Wouldn’t it be great if we could attain the body of our dreams just by thinking about it? What if I told you that your mind actually plays the most important role in your success in getting fit? Sounds crazy, but it’s true…

Our subconscious mind has one all-important job, and it succeeds every time. What is this job? To prove that your beliefs are true. Note the wording here: To prove that YOUR BELIEFS are true. Not to point out what is actually true. Nope, though what a difference that would make.

Your beliefs are the truth for your life. It is that simple. Whether or not these beliefs are in fact true doesn’t matter. If you believe something to be true, then your subconscious mind will perceive the universe around you in such a way that makes this belief true.

Here’s an example, if you believe that in general people like you then when you meet a new person your subconscious will point out reasons why this person does indeed like you. You will interpret their smile and handshake in a different way than someone who has the belief that no one likes them.

So how does this relate to your fitness level?

If you have the belief that getting in shape is hard, that eating healthy is boring, or that weight loss is elusive then you will find getting in shape to be very difficult. If you think of yourself as a fat person, or an out-of-shape person, or just an average person then your subconscious mind will do everything in its power to keep you that way.

Wow - isn’t that amazing? Take a minute to let that sink in.

The great thing about our subconscious mind is that we can train it to work for us instead of against us. All we have to do is change our beliefs.

I’m sure you have heard the term “Believe and Achieve” - many schools have this painted on their walls and it is even printed on T-shirts. Well, the concept is absolutely true and when applied can bring success to your door faster than you thought possible.

It won’t help if you simply think that it ‘isn’t impossible’ or that ‘it could happen someday.’ These aren’t true beliefs.

In order to have your desired result you need to truly believe with every fiber of your being that you will achieve this goal. If you are overweight then close your eyes and picture yourself fit. If you have fifty pounds to lose then think of yourself as fifty pounds lighter.

You will always be what you believe yourself to be.

Here is your ACTION PLAN. Practice Progressive Thinking.

Before anything manifests in your life, it must begin first in your mind. You have to visualize it first and then make the decision, or intent, to make it happen.

Some people go through this process unconsciously and some consciously. You experience your best results when you consciously engage in a system of progressive thinking. Here’s how it works:

Set Your Priorities. Most people nowadays are overscheduled and live life with too many things to do. Appointments, taking your car to get fixed, meeting with clients and associates, returning phone calls, paperwork, meetings, shopping, school, etc. Too many things to do with not enough time.

As you struggle to keep up with all of these tasks, another set of tasks and responsibilities replace them. It’s kind of like the postman who delivers your mail …he never gets caught up because there’s always new letters and packages to deliver the next day.

Because of this, you will most likely never be totally caught up with your tasks and responsibilities at home and work. Therefore, one of the most important skills you can develop is to sort through all of these tasks and prioritize them. Dump unnecessary tasks, contract out things that you can afford to (cutting the grass, cleaning, etc.), and devote a balanced amount of time on things that are most important in your life, such as your relationships, recreation and relaxation, and exercise. If you get a chance, pick up the book by Dr. Stephen Covey called, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” He devotes a whole chapter on the subject of time management basing it on what’s most important to you, or your values.

This may require some time to analyze and think about. Go to a quiet park alone with a notebook and right down everything most important in your life and then everything that can wait. The things that are important are your values, and most likely you learned them at a young age.

Can you learn something later in life as an adult if you were never introduced to it at a young age, like fitness or sports? Yes. It’s a little harder, but it is possible. All it takes is viewing it as something important and practicing a lot. Practice, practice, and more practice will enable the activity to enter your subconscious mind and then you can do it automatically. It’s kind of like learning a foreign language as an adult. You have to really practice a lot and make it a priority to want to learn. Those who are serious even take a trip to a country where the language is spoken and spend at least three months to perfect it. Anything worthwhile in life takes effort.

