Change4good

CHANGE4GOOD

AuthorHouse

Chapter One

Mind Your Body

This chapter is about the nutrients you give your soul.

Principle 1 Cleanse your Mind; Live Purposefully

Change begins in the mind, the heart and the soul, mysterious quarters that clients and even some practitioners tend to ignore. In those areas reside the potential for change. Chapter ONE gives you the nudge you need to live not like you're waiting for your life to happen but as if it were – and is – happening. Dress rehearsal over. Curtains up. Live now.

"Change your thoughts and you change your world." ~Norman Vincent Peale, Minister and Author of, "The Power of Positive Thinking."

Welcome to the start of eating – and living – sanely. This chapter is about what needs to happen to your insides in order for your outsides to change for the better. Mostly, we'll center on your thoughts. It's a frightening concept but you actually do have the power to achieve a good deal of what you want - if you are willing to relinquish old beliefs that no longer serve you. After years of studying how people change – and experiencing extraordinary change in my own life as well – I've noted the emergence of certain key agents of change.

Be Crystal Clear About What You Want

Visualize it. See it. Focus on it in your mind.

For example: One summer I trained with an Olympic Gold Medalist athlete. One routine required me to jump hurdles. They weren't very high hurdles but they were hurdles. No matter what I did, I couldn't clear all the bars. On the night before one of our practice sessions, I lay in bed, envisioning myself clearing hurdle after hurdle. How glorious it felt. The next day, astonishing both the trainer and myself, I cleared every one. "Wow," he said, "yesterday you could hardly clear one and today, you're clearing all of them."

How did this happen? Although there are numerous theories as to the exact mechanism that causes visualization to work, a common explanation is that during visualization you physiologically create neural patterns in your brain as if you had physically performed an action and in so doing you train your mind to teach your muscles what to do. Virtually all studies provide sufficient reliable evidence that there is not only improved motor performance and therefore improved athletic performance but also greater mental toughness and confidence.

Visualization can also help you psychologically in the same way rehearsing does: it helps you manage the emotional stress that otherwise might "manage" you.

Take a situation involving food. Envision yourself at a high-powered business conference. My, those breakfast pastries look tempting – just the thing to soothe my anxiety. But if you rehearse reaching for the fruit basket, you might actually reach for it instead.

Visualization also works in more complicated situations.

After my mother died, I didn't see how I would get through her funeral. I'm the kind of person who cries even when saying goodbye to a friend. As the day approached, I pictured over and over again how it would unfold. The day unfolded as I had visualized it, this was no surprise as funerals were all conducted in the same way in Cape Town. What was astounding was that my emotions, under the circumstances, were remarkably controlled. It was as if I had been through this a hundred times before. My pain wasn't that raw. And in retrospect, I had been through it a hundred times before – in my head. I understood then how visualization can affect our response.

Our subconscious works in images. For this reason, I often recommend Vision Boards to clients. Even if you aren't especially visual, give it a shot. Take a poster board and fill it with pictures that accurately depict something that you want and that generates strong positive emotions in you (the front door of the lovely brownstone you'd like to buy; a gorgeous runner jogging over rough terrain). Place the mural where you'll see it every day.

A friend of mine pasted a picture of the Mini Cooper she longed for but couldn't afford, on a vision board in her bedroom. She even pasted a picture of her face on the windshield. After gazing at it long enough and taking action by making some changes in her lifestyle, she saved enough money to buy one. She actually achieved her desired end. If you're still skeptical, think of visualization as a prolonged (and less expensive) form of hypnosis.

Want it, and Want it Badly

Sure some of you, anyway, may want to run the elite Boston Marathon – see yourself in a runner's magazine, shimmering medals dangling from your heaving chest. But do you want it badly enough to wake up two hours earlier, six days a week, to train? Probably not, which is why thousands rather than millions of people actually run the Boston Marathon.

