Achieving Your Goals Part VI – Change Your Thinking

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“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” – Buddha

Success or failure is a matter of the mind. The mind is the single most important element that will determine success or failure. Once you make up your mind to succeed nothing will stop you.

How to believe in yourself

That is a simple enough statement to make, and many self-help speakers will tell you to believe in yourself but wont explain how. I will explain here several different areas of your thinking that you must adjust. 

Control your thoughts

Firstly you need to recognize that your thoughts are in your control. You control what you think. It may not always seem that way. It may seem like thoughts just pop into your head but you have the power to continue thinking along those lines or not. You have the power to evaluate the thought for accuracy and adjust it as necessary.

Evaluate your thoughts for accuracy

For instance, if you have a thought that you will never be thin. Evaluate this thought carefully. Firstly, you can’t know the future so you can’t know if you will never be thin. What is a more accurate thought to have? Perhaps that you have had difficulty in managing your weight in the past and you believe that it might be challenging to manage your weight in the future. But it is possible. So immediately you have moved from an impossible task to a possible one.

Think Realistically

The next thing that you must remind yourself is that while it is challenging, if you keep doing what you are supposed to be doing every day you will in fact get thin. You must think about the fact that you have a plan and as long as you follow your plan you are sure to succeed. So you have moved from a possibility to a surety. That is, as long as you are willing to follow the plan. So you realize at this point, that you have the power over whether or not you get thin. The choice is yours to follow the plan you created to achieve the goal or not to follow the plan. So all you have to do is decide each day to follow the plan.

Reject negative thoughts

But sometimes we can defeat ourselves by thinking of how long it is going to take to achieve the goal. The trick here is to not think of this. If you do think of this, remind yourself that the time will pass anyway whether you are trying to achieve your goal or not. So you might as well have something to show for it. All you need to do is to follow the plan today. If you are trying to eat healthy and you find yourself thinking tha tyou will never get to have a sweet again, this is a useless thought. You need to think of today. Today you will refrain from sweets. Today you will eat healthy. Let tomorrow deal with itself. Sometimes we can frighten ourselves thinking about the future. All you need to do is to make the decision each day to do what you need to do today in order to achieve your goal. That is all. Don’t think too much further for now.

Stay conscious of your goal

Keep your goal in mind as often as possible. And think not of the effort you need to exert to achieve the goal but about the achievement of the goal. Think of how great you are going to look in your new bikini. Think of that corner office. And really visualize it fully. Every day you should visualize some positive benefit of fulfilling your goal. Think of the new fashionable clothes you will be able to fit into. Think of how healthy you will feel. Think of how much more energy you will have. If you get winded climbing the stairs think of being able to run up the stairs easily. Think of the compliments you will get. Think of the pride and sense of accomplishment you will have from knowing that you succeeded. Think of as many positives as you can.

Visualize success

Really visualize it fully. Imagine yourself strutting on the beach with your new shapely bod and all the admiring eyes. It is important to imagine your feelings. Fully visualising your success will not only put your subconscious to work to bring about that reality, but it will direct your conscious to make the choices that will facilitate the achievement of that state. Keeping your goal in mind will help you to resist the temptation to break your plan.

Treat setbacks as minor

Be realistic. Expect obstacles and setbacks. So you miss one day of exercise or give in to one slice of cake, don’t let this herald failure of the plan. Recognize that it is just a minor setback. Get back on your plan immediately. Persist. Persevere. Never give up. Be determined to succeed, no matter what.

Learn from your mistakes

Think about the slipup and identify what caused it. Were you feeling depressed and so you ate the cake? Were you feeling too tired and so you missed exercise? Try to make a plan for the next time you are depressed. Maybe that will be a good time to exercise, or call a friend or go watch a movie (or try any of the tips in the How to battle depression article). Make a plan to ensure that the next time you are depressed you don’t turn to cake and the next time you are tired you don’t use that as an excuse to miss exercise. The important thing is to recognize that one slipup does not a failure make. Learn all you can from the slip up and keep going with your plan.

Be positive

The trick to this is to be as positive as possible. Think always that you can and will succeed. Challenge negative thinking. Think of what you need to do to succeed today. Keep your goal at the forefront of your mind. Be persistent in the face of setbacks. Whenever you think of how hard the going is, think of what you will ultimately achieve. Remind yourself that you are making this effort so you can achieve this goal.

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Next article in the Achieving Your Goals Series: Discipline, Persistence, Vocabulary

Related Articles:

• The Power of Realistic Positive Thinking
• Achieving Your Goals Part I – Goal Identification
• Achieving Your Goals Part II – Form a Plan
• Achieving Your Goals Part III – Make a Commitment
• Achieving Your Goals Part IV – Staying Motivated
• Achieving Your Goals Part V – Change Your Environment
• Achieving Your Goals Part VII – Discipline, Persistence, Vocabulary

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 21st, 2006 at 4:46 pm and is filed under A New Start, Goals . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.