I realize that many adults were not sufficiently exposed to fitness or sports as a child and may find these activities “hard” to do. As a result, they don’t value these activities (and others) and don’t devote time towards them. What I have found out with these people is that once they learn how to properly exercise and how to develop an effective exercise program, they become more excited and incorporate exercise into their life.

This is one reason why I believe it’s a huge mistake for school systems to “cut out” or significantly reduce physical education programs for youth. Learning how to run, jump, skip, catch, kick, play sports and other physical activities are important skills a child can learn at a young age and continue for a lifetime of good health, fitness and recreation. These are positive habits a person can start at a young age and continue for a lifetime. School administrators and parents must place more importance in the area of physical education, because what’s more important than your health and well-being ?

Develop Specific Goals. The clearer and more concise you develop your goals, the faster you will manifest them. People who have clear goals achieve them because they know exactly what they want and are focused on their target.

One reason why people don’t accomplish goals is because they were too vague to begin with. Vagueness, fuzziness, and confusion about what you are supposed to do and how to do it are major reasons for procrastination and laziness.

Most people start their exercise program with a goal of “losing weight.” This is way too vague. This could be re-written like: I am reducing my body fat percentage from 22% to 20% in 90 days. This goal is now specific, objective and time oriented.

I often hear another popular goal to “improve my health.” What does this mean? Again, too vague and not specific enough. A more specific goal related to health could be to “I am reducing my total cholesterol from 230 to 205 within 90 days.”

Make Your Goals Realistic. Set your goals high enough, but make sure they are attainable for your specific situation. For example, if you have a body fat percentage of 39%, don’t create a goal to attain a body like Carmen Electra within 90 days. It just won’t happen in that time frame. Set a goal to your reduce your body fat percentage by a few points within 3 or 4 months and then re-set your goal.

If you are 40 years old and haven’t played competitive basketball since your early twenties, don’t set a goal to play in a Level A Competitive Adult Recreation Basketball League. Don’t let the word “Recreation” fool you. People who play in these A Level Recreation Leagues are serious and play at the college level. There’s a good chance you won’t make it through the first quarter, or you’ll seriously get hurt. I’ve seen many people trying to re-live their high school years and get hurt by not being realistic. A better goal would be to first play in a 35 and Over Adult Basketball League and then progress from there.

Put It On Paper. One of my former supervisors told me, “ if it’s not on paper, it’s not a goal.” So very true. When you write your goals on paper, something magical happens. You give it energy, and it’s one step forward towards becoming a physical reality. Otherwise, it’s just a wish or a fantasy.

Brian Tracy, one of America’s leading authorities on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness, provides an interesting statistic about the power of writing your goals in one of his books on Time Management:

“Only about 3 percent of adults have clear, written goals. These people accomplish five and ten times as much as people of equal or better education and abilities but who, for whatever reason, have never taken the time to write out exactly what it is they want.”

Set A Timeline. If you don’t set a timeline for accomplishing your goal(s), then you won’t have any sense of urgency. It will be easy for you to make excuses to eat junkfood or skip workouts. You will naturally procastinate and not accomplish much of anything.

Let’s say for example it is April 1st and you are planning a trip to visit your relatives that live in Mexico on June 1st. That gives you 2 months exactly to look your best before you see your relatives that you haven’t seen in a while. And, of course, you want to make impression that everyone will notice immediately. An example could be:

I am dropping 2 dress sizes in 2 months.

In this example, if you don’t develop a sense of urgency and do everything you are supposed to do to attain your goal, you won’t drop 2 dress sizes.

Your relatives won’t specifically know that you dropped 2 dress sizes. They will just notice that you look great sleeveless and strikingly gorgeous. They also won’t know that you had a plan to progressively think your way into creating a great body, but they don’t need to know this little fact. Keep it to yourself and make it look effortless.

Visualize Your Goals. See yourself in your mind already completing your goal. See yourself already looking great and attaining your specific goals. Think as if it’s already a done deal.

 

Visualize yourself at your ideal body fat percentage.

Visualize your doctor congratulating you for attaining a total cholesterol score of 159.

