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Todays show continues on from the #300 show.

It’s part 2 in the series where I turn my signature paid product ‘Silence Self Sabotage’ which is a 6 step system to create your best body gain mindset into podcast format.

Everything I share today and also in the Wednesday and Friday shows this week will relate to Steps One and Two of ‘Silence Self Sabotage’ and that is DEFINE & ALIGN.

So, to recap last week we covered….

• The #1 Thing Preventing You From Having Your Ideal Body Now. In a word that’s: MINDSET.
• The 1st Success Strategy to Silence Self Sabotage. That’s: You Must Take Control Of How You Interpret Your World. 

Today we’ll cover:

• The 2nd Success Strategy to Silence Self Sabotage. That’s: What You Focus On Is What You Get – To The Exclusion Of Everything Else.

Let’s get straight into it.

As we’ve discussed, your mind will hunt for proof of whatever it is you believe. So if you have been focusing on what you don’t want – you will have been getting more of exactly that!

A great metaphor to illustrate this is racing car drivers. Ask anyone who has trained on safety courses what happened when as a new driver they were told to avoid the witches hat. Same thing every time, the new driver will hit the witches hat as they move towards what they are looking at. It can take many times before the driver learns to shift their focus from what they don’t want to hit to where they want to drive!

An experienced driver will tell you when you lose control look where you want to end up, not at that huge wall racing towards you.

Let’s apply this to goals. You’re doing just great going for your goal until you notice an obstacle or challenge. Too often instead of remaining focused on the goal you shift your focus instead to the challenge. Focus on what is a problem in getting where you want to go and you’ll get more of that problem.

Maybe you’ve heard this concept more readily applied to business? The most successful people are solution orientated.They spend 90% of their time focusing on the solution not the problem. Well it is exactly the same for body gain, you are much more likely to get the results you deserve if every time you encounter an obstacle you immediately switch to solution mode and ask yourself something along the lines of “Where is the opportunity or the lesson in this?”

If you think about it, this is not only going to be a more effective approach, it’ll also be a vastly more enjoyable journey. This is where you need to be brutally honest with yourself and ask: “How much control or influence do I have with regard to this situation?” 

A useful technique to employ at the time where you encounter an obstacle is a reframe. This is where you choose another way to look at the situation. An interpretation that encourages you to push through rather than to give up.When you change the meaning you give something you can change your whole world – by changing the way you behave in that world.

For example that niggling knee at first could be frustrating or it could be a good chance to get more core work and upper body weights done and the gail force winds and icy cold rain are not as nice as the stunning blue sky was on your early morning walk yesterday but wow you’re one of the hardy few totally demonstrating just how committed you are by heading out anyway.

I’ll share an off topic example; as a child I used to feel sad when I heard an ambulance because this meant to me that someone was in trouble. Until my mum told me that ever since I choked on my own vomit (nice!) as a baby and stopped breathing she knows there is someone anxiously waiting that is going to be incredibly relieved and happy to hear that siren getting closer.

Former GE CEO Jack Welch had a bad stutter as a child. It never held him back though, as his mum told him it was simply that his mind moved so fast how could his mouth possibly keep up with it? Awesome!

I’d like to share a reframe used by a therapist that I first heard through NLP master Chris Howard…

So there’s a woman and this woman’s problem was that she was an absolute neat freak. Overly concerned with how neat things had to be in the house. All the pictures had to be just perfect and if there were even faint footprints in the carpet she would get violently upset with the rest of the family. So the family took her in to see the therapist and said we’re desperate please do anything you can with her.

The therapist had the woman sit down and he said I want you to close your eyes for a second. The woman closed her eyes…. and the therapist said I want you to imagine walking into your house and as you do, I want you to imagine looking up and all the pictures are hung absolutely perfectly on the walls …and the woman gets a big smile on her face …and he said imagine walking in and seeing that the carpet is pristine. It’s perfect. There’s no footprints at all.

The woman has a huge smile at this point. And the therapist goes on …the carpet it’s all flat and perfectly vacuumed. Just notice how fresh it smells and how spotlessly clean it is …and the woman’s really totally beaming at this point.

AND he said: and I want you to realize right now, that that means that you’re all alone. And that totally shifted the underlying meaning that she associated to the cleanliness of the house.

Let bring this back to body gain and show you the value in using reframing to open your mind to new possibilities. It’s Sunday afternoon at the pub, gorgeous – nothing like lazy sunday beers to extend the weekend and as the sun beams down and laughs are shared – we’re all locals here – how good do those beers taste?

And talking of sharing, isn’t it so convenient that’s there’s always that generous person who thinks to order the couple of supersize bowls of steaming hot and crispy wedges with chili and sour cream? Perfect with beers and the tummy was just starting to rumble. Didn’t mum always say not to drink on an empty stomach?

Everyone is happily, eagerly digging in and as you reach for that first tasty hot wedge know that this means that tyre – the one that’s no longer just a love handle, that hangs right over your jeans that extra roll of fat just loves hot wedges too and it’s all ready to grow right into Mack truck tyre size!

