What is the key to a successful fat loss, exercise program? What is the main ingredient in having a totally fulfilled life? Can someone really live life to the fullest, with no regrets, and leave a lasting impact on family, friends, and even strangers, FOREVER? Can we reach our true potential in all the major areas of our life; health, money, & relationships?
Can we have it all, a dream life, one that we envisioned when we were young innocent children? Can we remain independent well into our 90’s and even 100’s and age gracefully?
Absolutely, YES!! And a vital key to making it happen is our health & energy. I am talking real energy, not the kind from 4 cups of coffee in the morning, or from ephedrine (extreme fat loss pills), or diet pills.
What is the key?
Well, one thing I have learned in my 43 years on this earth is that it is never one thing. But if I had to narrow it down, I would say comes down to;
Intense desire (a.k.a. passion), knowledge, awareness, having a mind like a child, loving, laughing, & having a balance between being driven and not content & enjoying the now and learning to live in each and every moment.
Having a balance between getting new info (easy to do cause this is the information age) and limiting your info (lots of times, too much info leads to paralysis by analysis), but by far and away the most important trait is: NEVER QUITTING.
Goal setting 101 says we need to know what we want (health, money, relationships), write it down, read it out loud every day and night, and get emotional and visualize that we have already attained it. Visualizing it is important, but not nearly as important as feeling the sweet emotion of victory and success.
I need to stop right here and say: Do not under estimate the power of this article to radically change your life. I am afraid that because of movies like “The Secret,” we have heard “those lucky people” talk about these simple life changing strategies everywhere. On Oprah, billboards, in e-mails, everywhere you turn there is some rich person that claims “money, health, and relationships simply flow to them”. By now it is like white noise. Our gut instinct is to think that, it’s too good to be true. It sounds too simple. Their just saying that because they’re getting rich by getting people to buy their information product. DO NOT MAKE THAT MISTAKE.
You can change your life with these simple mental strategies. A big part of anything is awareness. You see it is easy to become numb. With all the technology and modern devices, the plan was to make life easier. But what has happened is that we don’t make good use of the extra time the technology has given us. Most of us actually have much less quality time to do the things that we enjoy.
But whether you are going to do the simple strategies to reap the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, more than likely come down to, are you unhappy and uncomfortable enough with your present position in life?
You see, if you throw a rat into boiling water, he is going to jump out immediately.
But if you put him in bath water and slowly warm the water to a boil he will stay in it and boil to death. What I am trying to get most of you to see is that most of us are not aware that we are slowly killing ourselves with our toxic lifestyle, our unhealthy lifestyle choices, as well as our toxic attitudes.
We are dull to our senses and we are not doing what it takes to change our lives. We need to stand up, look in the mirror, and answer some hard questions.
Look: You are exactly where you want to be right now. You’ve already taken the steps necessary to achieve your station in life, and not one bit more. And you’re completely satisfied with that station in life, even if you know you could be much leaner, stronger, more energetic, happier, and more successful.
Now you might say “Well, that’s not true – I know someone who is 100 pounds overweight and he’s miserable!”
To which I say, no, he’s satisfied. Clearly, the benefit he’s deriving from his behaviors still outweighs the drawbacks, or else he’d change those behaviors! This article is primarily meant to inspire some self-analysis – not to provide hard and fast answers. However, if you’d like some avenues to pursue some serious reflection, here are a few:
1. Develop self-reliant behavior- create the mindset that all of your limitations are self-imposed, because they are.
2. Get out of your comfort zone (get into the boiling water) and find a way to enjoy it. In fact, you might even want to consider burning the boats (no recourse or way to retreat) and put your rear end on the line. It will light a fire underneath you. It will get you out of bed early and stay up late.
I did it several times in the past. I quit a job of security after 18 years of boredom and took a 100% commission job with my passion. If I did not become very successful in the first couple months, I would have lost my house. It is very stressful, but it is the good kind of stress. I did not lose my house. In fact, I now live in a dream house with a backyard paradise that my wife & two daughters enjoy every day.
When you set your goal extremely high, the pay off is outstanding. So you will try very, very hard, without giving up. Conversely, what most people do is set their goals very low, and therefore the payoff is not that great. So what happens is when the stress enters and the going gets tough, you will not follow through because the payoff is not really worth fighting for. SHOOT FOR THE MOON WITH YOUR GOALS.
3. Find out what works, and then do more of it. Find out what’s derailing your efforts, and do less of that.
4. Cultivate dissatisfaction. After all, that’s why you’re where you are now- you’re satisfied with it. Visualize and focus what you want (and feel the emotion of already having it) 90% of the time, and visualize what you don’t want 10% of the time.
5. Seek out and cultivate empowering personal relationships. The people you spend the most time with have a profound effect on your life. Make sure it’s a profoundly POSITIVE effect. You will turn into who you hang around.
I hope this article has been instructive for you.
Bottom line is that I know that we can all live an incredible life full of health, energy, and happiness. The more balanced and happy I become, the more I realize that there are people all over the world that are focusing on their health & energy first and then allowing the other pieces of the puzzle of their life to more effortlessly slip into place.
If you are ready, if you just got thrown into some boiling water, that is great cause you are now on the right path to self realization. Listen to what the pain is telling you. Make it a priority to slow down and take care of your own physical needs with a well thought out, time efficient exercise program that includes resistance training, cardiovascular training (preferably interval style), positive mindset, goal setting, healthy nutrition (small meals often), and social support (you will turn into who you hang around).
God Bless You and Yours!!