If you don't want to achieve an outcome badly enough to endure the pain and effort required, it's better to know that up front. Otherwise, you'll waste precious energy pursuing what you don't really want that badly.

A good test is to ask yourself, "What do I need to do to achieve this goal?" "Am I willing to do this?" If the answer is yes, you're ready to start. If the answer is no, find a goal that motivates you so strongly that you are willing to do what it takes to achieve it.

Uncover What Holds You Back

Sometimes you aren't willing to do what it takes to achieve a particular goal because of fear: you aren't convinced that you'll really be able to achieve it. Examine that fear. Is it reality?

Recently I saw a client who was convinced she couldn't stick to her personal Change4Good food plan we'd worked out. When I asked her why, she explained that her job had changed; she was travelling more and under too much pressure to think about what she ate. I doubted that this was the reason.

Working the tools of the program, I showed her how she could – easily – overcome what she thought were insurmountable obstacles – the lack of time, the constant eating out, the pressure – and eat in a way that would actually increase her ability to perform. If you take the time to break it down and work it out, usually there is a solution. Chapter THREE talks in greater detail about obstacles and how to overcome them.

Match Your Actions with Your Goals

I worked with a runner who said she wanted to lose twenty pounds. "But I'm addicted to sugar; I love ketchup, and I won't give up aspartame." I was tempted to say, "Okay – see you later." After all, I'm not a miracle-worker. Instead, I coaxed her to re-frame the situation. "Can you give up aspartame, for example, just for one day?" I asked. You'd be surprised how quickly one day turns into five which turns into a whole year and suddenly, you're living aspartame-free.

Another client also wanted to lose twenty to thirty pounds. (Doesn't everyone?) Unfortunately, she and her friends liked to hang out and smoke marijuana, which of course gave them the munchies. "Do you want to lose the twenty pounds badly enough to give up smoking pot?" I asked, because only she could answer that question.

This is what psychology calls living intentionally. Are your actions consistent with your goals? If you want to go anywhere, make sure your mind and your feet are in agreement.

Pay Attention to Peer Influence

Research conducted by the late Jim Rohn, the legendary motivational speaker (his students included, among others, Jack Canfield of the "Chicken Soup®" series fame); suggests that, "We're the average of the five people with whom we spend the most time." Do you complain a lot? Chances are your friends and loved ones complain a lot as well. Does food seem to be the center of all your activities? Chances are your friends punctuate every occasion with a meal.

The implications are obvious: if you want to feel better, hang around with people whose outlook is more constructive; if you want to lose weight, find a friend whose idea of a good time is a movie or, heaven forbid, a hike. Surround yourself with people who exemplify the changes you want to see in yourself.

To check yourself, Rohn suggests you ask yourself certain fundamental questions:

• "Who am I around?"

• "What are they doing to me?"

• "What have they got me reading?"

• "What have they got me saying?"

• "Where do they have me going?"

• "What do they have me thinking?"

• "And most important, what do they have me becoming?"

• Then ask yourself the big question: "Is that okay?"

"Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change."

For ten years, I was friends with a woman who constantly complained about two topics: her weight and her boyfriend. I saw how drained I was after talking with her for even half an hour. You want to be a good friend, but allowing someone to perpetuate their anxiety by replaying it constantly doesn't help either of you.

Even the most resolved individual often yields in the face of peer pressure and influence. In Chapter SEVEN, we're going to discuss portion control in detail. But looking at how and with whom you eat is almost more important than knowing how much to eat.

Brian Wansink, an author and director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, has spent well over a decade studying what influences why we eat, how much we eat and how frequently we eat. He finds that when it comes to food, our mind is out-manoeuvred by external stimuli. We may know intellectually about portion control, for example, and still act in ways that utterly contradict that information.

Obviously, other factors are at work. Among them, Wansink's work suggests, are what the people around us eat and the amount and speed with which they eat it. Hence, more justification for scrutinizing your peers, as discussed in Chapter THREE, when you're trying to adopt a healthier lifestyle.

