Getting in Shape Series - Step 3 - The What, The Why and Beliefs

By Paul Piotrowski on Dec 23, 2006 in Health and Fitness

If you haven’t yet read the first two parts of this series of articles I suggest you read them first as the series build on top of each step as we go along. The first two parts are here: Step 1 and Step 2.
To review, here are the steps I’m following in this challenge:
1) Decide it is time to make a change in your life style towards better health.
2) Get clear on exactly what you want.
3) Get clear on exactly why you want it.
4) Become aware of and take control of your beliefs.
5) Apply leverage to the situation.
6) Consciously add FUN to the situation.
I’m going to go through each of these one more time, because I think it’s important to understand the importance of getting the mental aspects of a health plan in place and so I realize that I’m repeating myself here a bit but that’s ok because I’ve got some key distinctions in here I think you’ll find valuable.
So, where are you in the process? Have you decided to make a change? Or are you still just reading and doing research to find out what this whole plan is all about before you start doing anything? If you haven’t yet decided that it’s time to make a change and that it’s time to make health a priority in your life, you don’t need to read any further. There is no information or secrete formula in here that will all of a sudden make that decision for you. If you’re not ready to be healthy yet, that’s ok, but there is no point going any further until you take that step. Make a decision, right now towards health. It’s a simple yes or no decision. Are you deciding, right now, to do whatever is necessary to become healthy? Yes or no. If your answer is anything except Yes, you’re not ready. If you’re refusing to decide, that’s an automatic no. Be honest with yourself, and admit that the only reason you’re not healthy right now is because you haven’t decided to do that yet. It’s not because you haven’t found the right diet, or the right gym or the right pill or the right anything. The only reason is that you haven’t yet truly decided to.
If you’ve made your decision towards health, I congratulate you, please read on.
Next, have you gotten *clear* on exactly what it is that you want? “I want to be in shape.” is too vague. I know you know what you mean by that, but you really need to spell it out exactly. What are you looking to change? Do you want to lose weight? How much weight? What is that lost weight represent? Muscle? Bone? Fat? You need to be specific. You can’t say “I want to lose 30lbs.” because that’s not specific enough. You need to be specific and say “I want to lose 30lbs of excess fat.” Or “I want my body fat percentage to be 10%” etc.
Have you do this yet? Have you made a *written* statement of what you want? Go do it right now if you haven’t.
Let me stop right now. If you haven’t gone and written down what you want at this point because you are too lazy to get up and grab a piece of paper and grab a pen to answer some questions and to think a little and figure out what you want, how do you expect to implement an exercise program? I’m sure you’d agree that it’s easier to write on a piece of paper than it is to run on a treadmill for 40 minutes! Come on, get up, get a piece of paper and write it down. Identify what you want.
Ok, let’s say that you’ve done this. Next I want you to read what you wrote and think about this for a minute. How did you word your paragraph? Did you word your sentences like this: “I want to _______” ? If so I’ll want you to make some changes, so let’s use an example to start with. Let’s say that your written down outcome of what you want says this right now:
“I want to lose 30lbs of excess fat and bring down my body fat percentage towards 12.5%. I want lots of energy. I want to be strong and healthy…”
What I’d like you to do is to re-write your statement in the present tense, almost like if you traveled into the future a year from now and were sitting down in front of your future self and you asked your future self to write a letter to your present self telling your present self all about your future self. Here’s what it might look like based on the example above:
“I have lost over 30lbs of excess fat from my body and have brought my fat percentage down to below 12.5%. I have lots and lots of energy, jumping out of bed each morning ready to go. I have built my muscle strength and enjoy the benefits of perfect health…”
See how the statement is re-written in the present tense like it’s already happened? That’s what you want to do. The reason for this is that you have to understand that with your words you create reality. If you say “I have lost 30lbs” it means you will create having lost 30lbs, but if you say “I want to lose 30lbs” you will simply create the feeling of WANTING to lose 30lbs. You’ll just run around frustrated in your life feeling like you WANT to lose weight but unable to actually lose it. You already created the WANT to lose fat, so there’s no need to create it again. It is now time to create losing the fat, not just the feeling of wanting. I hope that makes sense.
Ok, so now you’ve got the outcome written down in present tense. Go through and do the same thing with the WHY statement. You also want it to be written in present tense, so instead of writing down:
“I want to lose 30lbs of fat because I want to feel good.”

