Monthly Archives: April 2012

What Did You Decide?

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Yesterday’s blog was on figuring out your heart-felt reasons Why you want to achieve your goal. The next step is to decide.

Not only are you deciding how you will proceed, but most importantly you are deciding how intensely you will proceed. The power of your decision behind going after your goals will determine your level of success.

For instance, if you decide, “I think I’m going to lose weight,” that’s the level of commitment you bring to the process. It’s fairly tepid and you may lose a little weight, but chances are you won’t keep it up long-term.

If you decide, “It’s important to me for these reasons to lose X amount of weight,” your commitment will likely be stronger. You may get discouraged or derailed, but you are more likely to meet your goals.

If you decide, “I am going to do whatever it takes to lose X amount of weight and achieve these measurable goals because of these heart-felt reasons,” then your chances of success skyrockets. With this momentum behind you, if you stumble or face a challenge, you are much more likely to pick yourself up and keep going.

What often gets in people’s way is they think decisions are made once. Each moment of every day, you are deciding. You must be aware of these decisions and continually decide to move towards our goal.

Decisions like, “In this moment of this workout, am I going to give it my all, or ease up? Am I going to plan my meals, or am I going chance it? Am I going to eat what is on my plan, or am I going to have a little treat? Am I going to go to bed and get enough rest, or am I going to stay up and watch this movie?”

When a decision is powerfully made, you consistently make the small decisions that move you forward. And it is consistently (not perfectly) moving towards your goals that will help you achieve them.

Some ways to increase the power of your decision are to have a powerful Why, and review it often. Figure out how achieving your goal will make you feel, and strive to feel that way as much as possible. Pay attention to your beliefs about what you can achieve and what you deserve, and reframe them if necessary so that they help you move forward instead of hold you back. Visualize and focus on your goal being yours so completely that you feel as if you already have it.

What are some ways that you can increase the power of your decision? How will you respond if you hit a bump or are less than perfect in your moment-to-moment decisions? How can you let go of any belief other than you can have what you wish to achieve?

Together we can do it!

 

 

 

Photo by nuttakit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

 

Wellness Tip of the Day

Aside

Wellness Tip of the Day: Deciding to make the changes necessary to meet your goals is not something you do once. You keep deciding every moment of every day.

What’s Your Why?

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After working hard yesterday and going to bed late, staying under the nice warm covers with a cat snuggled in the crook of my arm was mighty enticing this morning.

I actually thought about blowing off my work out completely, or if there was another time of day I could get it in. But after a few minutes of this kind of thinking I returned to my reasons Why I want to exercise and follow my plan. I got up.

Having a powerful reason Why you want to achieve a goal will make a huge difference in doing the necessary actions—even when you don’t feel like it, or there are more immediately attractive options calling to you.

One of my best friends is using inspiring her mother during her recovery from cancer as a reason Why she has decided to run a marathon.

She wrote her mom a beautiful letter outlining how running a marathon and recovering from cancer are similar, and how they will be taking on these tough challenges together. That is such a compelling reason Why. You know that on those mornings it’s tough to get out of bed, my friend will be lacing up her running shoes. And her mom will be, too.

Keeping your reason Why front and center is also important, so that when there is an easier choice to make, you remember and can tap into that inner motivation. I keep my goals taped to my computer screen and review my vision and reasons Why daily.

My friend’s mom is getting that letter framed, and you know looking at it every day will inspire her to keep moving forward with her recovery. The day that my friend runs her marathon, they will both be able to look back to where they started and celebrate how far they have come.

What are the reasons you want to achieve your goal? Include the obvious, such as wanting to look good in a swimsuit if your goal is to lose weight, but dig deeper for that reason that resonates with your heart.

Is it to provide a positive example for your kids? It is to be healthy enough to run and play with your grand-kids? Is it to inspire others? Is it to reclaim your life?

What can you do to keep your heartfelt reasons Why front and center in your mind? How can you tap into that resulting emotion to inspire you to take the necessary actions?

Together we can do it!

Photo by Sura Nualpradid / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Goal Setting Tips and Daily Motivation

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I’ve been looking for an opportunity to share this fabulous blog, and a full schedule today is just the reason I needed. Enjoy!


Written by Kristin Barton Cuthriell, M.Ed, MSW, LCSW

People often say that motivation doesn’t last.  Well, neither does bathing, that’s why we recommend it daily. –Zig Zigler

 

 

What can you do to daily motivate yourself?

When I was in college, my friends and I sat and watched Oprah Winfrey wheel a wagon of fat out onto the stage of her television show to illustrate how much weight she had lost.  It was at that moment that my girlfriends and I became more determined than ever to get healthy.  The kitchen, in the small apartment that we shared, was stocked full of chips, salsa, cheese, and, of course, oodles of noodles, the inexpensive staple that kept many college students alive.

Read more  Goal Setting Tips and Daily Motivation.

You Promised!

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I have a lot of excuses that I could use for not writing a blog today. I could use any one of them to justify my not showing up.

My commitment to have a blog up six days a week that inspires you fabulous readers could be fulfilled by posting an older blog or reblogging someone else’s post. But I’ve already planned to reblog a friend’s post tomorrow.

To honor the promise I’ve made to myself, it was important to me that I show up today.

It’s so easy to let those commitments to ourselves slide. I certainly do it, and there are times when you just have to make another choice. But that’s not Who I want to be.

Keeping self-promises is even more important than keeping your promises to others. How can you expect to keep promises to others if you continually show yourself that promises are meant to be broken? And if you come to expect that promises are meant to be broken, how can you trust the promises of others?

Pay attention to the promises you make to yourself. How often do you excuse your way out of them? How much harder does that make it to fulfill your promises to others? What can you do to better honor yourself today?

Together we can do it!

 

Photo by tungphoto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

Wellness Tip of the Day

Aside

Wellness Tip of the Day: The promises you make to yourself are the most important to keep. Continually show yourself that promises are meant to be honored.

What An Opportunity!

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One of the empowerment principles I love is, “There are no problems. There are no challenges. There are only opportunities.”

As you begin practicing this, it’s easy to see how true it is.

While it can be challenging at first, when you stop yourself from negatively reacting to something and shift your mental focus from the problem to how you can use the situation to learn and grow, your mind shifts in the direction you are pointing it and provides the things you seek.

To make the shift, you may have to let go of all the things that “could” go wrong and ask yourself how the situation might actually be helpful—for you and others—how you might be able to see things differently, and how you can trust that things are unfolding just as they should.

In other words, you rationalize your way out of fear or anger. It’s a fabulous tool for shifting from negative, catabolic energy where you are at the effect of people, situations, thoughts, emotions, and events, to begin looking for and seeing the solutions and potential.

As you practice releasing the catabolic energy by moving away from your well-rehearsed and automatic reactions, you connect with higher levels of positive anabolic energy that truly help you see not only the opportunities in every situation, but how the solutions can benefit each person involved.

It is the Yin/Yang of the Universe—for every problem there is an equal and proportionate solution. The opportunity and solution are always there, but you must first raise your gaze from the memorizing specter of the train-wreck that is the problem, and look for the opportunities.

As you practice making this mental shift you begin creating new reactions to problems so that one day, you bypass the rationalization step and your automatic response is to see all the opportunities and solutions. You no longer have to dip down into the catabolic energy and then turn your focus towards digging your way out of the morass. That frees up mental and physical energy that you can use to help create the life of your dreams.

What can you do to begin—or to practice—looking for the opportunity in every situation? What benefits might there be in experiencing more positive anabolic energy? What difference would that make to your life?

Together we can do it!

Photo by scottchan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net