I'm as good as any illustration of Wansink's research. Even with all I know about nutrition, I tend to make poorer choices when I eat out with friends who aren't as health conscious as I am.

Change4Good Attitude GPS©

The following exercise, using the Change4Good Attitude GPS© (stands for Global Positioning System or, for our purposes, Guide to Personal Success), is a great tool to help you navigate your wisest course. (You'll see this exercise repeated in the book using a Behaviour, Nutrition and Fitness GPS.)

I've listed key aspects related to attitude that may need adjusting– but feel free to improvise and add your own:

Realistic

Do you see things the way they really are or do you tend to either see things the way you want them to be or the way you fear they could be?

Optimistic

Are you generally positive about life or even what you can salvage from a bad situation or do you tend to see the worst no matter how bad or good the situation?

Self-Aware

Do you understand, to some extent, your feelings? Why you have them and how they affect your life and the lives of those around you? Do you know your strengths and weaknesses and how to use them to your best advantage? Example: You have excellent time management skills, which ensure that you generally complete all your plans.

Constructive Dialogue with Self or Others

What is the little voice in your head saying most of the time? Is it positive and encouraging or negative and berating? Using realistic positive affirmations is a great way to change self-talk and your actions as well. For example, has saying "I'm so fat" all the time helped you stop overeating? I didn't think so.

But if you replace it, for example, with "I am getting healthier with every nutritious meal I have" then almost (but not quite) magically, you'll actually do what it takes to become that healthier being.

Flexible

Are you able to adjust how you think, act and feel when circumstances dictate or are you rigid even to your own detriment?

Solution Rather than Problem Oriented

Are you able to solve problems in a creative and positive way or do you get stuck or see the problem as unsolvable?

Assertive (but nicely)

Are you able to express and defend your opinions with grace; without being confrontational?

Able to Manage Stress

Can you pause, get a grip and reflect under pressure or do you react impulsively?

Empathetic

Are you able to put yourself in someone else's shoes? Do you place sufficient value on helping and serving others? In conflict situations, can you conceive of win/win solutions rather than ones that are win/lose?

All these qualities will affect how well you implement the other nine Change4Good Principles©. Therefore, take some time to carefully examine your attitude and identify what aspects of your way of thinking most needs to be changed. Obviously, you can't "cleanse" your toxic attitudes over night, but the longest journey, as you surely know, begins with a single step. The following exercise will help you take the journey.

Change4Good Attitude GPS©

What to do:

1. Using the Change4Good Attitude GPS© rate your level of satisfaction for each separate area between zero and ten (ten being complete satisfaction; zero being none).

2. Place one dot (per segment) opposite the number that best represents your level of satisfaction.

3. Connect the dots to create a "circle" within the circle. Unless you're consistently happy or miserable in every area of your life, the circle-within-the-circle is bound to be asymmetrical.

Below is an example of a completed Change4Good Attitude GPS©

Your Change4Good Attitude GPS©

Now use the blank Change4Good Attitude GPS© below to complete yours. You can also download it at www.change4good.ca.

Now consider the following:

1. How large is your circle? Bigger is better.

2. How symmetrical is it? Your goal is to push everything to the outer rim, to have the largest, roundest circle.

3. Where does your circle dip toward the center? The dips indicate the areas you most need to address? These areas will form the basis of your "goals" in Chapter TWO. In the meantime, let's examine in more detail ways in which you can push each mini-arc outward.

Focus On the Solution

It is common wisdom that if you focus on the problem, the problem grows. If you focus on the solution, the solution grows. The logic of this maxim is apparent. If you continually complain about being fat, you'll feel unhappy. Unhappiness creates stress. Stress creates the need to escape. M&Ms are an escape.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from CHANGE4GOOD by LAUREN JAWNO FRAN SCHUMER Copyright © 2012 by Lauren Jawno with Fran Schumer. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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