Instead write:

“I have lost over 30lbs of excess fat and I feel great!”
Stop right now and do this.
Ok, now we need to move onto your beliefs. If you’ve decided you want to make a lifestyle change to become healthy and you’ve clearly defined what you want and why you want it in the present tense, written down, then the next thing you need to do is to start looking at your beliefs.
Have you done this yet? Have you written down all the negative beliefs you can think of which might be stopping you from achieving your goal? Have you written out all the positive beliefs that will help you achieve your goal?
Remember, beliefs are like little soldiers inside your mind that constantly fight if you allow them. The only way to end the turmoil and the war inside yourself is to become aware of your beliefs and then to make some conscious decisions as to which beliefs you’re going to choose to believe because they empower you and which beliefs you’re going to chose to lose because they don’t serve you anymore.
Once you have a listing of negative beliefs, it’s time to make some decisions. Go through each one and ask yourself “Is this a belief that will help me in my life? Or is it something I believed once but don’t really need anymore?”
If you find a belief that isn’t going to help you with your plan like “Losing weight is impossible for me.” And you decide to get rid of it, simply start asking yourself probing questions to completely destroy it’s validity. Instill doubt in this belief. Ask yourself “Is it really impossible? How do I know? I tried before, but what if this time it’s different? What if it’s not impossible and I just think it is? Could it be accurate to say that there is perhaps a small chance of possibility that I COULD lose weight? Maybe the time just wasn’t right before, maybe the moon was out of phase, maybe the right information wasn’t available to me yet. Is it possible for me to lose weight if I really wanted to? Yes it’s possible.”
See how that instills doubt and destroys your old belief? Notice that you’re not saying that you will succeed this time, all your saying is that it’s NOT IMPOSSIBLE. Start with that. So let’s say you did this and now your belief is “It is possible to lose fat from my body.” Instead of the old belief “Losing weight is impossible for me.”
Cross out your negative belief now, and replace it with the positive belief. Make sure you write the new positive belief down on paper and then read it to yourself and repeat it a few times, each time saying it faster to yourself with a “matter of fact” kind of voice saying “It’s possible for me to lose fat from my body.” And “It’s POSSIBLE for me to lose fat from my body.” And “Hey, you know what I just realized? It IS possible for me to lose fat from my body.”
Just repeat it to yourself a few times until it flows and you feel like you’re being totally honest with yourself. Next move onto your next negative belief and follow the process for each belief.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. When am I going to start exercising? All I’m doing is writing stuff out, shouldn’t I go for a run or start exercising? This whole belief thing might take a few hours to complete! I promise you that every minute you spend here, getting clear on what you want, writing it out, getting clear on why you want it, writing it out, and then sorting out your beliefs will result in INSANE amounts of power for you to use to implement your new lifestyle. Getting all this mental stuff figured out first will make you unstoppable in your action steps. Besides, if you’re like me, you’ve probably already tried the approach of “Just Doing It” with pure willpower and burned out after a few days, weeks or months. This is about making a long term approach, and how do you expect to do anything if you’re still walking around thinking “Losing weight is impossible for me.” in your head? You won’t! You must give yourself the mental clarity to win.
Remember, that there is nothing wrong with you getting on a treadmill today or going for a light jog or a walk or whatever form of exercise you prefer, or eating a healthy meal while you do this. I’m not saying you can’t take any action towards a healthy body until all of this is done. All I’m saying is that you MUST do this stuff first, otherwise you’ll never stick to it. Each day what I’ve been doing is working on these mental exercises and getting clearer and clearer on what I want and then after I’m done for the day, I’ll go jump on the treadmill for 30-40minutes. If you only have enough time to do one or the other though, I would recommend you get this mental stuff figured out first. Even if it takes you 2 weeks to get it done, and it delays the start of your program, I guarantee it will be worth for you in the end.
Besides, once you get to this point where you made your decision, you’ve written out WHAT you want and WHY you want it and you’ve tackled some of your negative beliefs, you’ll find it a lot easier to get on a treadmill or to go for a jog anyways so chances are you’ll end up doing both.
In my next article I tackle the concept of leverage…