Changing Habits - Reinventing Myself Part 3
Reducing stress & enhancing exercise
Let’s explore more example and then get into how we fine tune this process. Just a quick reminder that the keys to success are to explore your inner WHY and decide that the pain of change is better than the pain you are in. Write out your process in detail following the 5 steps. Repeat, repeat, repeat your reading and practice until it is second nature. It is in fact the new you – reinvented.
EXAMPLE:
Example #2: I am tired of being out of shape, no stamina and feeling like a slug. I need to enhance my commitment to exercise. I need to learn to LOVE exercise.
1. Vision – my desired future: I need to install a new belief that exercise is my closest friend and best ally in restoring health and enhancing my longevity. Exercise is how the body is intended to thrive. We were built to move and extend our physical potential as a means to ward off all disease. A sluggish body is inviting disease of all sorts but a lean, active, energetic body will live longer, healthier and avoid most of the potential pitfalls of aging. My exercise is the tool that enhances my energy, promotes deeper sleep, improves cognition and mental creativity, and my sense of calm. I am addicted to daily exercise. Exercise is my priority – work is just a distraction.
2. Old disabling beliefs I want to change or extinguish:
- Emotions: I hate to sweat, it's a drag. Exercise is painful and laborious. There is no fun only suffering there. Absolute dread. It’s boring and redundant.
- Behaviors / Actions / Habits: I’m too busy with my important life activities to stop and exercise. I’ll exercise today if I find tame LATER. It's the least important thing on my Top Do list. Distract myself with menial tasks to convince myself that I don’t have the time. Put it off until tomorrow. Always tomorrow or later.
- Thoughts: I’m too old, too busy, too achy, too uncoordinated to exercise. I’ve never liked exercise so I can't just start now. I don’t know how to do it and I can’t afford a trainer. It will make me more tired and I’m already fatigued. It will strain my joints and muscles and possibly lead to injury. I don’t have the equipment, and I don't have a gym membership. I don’t like working out alone and there is no one to do it with. I simply don't have any desire.
3. New Paradigm: how I will think, act, and feel moving forward.
- Emotions: my body was built to move through a wide range of motion and generate heat and sweat as this is how it rejuvenates itself. Exercise is a detoxification process that allows me to clean junk out of my system. I take joy in controlling the pace and type of exercise I do. I am in control and I am learning that its mind over matter. I am empowered by the idea that I am taking control of my health destiny. I am proud of my efforts and impressed that people 10 years younger than me can’t keep up with what I am doing. I am an inspiration to my friends and family, and my actions are motivating them to be healthier. I am blown away by how good I feel and how my mood is so elevated after completing a solid workout. Exercising outdoors puts me back in nature, getting fresh air and sunshine that elevates my mood and brings me closer to God. I am shocked at how easy this has become and how rewarding it feels.
- Behaviors / Actions / Habits: I make plans to exercise every single day and if I miss a couple of days that still nets 5 days of exercise per week. I plan all of my workouts for the week on Sunday so there is no guessing the time or activity – it's already planned into my weekly schedule. I rotate through a number of different types of exercises, so it never gets boring or redundant. I set goals and targets, so it keeps it interesting. I get some of my exercise with others so that there is a social element that motivates me. I bought some cool exercise clothes, so I find the process of working out more fun and engaging. I vary my intensity so that there is variety through the week. I keep exploring new ways to exercise and new ideas about enhancing my outcome.
- Thoughts: Exercise is a natural expression of my physicality. It’s simply who I am. Exercise prolongs my life and the quality of my life – no exercise means poor quality life and shorter life. Exercise enhances my mood and makes me feel good. I love feeling my body move more easily and with greater flexibility and strength. It has changed how I see myself and feel about myself.
4. Rehearsal: Each morning I awaken knowing that exercise is on my schedule today and so I eat and prepare accordingly. I rehearse in my mind what exercise I will do, how I will feel great while doing it and the satisfaction I will derive from knowing I followed through. I don’t allow for any excuses. Hours before I actually exercise I have played the tape in my mind of what it will feel like and how I will manage that. I look forward top the actual act of exercising and see it not simply a means to an end but as something to enjoy in the moment. Find the joy within.
