To have the health and body you want, you need to stop your negative thoughts. Because they drive everything you do (e.g., overeat) and don’t do (e.g., get to the gym). Good or bad, they determine your results.
You probably have an awareness that you sabotage yourself. But you likely haven’t keyed in on exactly how. As I shared in step one of my process, to stop your negative thoughts you must first Uncover them. (Step two is Clarify.)
My third step is Transform. This is where you take your power back. Where you have authority over your negative thought patterns. Even when you’re having a bad day. This is the turning point because it’s what keeps you consistently taking the actions you need and want to take.
The tendency is, once you identify a negative thought, to simply replace it with a positive affirmation. My guess is you’ve tried that. And it’s not working.
Like you might think, “I’ve tried before…I just can’t lose weight and keep it off.” And so you replace it with “My past doesn’t equal my future…I can do anything I set my mind to.” And you might want to think that, but to jump from self-perceived failure to unstoppable doesn’t feel true.
Instead, let me share the process I take my clients through – and I go through myself – to transform your thoughts from negative to helpful in order to take positive action:
- Observe: Take a mental step back. Watch the thought. Say to yourself “I notice I’m thinking that ‘I’ve tried before…I just can’t lose weight and keep it off.’” This shifts you slightly away from the thought. Instead of identifying so closely with it, you notice that it’s just something you’re thinking.
- Open up: Once you practice observing, consider a tiny possibility. Add to the end of the noticing sentence “… and just maybe that’s not completely true.” Opening up creates a little more breathing room, moving you further from the initial thought.
- Expand: After spending some time in that space, enlarge your idea of possibility. Such as “other people have lost weight after unsuccessful attempts…maybe I can, too.” Whatever thought you pick, it needs to move you further towards your ideal thought and it needs to feel believable.
- Explore: What could you start to believe about your past that’s helpful? Maybe “I’ve learned a lot about what doesn’t work to lose weight… now I don’t have to waste time repeating those mistakes and I can learn from them instead.”
- And ultimately… Keep going through this process of seeing possibilities until you get to the thought you really want to believe: “My past doesn’t equal my future…I can do anything I set my mind to.”
When you regularly Transform your negative thoughts, you’ll find that you’re not constantly negotiating with yourself. Sabotaging yourself. You find it easier to keep commitments to yourself, to stay on track. And you feel better on a regular basis.
It is worth the work, my friends!
Yes, Yes, Yes! It seems hard but I can do hard things.
Yes, you can!
Absolutely. Starting with changing up my thoughts and talking baby steps.