When almost everyone comes to my facility, whether it is for personal training, Muscle Activation Techniques, or coaching, I ask them what they hope to take away from the experience – what goals they hope to achieve from our time together. I would say about 95 percent (and that´s being a bit generous) of the people tell me what they don´t want. They tell me they hope to lose their belly or love handles. They tell me they want to lose twenty pounds or get rid of fat. They tell me they want to get rid of pain or soreness. They tell me they want to stop feeling bad about something or stop doing something they think is unhealthy like overeating or smoking. What rarely anyone ever tells me right off the bat is what they do want.
It´s hard to get away from something you have your eyes set on. If you are focused on what you don´t want, you tend to get more of it simply by the fact that you get what you focus on. Not to mention, if you don´t know where you want to go, how can you expect to get there? It´s like going to a travel agent and saying you want to go “not here!" It´s hard for them to direct you if you have no destination in mind. The same goes for your body – if you don´t know where your hard work is going to be applied, how would your body know what to do with the stimulus?
So if you are working out to get rid of what you don´t like or you are doing some sort of therapy or treatment to get rid of pain or you are doing some coaching to fix a problem, chances are you won´t get too far. With a negative focus, the two factors mentioned above will work to keep you exactly where you are. However, it is not too hard to make a shift in how you approach this.
Take a moment to ask yourself what it is you hope to achieve from any endeavor you may be involved in regarding your health and your body. Chances are you are hoping to change where you are. That means you will most likely be focused on what you don´t want. The easiest way to change this focus is to ask yourself where you would be if you didn´t have that. For example, if you want to get rid of your love handles, where will you be when you lose them? What would you look like? Feel like? What do you want as the end result? Losing your love handles is not an end goal; it´s just getting away from where you are. If you were no longer there, where would you be?
Don´t worry if you can´t answer this at first. Most people are so used to focusing on what they don´t want that they have a hard time figuring what they do want. And if you can´t do this after giving it some serious thought, then you might feel too negative about where you are. When you are really feeling bad about where you are it might be too difficult to get a read on what you want – seeing what you want from a really bad place is just too far of a reach. If this is the case, take some time to make peace with where you are. Try to find some way of easing up about where you are. When you feel better your vision of what you do want will be more accessible. The better you feel about where you are, the easier it will be to see what you want as an end result.
(See article about how to make peace from the last newsletter:
http://thethoughtdiet.com/layout3/newsarticles/april09howtomake . )
Setting your sights on a positive end goal can be the difference between success and failure. It can also be the difference between a long road of hard work and a short road doing something you are inspired to do. When you have something in front of you that is exciting, not only is your body chemically and energetically in a better state for change to happen, but you will be pulled into action that supports your vision as opposed to being pushed to do something so you don´t end up where you don´t want to be.
One of the reasons I think most people get caught up in this way of thinking is because complaining and talking about what we don´t want or what is wrong with things dominates our conversations. We hear it from everywhere and everyone. You can´t turn on the radio or TV without someone talking a problem. It´s rare that two people share all the great stuff going on their lives. They most likely spend time talking about what is not working – complaining. Next time you are either involved in a conversation or you hear someone near you talking, pay attention to what is being talked about in this regard. There is a very good chance that you will hear some complaining – and it might be coming from you.
If you catch yourself complaining, try to turn the conversation from a problem discussion into a solution discussion. From every problem comes a solution. Even if you don´t have a solution, try to find a better way to talk about “what is" or “what was." Lead your conversation in the direction of a solution. You can also do this if someone you are talking to is complaining. Ask him, “So, now what?" or “What´s next?" or “What can you do about that?" Encourage him to look beyond “what is" and get into the conversation of what is possible. The problem creates the solution; talking about the problem only feeds into the problem and keeps you from the solution.
The same goes for your body. Pay attention to how you predominantly think and talk about your body and health. Do you complain about “what is" and how things “have been"? If so, it´s time to start talking about “what´s next." Where you have been has helped you to determine where you want to be. Quit using where you are as your excuse to keep you from where you want to be.
