September 2007

Do not go where the path leads
Go where there is no path and leave a trail

One of the most useful tools in the Life Coach’s toolkit is imaging how you will feel when you have reached your goal.

You can affirm positive beliefs, and yet fail to attain, maintain or expand the goal, if you let your inner voice tell you that you can’t make it. This voice is buried deep in your subconscious belief system, putting you on guard 24 hours a day, telling you what it believes and not what you consciously want to believe about yourself as your new life unfolds.

Once you understand this process, you can overcome it and strive to create new beliefs that will, that in turn, become new attitudes. These will gently draw to you the people, conditions, and positive circumstances that will help you attain, maintain and expand your goals subconsciously, consciously, physically and spiritually with speed, ease, comfort and joy.

Subconscious beliefs are formed in childhood.

Although all of us have feelings we can tap into, we tend to ignore those feelings until we become lost in a sea of misery and depression as we painfully strive to overcome failure. None of us came into this world with a set of attitudes or beliefs but by the time we reached the age of seven, we had all of our primary beliefs set into our subconscious mind.

Many such beliefs were placed there by our parents who, with love but without direction, had no idea what they were doing to their children in the name of proper behaviour. Once the subconscious mind is programmed, the individual beliefs of the youngster are formed. As a child gets older the beliefs strengthen, creating the reality the child will live with as an adult. This reality will be carried with the individual to the end of his life unless he learns to reprogram those beliefs.

Negative programming is something that must be changed if you are to learn the true path to success. This requires a step-by-step approach, reprogramming new beliefs and goals, until you attain and maintain your goals with speed, ease, comfort and joy.

The power of positive thinking.

Our subconscious beliefs form our personal feelings, weaknesses, biases and realities. To change your life consciously, you must first reprogram—your subconscious mind. Don’t blame the way you were raised. That may be why you are the way you are today, but you have a choice, and you can change your beliefs and attitudes.

Think positive thoughts, whether they are true or not (your subconscious mind doesn't care). Make a list of all the things that will alter when you reach your goal and do them today! Don’t wait until you lose weight to book that holiday or wait until you have finished the decorating to invite someone to visit, do it now! We only have one life – don’t waste a day of it waiting. Fake it now and feel the real deal! Focus on your new way of thinking last thing before you go to bed and you'll wake up - ready to go with speed, ease, comfort and joy.

Faking it in action

Some time ago, I came across this story.

I have a friend who, for as long as I’ve known her, ends every phone call sounding like she’s smiling. I never knew how she did it, but it always sounded so great. After all, really nice to talk to someone who, as their last gesture before hanging up, makes you feel like they really enjoyed sharing that time with you.

Personally, I’m not much of a phone person. I’m not sure why, and it changes with my moods. Some days, I could chat for hours about nothing. Other days, I can’t be bothered to even answer the phone.

A little over a year ago, I was talking to this friend, and I guess I’m not very good at hiding how I feel. I wasn’t into the conversation, and not for any fault of hers. It was one of those “can’t be bothered” days. She began telling me how she felt like we were losing touch. She couldn’t reach me on the phone very often, and when she did, I sounded thoroughly unenthused. I think her exact words were, “…you’re not exactly Susie Sunshine on the phone, you know.”

Ouch!

But she was right.

From that point on, I started making a concerted effort to be more phone-friendly. Even on days when ordinarily I wouldn’t want to talk on the phone, I’d fake it.

This same friend is the one who introduced me to the phrase, “Fake it ‘til you make it.” The idea is that if you act like you’re something for long enough, eventually, you become that thing. In this case, I needed to act like I was happy talking on the phone and I would be!

Something wonderful happened over the next few months: I started enjoying phone conversations a lot more. Not just with her, either. It was that way with most people I talked to. Better yet, the happier I came across, the better I felt throughout the conversation, and the happier people on the other end seemed to be.

It’s infectious!

Since then, I’ve taken it one step further. Now, every fifth phone call or so, I actually hear myself making that same smiling gesture with my “goodbyes!” as my friend does….

Pretty cool and joyous stuff!

So start living the life you want today. Don’t wait to feel the way you want to feel – fake it today and soon you will find that you really are living your true life.

I look forward to talking to you next month when we will be taking a look at how to set SMART goals.

Believing in you

Teresa xx

Turning negativity into positivity: the power of positive thought can be experienced in full by signing up for Teresa Webb’s Life Makeover Course.

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