As with any new habit this will seem a bit staged as you begin with the reframes and maybe some of my reframes will fall flat for you. That’s just fine it’s a matter of finding the ones that work for you and sticking with it until the ability to always look for the best begins to come naturally as I will assure you it sure will.

Lets recap our 2nd success strategy where what you focus on expands.

Perhaps my favourite metaphor for this, is that of the world wide web. Remember the last time you searched for something on the web? Let’s say we were to type in ‘Fat’ – that came up with 465 million hits.

Let’s try ‘Health’ – that’s 2 billion 140 million hits. WOW, so forgive me for a slight tangent but I’d love to share that ‘Love’ comes up with 4 billion and 60 million hits! The point of these examples?

Simple: Whatever you program into your mind and this is mostly happening unconsciously, is what your mind will search for in exactly the same way as the world wide web. All possibilities exist in every moment. The possibility you experience will be based directly on what you search for.

You will always behave on the outside in a manner that is consistent with the picture you have of yourself on the inside. Take a moment and think about your current self image. The way you see yourself. We could think of it as your inner mirror…you look into this mirror in every situation to see how your should perform on the outside. If you see yourself as someone who is lazy, who hates exercise or even simply someone who puts everyone else first and never has time for yourself and your own health …these are the directions you will continue giving to yourself until you change your self image.

It is said that expectation rules outcome. We don’t get what we want, we get what we expect! 

When I ask clients about what their self image was when they were healthy and enjoyed exercise – time and time again they recall that they used to see themselves as a person who exercised, as healthy and fit. Begin to see yourself as healthy, fit and lean because the person you see is the person you will be.

Let’s illustrate this with a belief cycle – actually two: One limiting and one empowering.

They are both self fulfilling prophecies and they are each also examples many clients I have known. Imagine if you will 9 little circles that from a larger circle and it’s an ongoing cycle that feeds itself. So, the first little circle holds the belief:

I have failed at fat loss before & probably will again and from there we move on => I am not a natural exerciser, eating nutritious food is boring & is there any point? (next) => I cannot imagine being fit & healthy at my goal weight (next) => I focus on how fat & sluggish I look & feel & imagine the pain of trying & failing again…maybe it’s safer to give up now? (next) => I feel unmotivated (next) => I do not make time for planning meals & getting in my exercise (next) => I resent the inconsistent exercise I do as I’m not yet seeing any results (next) => I notice how easy it seems for other people & start to convince myself that I just have a slow metabolism & it’s not my fault…and what’s wrong with a few extra kg’s anyway? (next) => I become less & less committed & I start to creep back to my old habits (next) => the results are non existent & I prove my belief to myself…and is this one familiar? => I have failed at fat loss before & probably will again…

Wow so they’re not fun thoughts to have so let’s check out belief cycle #2. This time the first little circle holds the belief:

I can achieve my goal weight (next) => I exercise & eat clean nutritious food because there is purpose to this(next) => I can imagine myself fit & healthy at my goal weight, I see how my body will look, feel the energy & confidence & hear the compliments I am receiving (next) =>I feel confident (next) => I make time for planning meals & getting in my exercise (next) => I enjoy the exercise as I’m focusing on the end result (next) => I notice an increase in energy levels & my clothes getting looser (next) => this makes me even more committed & I fine tune my training and nutrition (next) => the results continue to flow & I prove my belief to myself => ANNNNDD…the belief; I can achieve my goal weight is realized.

Now if this is a whole lot of new information to take in and you’re not sure exactly how it sits with you yet – that’s just fine. It originally left my head spinning too. What I found to be a simple approach was to ask myself this question: “Does choosing to accept this success strategy give me a powerful tool for transforming my body and truly enhancing my experience of life?” If you answered Yes, it’s really good that you say that and I’m excited for you because the ability to chose what you focus on, not only brings amazing results – it also allows you to escape the overwhelm and fear that people who focus on what they can’t control are doomed to experience.

Do you need a super thorough extended mega-mix understanding of exactly how this all works OR do you just want to enjoy the results? Personally it’s like electricity to me. I’m going to flip the switch and enjoy with close to zero real appreciation of all that’s going on behind the scenes!

Ok, so we’re doing well – we’ve covered the importance of your beliefs and how they are going to help or hinder you in achieving your body gain goal. We’ve also looked at success strategy #1; You Must Take Control Of How You Interpret Your World. And we’re clear on success strategy #2; What You Focus On Is What You Get – To The Exclusion Of Everything Else.

I think this is a pretty good spot to finish up with the time of the actionable.

I’m going to keep it simple today as there are a lot of action steps throughout this series. Today let’s go with FOCUS and what you focus on expands. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of your current focus and how perhaps you could upgrade or reframe it to make achieving your body gain goal easier?

Like the new racing car driver do you tend to focus on the obstacle rather than the goal?

Whatever jumps out at you first, ONE focus upgrade is the action step for today.

That’s it for me today. I hope you’ll join me to continue the ‘Silence Self Sabotage‘ journey with show #302 on Wednesday.

If you liked this you’ll also like: If I had to start again, this is what I would do.

If you’re yet to share the Healthification love – just click here to zip over to iTunes and leave an honest rating and review. It’d help me out big time. With gratitude, Kate.