Last week, I set you homework of coming up with at least 1 SMART goal for you to focus on this summer. Did you do it? If so, well done. If not, you’ll need to do that before implementing what we talk about today so click here to read about setting SMART goals.
When you set your goal did you feel a bit nervous? Did you start making excuses of why you won’t be able to achieve your goal? Did you instantly start to doubt yourself? Like I said last week, that is completely normal so this week we are concentrating on identifying our obstacles so you can start to get in the right mindset for success.
In order to be successful we have to have the following aligned:
Our Thoughts (conscious mind)
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Our Beliefs (sub conscious mind)
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Our Actions (what you do on a daily basis)
Our thoughts are what we have going on in our minds on a daily basis. We can choose what thoughts we have quite easily and an example could be saying or thinking “I’m really strong” or the opposite “I’m really weak”. It’s quite easy to say and think both of those, isn’t it? But it’s not so easy to believe one of them, is it? For example: if right now you don’t feel very strong, try telling yourself “I am really strong”. Do you believe it? Or do you instantly start thinking of all the times you’ve not been strong in the past and therefore start doubting yourself and telling yourself the opposite again?
What we don’t often realise is that our thoughts are controlled by our beliefs. So if, based on past experiences- perhaps you’ve been called weak before or you’ve tried lifting something and not been able to, you believe you are weak deep down then your brain will be programmed to think that you are in fact weak, and you’ll also look for confirmation in every day life to support this belief – for example you’ll notice people lifting things and compare yourself to them.
Our actions are also based on our beliefs. So if, for example, you believe you are weak then you won’t even attempt to lift something that could be perceived as heavy or you won’t start a new gym programme because you’ll be scared that you might have to lift ‘heavy’ weights. The opposite can be said of someone who believes they are strong – the bodybuilder in the gym for example is fearless when he or she attempts to lift a heavy weight because they believe they are strong.
Can you now see how important our beliefs are?
So if we want our thoughts, our beliefs and our actions to all be aligned so we can achieve our goals and be more successful then we need to work on changing our beliefs first.
At our free workshop in Loughborough last week, we did an exercise to help discover our obstacles (negative beliefs) that may be holding us back from achieving our goals. I read out different statements (based on what clients have said to me in the past) and clients stood up or sat down when one of the statements applied to them. I do this exercise with my mentor too and it is extremely powerful.
Your homework is to download the statements at the bottom of this blog and try it at home yourself. You don’t have to do the stand up sit down part if you’re doing the exercise on your own – just circle the ones that apply to you and next week we will be focusing on how to overcome the obstacles you have identified. And don’t worry if you circle most of them – just means you’ll have lots of breakthroughs to look forward to!
Any questions just ask 🙂
Download the Discovering obstacles activity by clicking on the link.