2023 is almost over and we turn our thoughts to the coming New Year, what it might hold and what we hope to do. Gym membership will soar (briefly) and diet clubs will swell (briefly) but for most people by mid February, everything will be back as it was with us no further forwards.
I gave up on resolutions long ago; instead I set goals. Achieving goals is about building better habits and to change your habits, it helps greatly to first change your self-image.
How to Change Your Self-Image
To start, vividly imagine yourself the way you want to be:
- how you want to look
- how you want to feel
- what you want to be able to do
- the taste of the healthy foods you want to eat
- the sound of the crunch you get from salads
- the things people will say to you
Next get specific and create affirmation statements, written in the first person, and the present tense – as if they were already true:
- I have lots of energy to play …. with the grandchildren…. my sport….
- I eat healthy, nutritious, natural food
- I move my body every day
- I weigh XX stone XX pounds (your desired end weight)
Then to get your subconscious on board, embed your statements repeatedly.
Look at your affirmations every day. Read them. Write them out like doing lines. (Very few people write down goals yet research shows that people with written goals achieve much more than those without.) Speak them aloud to yourself so they go into your subconscious via your ears. Say them while looking in the mirror and smiling!!
At first, it might feel like lying, but even then part of your brain will believe it. The mismatch between your new, created self-image and your old reality will set up subconscious tension – and to relieve the tension your subconscious will cause you to change your habits.
Finally, to keep it up reinforce only positive thought pictures.
Sometimes you’ll eat good things and sometimes bad things. How you react is really important.
The classic diet mentality is on it or off it. You eat one bad thing and the day is ruined so you may as well binge. You eat one chocolate so you may as well finish the box etc. When I speak to clients, they’re quick to tell me their slip-ups even when they’ve actually done lots of good things. Beating yourself up about failures reinforces the negative and makes it more likely you’ll fail in future.
You can free yourself from these flawed thinking patterns with this helpful tip from Lanny Bassham.
In any situation, start with a good intention eg “I’m going to eat good things.”
If you eat good things, reinforce it by saying (in your head!), “Well done, that’s like me.”
If you eat bad things, replace the bad memory by putting a positive picture in your mind of yourself eating good things by thinking, “What I need to do is eat good things”.
The pictures you make inside will make it more likely that you’ll succeed in eating good things in future.
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My coaching on your image, goals and habits, combined with sound nutritional advice could be just what you need. Drop me an email to get started.
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learntoeatwell 