Negative thought patterns are all too common among dieters and one of the main reasons why so many are unable to lose weight permanently. To find out if you have a generally negative attitude toexercise, healthy eating and weight loss, just listen carefully to what that little voice in your head begins saying when you think about making some real positive changes in your life.
Following are ten simple, workable rules for overcoming inadequacy attitudes and learning to practice faith. Thousands have used these rules, reporting successful results. Undertake these parameters and you, too, will build up confidence in your powers. You, too, will have a new feeling of power.
Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop this picture. Never think of yourself as failing; never doubt the reality of the mentalimage. That is most dangerous, for the mind always tries to complete what it pictures. So always picture ‘success’ no matter how badly things seems to be going at the moment.
Whenever a negative thought concerning your personal powers comes to mind, deliberately voice a positive thought to cancel it out. How you view yourself, weight loss, and living a healthy lifestyle, has a lot to do with how much you weigh. If you see yourself as always being fat, your efforts as useless, eating healthy as torture, and exercise as a boring waste of time, then your actions will continue to support those thoughts. In order to change your weight and bad habits you must first change the way you think.
Do not build up obstacles in your imagination. Depreciate every so-called obstacle. Minimize them. Difficulties must be studied and efficiently dealt with to be eliminated, but they must be seen for only what they are. They must not be inflated by fear thoughts. Do not be ewe-struck by other people and try to copy them. Nobody can be you as efficiently as YOU can. Remember also that most people, despite their confident appearance and demeanour, are often as scared as you are and as doubtful of themselves.
Get Spiritually connected– Ten times a day repeat these dynamic words: “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans viii.31.) (Stop reading and repeat them NOW slowly and confidently.) Set aside time each day to be connected spiritually. People who are trying to change their behavior often experience depression, anger, sadness, boredom, and other uncomfortable thoughts or feelings. Unfortunately most people choose to tune out these thoughts/feelings with music, extra curricular activities, television, food, alcohol, shopping, video games, or the internet. It’s a much easier and less painful alternative than tuning in to what’s really going on. But tuning in can provide insight about your eating and exercise patterns like you wouldn’t believe.
Get a competent counselor to help you understand why you do what you do. Learn the origin of your inferiority and self-doubt feelings which often begin in childhood. Self-knowledge leads to a cure. Don’t underestimate the power of a therapist or support group. While some people mock therapy, saying it’s for weak people, it actually takes a great deal of personal strength to go to therapy and address what you consider character flaws. A therapist or support group can cheer you on as you head towards your weight loss goal, and give you another perspective if you are at a plateau.
Practice affirmation: Ten times each day practice the following affirmation, repeating it out loud if possible. “I can do all things.” Repeat those words NOW. That magic statement is the most powerful antidote on earth to inferiority thoughts.
Make a true estimate of your own ability, then raise it 10 percent. Do not become egotistical, but develop a wholesome self-respect. Believe in your own powers.
Wake up Early-One of the best ways to help you maintain a positive attitude is to create the habit of waking up early. Waking up early allows you to get a head start on the day. You can prepare for work and start your day without feeling rushed. You can get a head start on important projects before the rest of the world is awake to interrupt you.
Understand that Things Won’t Always Go as Planned– If you plan and expect everything in life will go as you planned, you will be quickly disappointed. Have you ever given up on working out just because you skipped one too many of the workouts you had scheduled. Have you ever blown your diet several times in a day and gone on a junk food binge because you felt like a failure? This type of behavior is a product of all or nothing thinking; where everything is either perfect or you give up. One of the keys to maintaining a positive attitude is to understand that things will go wrong. If you expect things to go wrong, you won’t be phased when they do. So have a plan, but understand that things won’t follow the plan. The plan allows you to adapt to what went wrong and move back towards what is important.
Changing your mind is crucial to losing weight. Surround yourself with positive people and you will be more positive.
You’ll know you’ve developed a positive attitude when you start to expect success, you engage in positive, constructive and creative thinking, become optimistic about the future, find the motivation to accomplish your goals, look at failure and problems as blessings in disguise, believe in yourself and display self-esteem and confidence in everything you do.