Visualize yourself wearing a size 2 dress size.

Visualize yourself playing your favorite sport at your desired level of play.

Visualize yourself with twice as much energy, etc.

Replay this image in your mind over and over every day, preferably when you are alone and undisturbed. Play the image in your mind in slow motion and in the present tense.

Your subconscious mind does not know the difference between the past or the future. It just thinks in the now tense.

Don’t get this confused with day dreaming or fantasizing. Daydreaming and fantasizing means to visualize images in your mind that you consciously know are unrealistic. For example, let’s say you don’t even know one chord in playing the guitar, but yet you fantasize every day about becoming the next superstar guitar player like Jimi Hendrix. Not going to happen. In fact, you consciously know it’s not going to happen. It ends up being a form of mental entertainment for the ego, at the cost of wasting your time, energy, and completing worthwhile goals.

Practice The Power of Affirmations. If you really want to accelerate your success in attaining your goals, practice the power of affirmations. When you do this, something powerful happens … your goals are accomplished quicker.

After you complete the above-mentioned steps in progressive thinking, pull your notebook out with your goals and affirm them to yourself. You can do it out loud (if nobody is around), or quietly to yourself. The important thing is to consistently do it every day at least twice a day. Once in the morning before you start your day and then before you go to sleep.

After a while doing this, you will no longer need your notebook to do your affirmations. Each affirmation should be memorized to the point that you could do this anywhere, like waiting in line at the bank or if you take a 15 minute break at your work by taking a walk outside.

There’s one little aspect to keep in mind when doing affirmations. Say them in the present tense. I already mentioned this before, but I’d like to stress this point again. Your subconscious mind only thinks in terms of the present tense and will respond to your requests or your goals with this kind of language.

Why is the subconscious mind important? Your subconscious mind is the part of your being that connects directly with your higher self and is always right. Everything you have ever learned throughout your life has been recorded in your subconscious mind and is ready for your retrieval. The trick is knowing how to feed your mind the correct information based on your intents and then knowing how to tap into this information for manifestation purposes. When an idea is programmed enough into your subconscious mind, whether it’s good or bad, it can change your mindset and become a physical reality.

This is a good thing but can also be something very unhealthy. For example, some people have such a poor self-image that they spend all day (consciously and unconsciously) saying terrible things about themselves in their mind like:

 

I am so ugly

I hate myself

I am a terrible person

I am so fat

I have such a huge butt

I am ineffective at work

I never achieve success

What they don’t realize is that these negative self-affirmations have detrimental effects on themselves and their reality. By constantly saying you are fat or overweight, you are triggering your subconscious mind to send signals to your conscious mind to take action by eating junkfood not exercising, or other negative behaviors. Why? Because you programmed your subconscious mind to think like this which then leads to your actual behavior.

The good news is that you can reverse this way of thinking into the positive and re-program your subconscious mind. The way to do this is to be conscious of your affirmations and self talk and be consistent every day affirming. It’s not that easy in the beginning, but with consistent focus and discipline, you will achieve amazing results.

Examples of affirmations:

 

I look great in my size 2 dress.

I am playing tennis better than ever.

My total cholesterol is 140.

My body is changing in positive ways.

My confidence level is soaring.

I am an energetic person.

I am learning new things every day in the area of health and fitness.

Your subconscious mind only comprehends affirmations in the present tense; not in the past tense or future tense. Always state or write your affirmations in the present tense like the examples above.

If this area of affirmations really interests you, there’s a couple of books I highly recommend that go into this topic in great detail: “Manifest Your Destiny,” by Dr. Wayne Dyer and “Affirmations,” by Stuart Wilde. Both of these books are a little esoteric and metaphysical, but very much on target.

I have to admit something…I believe that everyone who comes to me can and will get into the best shape of their lives. This belief is so strong that most often my clients also begin to believe in themselves, and amazing results are achieved.

If you have questions or comments, just send me an email.