5. Acceptance: I see the lean physical body I am creating and fully expect to realize my intended goals. My belly being replaced with stamina and energy. This is who I am, an expression of my true self finally come to life. It’s exciting to see the change.
Example #3: Stress sucks. I want ease and flow to fill my days as I leave stress behind.
I selected this challenge as I see it adversely affect the lives of nearly everyone I meet
- Vision – my desired future: to live each day in a calm existence of equanimity. Life is not one giant frantic emergency – it is in fact a joyous expression of love, unity and giving. I am the creator of 100% of my own stress so if that is true then I can decide not to acknowledge, create or foster stress. My belief is that there is ample time, and ample resources for all of us. Time is an illusion that I will take notice of but refuse to be a victim of. Things are what they are and things will get done when they get done. Trying to save time, create time, manage time or somehow manufacture time is a fool’s game. I am nobody’s’ fool. My dog doesn't know the meaning of stress and I am trying to be as smart as my dog.
- Old disabling beliefs I want to change or extinguish:
- Emotions: feeling stressed over not having enough time. Too many things to do in the limited time I have so I attempt to multi-task and stuff 10 pounds of busyness into a 5 pound bag. Hurry, hurry, faster, faster. Worry about tomorrow and next week and next year. Fear of falling behind and not being prepared. Insomnia from my mind whirling over things that haven’t even happened yet. Feeling inadequate.
- Behaviors / Actions / Habits: stay up late and awaken early in an attempt to conquer the impossible. Rush around missing the beauty in life as I am too hyper focused on some insignificant detail. Short tempered as I want things to move faster. Not truly seeing the person in front of me as my mind simply sees them as a task to complete and move past.
- Thoughts: I am not adequate to meet this deadline. I will never get caught up. Everyone demands too much from me. No one understands the pressures I feel. If I don’t make this work, then everything is going to fall apart and it will be my fault.
3. New Paradigm: how I will think, act, and feel moving forward.
- Emotions: peace and happiness to be alive and in this very moment. Calm awareness that this present moment is all there ever is. Gratitude that I get to be here in this space and engaged in this valuable activity. I treat each moment I have as if I had chosen it. Each event and each situation has something to teach me if I am present and open to the experience. I generate my own happiness without depending on other things or other people to make me happy.
- Behaviors / Actions / Habits: Do ONE thing at a time. Multi-tasking is a fool’s game and never produces a good result. I remain fully present with each task and seek the joy found in its completion. Be the positive energy that uplifts everyone around me. Accept everything that appears before me. Maintain an open heart so that I may feel the energy around me and contribute to good actions. Be present.
Thoughts: there is only one “time” and that time is now. No matter how I move the present moment will be all I ever have. “Stress is bullshit – I refuse to participate”. Any task requiring my attention can be completed more judiciously and more comprehensively by giving it my full attention devoid of stress. Actions fueled by stress result in shoddy work and unacceptable results.
4. Rehearsal: I know life will present itself wearing a mask of “urgency” but that is false and I need to be prepared to see past that illusion. With every task and every hour of the day I will remind myself that the time is “now”, and only now. Stress is a self-induced illusion based on expectations designed by the ego. I will remind myself that I can only do ONE thing at a time and that my work is of the highest quality when I rest easy in that fact. See the schedule ahead of time and be prepared for others to act frantic but don’t allow their lunacy to contaminate my peace. Stay centered.
5. Acceptance: there are very few and rare situations that truly qualify as stressful. I accept that my new life is calm and peaceful and that actual stress is a rare event only brought on by my losing sight of the present moment. Past and future fuel the ego but have no bearing on the present.
Repetition and belief are the keys to success. If you truly believe the words that you have written, then it is in fact YOUR TRUTH. Repeating them out loud and to yourself in private will entrench those ideals into your hard-wired response. It becomes who you are and how you behave. It becomes the standard of your life rather than the exception.
Please make use of the Mind Body Mission videos that walk you through the concepts of ego, stillness, and stress. These are valuable tools to help reshape your thoughts and beliefs. Remember that this exercise is all about reshaping old disabling beliefs that you have held for years and have contributed to your pain and suffering. Stay focused to extinguish them.
