first thing you want to do is ask yourself that on a scale of 1 to 10 - 10 being the strongest, how much do I believe I can lose all the weight? If you are honest with yourself and your answer is low on the scale, the next question is why? Is it because I've failed so many times? Or is it because the amount of weight you need to lose is significant. Mostly likely it's both reasons, so here is how you respond to that...
Let's say you have 100 extra pounds, and that just seems so impossible. What can you believe you can lose? 50 lbs? 25? Maybe the best you can believe in right now is 10 lbs.
GREAT! That's your starting point and your first goal! Don't worry about the remaining 90 lbs. because as you lose the 10, you set your sights on your next goal of maybe 20. These little steps are so important because each time you reach your little goals you are elevating your confidence and belief that you can in fact do this, and this time it will be permanent.
If you are having challenges with believing you deserve to lose the weight you need to pinpoint the reason. And the best way of doing this is to literally have a conversation with yourself.
"Why is it I really don't believe I deserve to have this? It doesn't make sense. Remember when mom would tell me to just accept the fact that I'm chubby? Remember how that made me feel? I've never been able to accept myself."
And that leads to the power of self acceptance. Not for who you will be when you lose the weight - but who you are right now. A work in progress.
Maybe this helps you better understand how our mindset can either make or break us. And understand, this level of mindset is not a switch you just flip and turn on. It needs to be developed and it takes time. Be patient with yourself and become your own best friend. There is no one in the world that you believe more than yourself. And what you believe is who you will become.
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