As a hypnotherapist and coach, people come to see me because they want to change something in their lives; something that has become painful and too difficult to bear; so there is no motivation attached to it. Therefore, they come to me believing that it is very hard to change. The good news that I share with them is thatchange is automatic, change is constantly happening. Change can happen in an instant. Every day we are changing, everyday things around us change. Knowing that change is automatic allows us to shift our attention and think about progress. Progress by definition is movement towards a goal or to a further or higher stage. That’s what I can assist you with: Making progress in your life.
In order to start making progress, it is compelling to have a clear vision of what you want. Your vision has to excite you; you must feel pulled towards it; you must want to achieve it above anything else. Let me give you an example: If you say to me: “I want to lose 10 kilos”. Honestly, there is nothing exciting about that. Different to you saying:” I want to be fit and I want to be able to have the energy and fitness level to be able to go out and enjoy bike riding with my kids every Saturday. I want to look in the mirror and say yeah! Because I like what I see; I want to feel stronger than ever and I want to look younger!” Well now that gets me and anyone excited!
There are two types of motivation. We can either get motivated towards pain or pleasure. Motivation towards pain might work but it’s not sustainable in the longer term. If you believe that going to the gym is boring, hard and not fun, most likely you will go for some weeks but you will find it hard to keep it up in the future. On the other hand, motivation towards pleasure pulls you. You will do whatever it takes because you have a clear vision and you are excited therefore you create the energy required to achieve your goal. Where there is pain, you must turn your pain into greatness. You must turn your pain to get you from where you are to where you want to be. Stop running away from it and turn it into an objective.
In order to continue to be motivated, you have to make your goal compelling. By this I mean you have to have strong enough reasons why you are doing this so that when it gets tough you can create the energy to push yourself through. The goal has to be initiated and maintained by you and you only.
Once you have a clear vision of what you want, and it is exciting and with good enough reasons why you are doing this, then what you need to do is to review it everyday. Pay attention to this. This is where most people fail. They create a goal, they may get excited by it but they don’t review it in their mind everyday. Everyday you create a ritual; you make time to imagine yourself in the process of achieving your vision and imagine yourself once you have achieved your goal. You imagine, you feel, you dream and you focus on it. The reason why you must do this, relates to a part of your brain called the Reticular Activating System or RAS. The RAS determines what is it that you notice in the world. We can’t notice everything; if we did, our brain would be in complete overwhelm. By reviewing your goal everyday, your brain identifies that as a priority and will start giving attention to anything that relates to that goal. Your brain becomes very acute at noticing everything that will help you move forward.
Stop worrying about change. Decide on your vision, making it compelling, review it everyday and you will start moving forward, you will start making progress.
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