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“To believe in the things you can see and touch is no belief at all but to believe in the unseen is a triumph and a joy”. Abraham Lincoln 1809 - 1865

The New Year brings with it the promise of new things, it is a time when many people resolve to affect changes in their lives whether it is to quit smoking, drop a dress size or join the gym the intention is to do some good. This is the time of year when advertisers are busiest bringing your attention to the goods and services available to assist you in attaining your goal or even setting a goal in the first place! Titles and slogans that make it seem that your dream is within your reach and you barely have to lift a finger to get it, the magic pill or diet, make a million working 7 minutes a day – wonder if I’d settle for half a million would I only have to work 3.5 minutes a day hmmm…..

Well now that we are a month and a half into the New Year I wonder just how much value has been had from all the money invested in bringing about the desired change, no doubt some but the sad truth is that most New Year resolutions will have been filed away in the back of the mind with last years and the years before that, the exercise bike will be gathering dust along with the gadgets, books and other media purchased so eagerly to fulfil the dream. So how can it be if everything is so easy that we are not all rich or have the perfect figure, relationships and health. The answer to this dilemma is not so straight forward and may vary from person to person in terms of ability etc. but there is one thing common to whether you succeed or fail and that is how you see yourself.

The Self Image

Everything starts, and finishes, with the image you hold of your self. Just think for a moment of all the things you have achieved or failed to achieve and think back on how you saw yourself at that time and just as importantly how you felt. You see we think in pictures, think of when you got your first car or undertook driving lessons, you didn’t just decide I’ll buy a car or say to yourself it’s probably best I learn to drive and just went and did it – no chance. You will have spent hours thinking and feeling what it will be like to be driving around in your new car, to have the freedom of having a driving licence, of being able to get from place to place with little effort and in your own time in fact you will have seen yourself drive hundreds of miles in your imagination perhaps with friends having a great time and all at a time when you had neither licence or car. In short you saw yourself doing it and you held that image until it became your reality.

You might be asking what all this has to do with health, fitness and wellbeing in general because this is what I said this blog would be about; I hope you are beginning to see that it has everything to do with it. If you do not see yourself as the size 8 or 10 or the healthy, happy individual you were intended to be then what are your chances of ever realising it? We have no problem in imagining what we know, or at least have a fair idea, we can get but we usually stop well short of what we are capable of just as Abraham Maslow (1908 – 1970) observed, “we sell ourselves short”.

Whatever your chosen endeavour you must begin with the end in mind, you must have a clear image of having the thing you desire. It must also be ‘realistic’ and I say this in tentative way as we usually underestimate what it is we are capable of, that said, if you want to be a famous singer but do not have the voice for it then it is very unlikely that you will succeed irrespective of how strongly you desire it – think X Factor/Pop Idol auditions!! It is possible though there could be a career suitable to your talents in that particular industry, just because you can’t sing doesn’t mean you can’t write great songs, play an instrument or spot talent and develop it or even improve on your singing with training. Having an aptitude for the object of you dream is an advantage but not entirely necessary what is necessary is that you analyse the feedback and adjust your course so as to increase your chances of success.

Setting your Course

Do you remember when you fell in love and you couldn’t get the image of that person out of your mind, you would think about them all the time, effortlessly. Well this is sort of what we need to do if we are to succeed in achieving our hearts desire, we need create the image of having the thing we want and fall in love with that image so we can dwell on it effortlessly. You don’t fall in love with someone and immediately get married, set up home together and have a couple of children all within the blink of an eye, of course not. You didn’t decide you were going to drive a car and one day jump in behind the wheel and take off without a glitch; neither of these scenarios would be realistic although it’s possible that they could happen quite quickly.

This brings us back to where we started this discussion as to why so many fail in their resolutions well it’s because they do not have a clear image of themselves as having the thing they desire. Lets say for example you see, in your minds eye, yourself as a size 16 but want to be a 12 you are not going to be a 12 because your self image is working against your desire. I quit smoking almost six years ago, it wasn’t my first attempt but it was different to all other attempts and I am pleased to say successful. So what was different? Well firstly in prior attempts I saw myself as having stopped or quit smoking, if you are a smoker try to see yourself as having stopped or quit smoking and I’ll bet the image you get is of you smoking – you can apply this to whatever you are trying to stop or quit. When asked I would say I don’t smoke, again the image was of me with a cigarette the reason being is that we see in pictures and the brain cant bring up a picture of ‘don’t smoke’ or ‘quit smoking’ it understands smoke so the picture you get is of smoking. So here’s the magic; I began to see myself as a non smoker, now the brain can cope with that much the same as you saw yourself as a driver or in your new car, and it was with that image that I succeeded. I was often times challenged but I reverted to my image of being a non smoker and that enabled me to resist the temptation to smoke again.

Baby Steps

Now your course is set, you have an image the mind can work with and this is where you need to be careful. In today’s fast paced world the goal is for instant gratification, at least this is what we are fed through the media and it is very effective at selling stuff but not so good if you are not seeing results as ‘quick’ as the advertising would imply. Think about this for a moment, we might want quick results but we all know that some effort is required on our part the most of which is to keep your thoughts focused on your desired outcome, in doing so you are 75% of the way to realising your goal.

Earl Nightingale (1921-1989)once said ‘if most people said what they thought they would be speechless’ you might laugh at that but sadly it’s true, mental activity does not constitute thinking. Most people are after one thing today and something else tomorrow never staying with anything long enough to experience success but this is not you, you know what you want and you will get there by keeping the end in mind and taking baby steps toward that end – leaps if they are there to be had but baby steps are good enough after all isn’t this how we learned to walk, talk, drive or dance.

Create a new image for yourself one of health and happiness, feel it and believe it possible because it most assuredly is, go back and read the quote from Abraham Lincoln he understood something that very same something we are discussing here.

See you next time.

Live out Loud

Liam