OVERCOMING SELF-LIMITING BELIEFS

“Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly.”-Richard Brach

When my now 13-year old daughter was just five years of age, she had a really hard time tying her shoes.  I had initiated the training process with regards to the tying of her shoes as early on as her third birthday.  Yet, whenever I found myself planning to leave my home after she had reached the age of five, I was forced to wait as she collapsed on the floor, crying, and telling me that she could not tie her shoes.

On the day that I finally reached the end of my rope, I stood in the door, and as opposed to breaking and tying her shoes for her as I had done for each of the previous five years, I told her that we would not leave the house until she figured out a way to tie her own shoes. At that moment, an amazing thing happened. Although my daughter's sobbing only intensified, in the midst of her tears she started wrestling with her strings. She failed with the first attempt. She failed again with the second attempt. However, her third attempt was a MASSIVE success. From that day forward, I never tied my daughter's shoes for her again.

"I CAN'T."  I am convinced that this phrase has single handedly destroyed more lives, families, marriages, careers, and dreams than perhaps any other phrase known to man.  You see God has equipped each of us to do and to perform above and beyond that which we could ever even think or imagine.  However, many of us learned to use this phrase as a crutch early on in childhood, and we have carried this crutch right along with us into our adult years.

A year or so ago, I took up the practice of exercising on the elliptical machine at my local gym.  For the first week or so of my workouts, I climbed onto the machine, and managed to last no longer than 10-15 minutes.  I was extremely disappointed with my calorie count each time that I cut my workouts short, because I realized that I would never achieve my desired results by running for 10-15 minutes.

The elliptical machine is not for the feint of heart. After five or six minutes on this beast of a machine, every muscle in the lower body appears to scream for dear mercy. I was experiencing numbness in my feet. My legs were burning.  My chest was heaving. My calves ached. I was close to retiring from working out on this "man-killer" altogether, when I made a decision.  I decided that I would block out pain.  I decided that I would focus my eyes on the football games that were blaring across the television screens in the gym, and that I would no longer allow fatigue or aching to cut my workouts short.

On my next visit, early on in my workout, I started to feel many of the same pains that had forced me into premature retirement on each of my previous visits.  However, I blocked out the pain. I was focused. After about 20 minutes on the machine, a MIRACLE took place.  My body kicked into a second gear!  The pain dissipated. I started to actually enjoy running. My mind entered into this state of relative calm, and it seemed as if I were the only person in the gym. I had entered THE ZONE, which was a new level that I had never experienced before as a result of my tendency to quit at the first sign of difficulty!

So how does all of this apply to you?  I want you to know that you have the ability to do and to perform ANYTHING that you set your MIND to do.  Your body is at the mercy of your MIND.  Change is never comfortable, and so naturally, anytime that you begin to make demands of your body, after living in a sedentary or lazy fashion; you will (at least initially) have to wrestle with your body, in order to establish the fact that there is a new sheriff in town, and that things will be different from that point forward.

We all experience desires and ambitions for things that we'd like to achieve in life.  These desires may vary from person to person, but may include: acquiring new jobs, finding new mates, losing weight, earning more money, traveling around the world, writing books, etc.  Whatever YOUR personal desire or ambition may be, I am asking you to take just a moment to make the following statement: "IT IS POSSIBLE." How do you know that it is possible? It is possible, because it has been done by OTHERS.

So as you go away from this reading, take with you the understanding and the belief that you have all of the tools, talents, and abilities necessary to manufacture, or to create the life of your dreams. Eliminate the phrase, "I CAN'T" from your vocabulary, and make this new year of 2012, a year of, "I CAN & I WILL!!"

"The difference between the possible and the impossible lies in a man's determination."-Tommy Lasorda

 

STEPS TO REDUCE STRESS

Stress. As we all know, stress is that silent killer that leads to all sorts of health complications. Today I'd like to just share a few steps that we can each take to alleviate our stress levels. The steps are as follows: exercise, proper diet, proper sleep, and time management.

Exercise

Now surely it does not take a rocket scientist to understand the effects of exercise on human health. It's one thing to clearly UNDERSTAND the need for exercise, but it's something altogether different, to actually DO it!

So what types of exercise should we do, and how often should we do them? This will come down to a matter of personal goals and preferences.  As a general rule, with regards to health and reducing stress levels, we should each aim to take part in some form of continuous aerobic exercise for at least 30 minutes per day, and four days each week.

These exercises could be as simple as brisk walking, or if interested, we can utilize more complex exercises such as biking,elliptical training, or even jumping rope.  The idea is to work off stress, by elevating our heart rates for a CONTINUOUS 30 minute period, with each time out.

Proper Diet

Do you ever feel rushed? Of course you do.  In fact, we all live in this microwave society where we're trained to rush from the moment that we awake first thing each morning, right up until the time that we lie down for bed at night.  This rushing carries right over to our eating.

When it comes to eating, the MAIN change that is often most needed, is that of simply s.l.o.w.i.n.g. DOWN! This of course is EXTREMELY difficult to do, when working in positions where we are granted a half-hour, or LESS to consume the contents within our lunch bags. However, fast eating leads to ALL SORTS of digestive problems.

In addition to slowing down our eating, we should also strive to eliminate (as much as possible) FAST FOODS. Yes, I said it; STEP AWAY FROM THAT BIG MAC! So many of us have developed fast food ADDICTIONS, and you can only BEGIN to imagine the long term effects of a constant diet consisting of fast food.

A very natural alternative would be substituting fruits, vegetables, and/or meal replacement shakes.  Change is ALWAYS difficult. However, when comparing a change of diet, to changes in the state of one's overall HEALTH; it's safe to say that the diet route is the way to go.

Proper Sleep

There are literally THOUSANDS of studies that have been conducted on the correlation between sleep deprivation and illnesses such as: Type "2" diabetes, high blood pressure, weakened immune systems, etc.  With the inception of facebook, Americans are becoming more and more liable to forego sleep, in order to socialize on the worldwide web.

For those of us who wish to maintain a good work/life balance, seven to eight hours of sleep each night would be the ideal target. Sleep literally enhances our ability to deal with the ordinary stressors of life.  When we fail to acquire adequate sleep, we tend to wake up on the wrong side of the bed, and this negative energy follows us throughout the remainder of the day.

I should add here that each of these steps work hand in hand. It's much easier to rest at night when we exercise regularly, and also when maintaining healthy diets. Imagine spending your day sitting around and binge eating fast food, only to find yourself unable to relax at night, due to acid reflux, joint pain, stomach discomfort, etc. This would be a losing situation indeed.

Time Management

This brings us to our last step in the process; time management.  The quickest way to GUARANTEE a horrible day, is to wake up late, and to find yourself running behind to work. Murphy is sure to show up in these situations. You WILL lose your car keys. You WILL spill coffee on your shirt. You WILL have difficulty getting your vehicle to start, and you WILL end up stuck in traffic.

When you finally do arrive to work, covered in coffee stains, completely dishoveled, and daring anyone to knock the ENORMOUS chip from your shoulder, things are SURE to go downhill from this point.  All of this could be avoided, by your simply waking up as scheduled, and resisting the urge to hit the snooze button.

This same rule applies to the rest of our daily activities. It is VERY important that we plan our days, leaving enough time for the possibility of unexpected events. Poor time management can literally wreck havoc in our mental and physical health.

By taking each of the four steps shared here, we can extend our lives for YEARS. Simple steps that lead to MASSIVE change, is the idea here. I would like to wish you the best of luck, and I certainly do hope that you are able to experience immediate changes in your overall stress levels.