Mind your mind!

Just recently I happened to watch Bridget Jones movies again. Bridget is so lovable because she feels so normal, so human. She makes her new year resolutions, she goes on living her life as she always has and she faces the end of the year realizing that she has not met any of her resolutions.

In the beginning of a new year everybody talks about making new year resolutions: setting goals and making plans for achieving them. It is not that hard to know what you want to have and once you know what you want, it is pretty easy to make a list of things that need to be done to achieve it. Sounds easy, doesn’t it.

Why are there so many doctors who smoke? Why are there so many financial advisors abusing their credit cards? Why are there so many people struggling losing weight even though the rules for losing weight are so well known? Why is it so hard to make things happen even if we know exactly what needs to be done?

There is one crucial ingredient that keeps being overlooked and this is our mind. Our minds are very simple, they do exactly what we tell them to do and they help us get exactly what we believe we deserve.

If you are struggling losing weight even though you know everything about healthy eating and exercise then take a deeper look at your beliefs about your body and the values you have in life. Take Bridget, I remember her saying in the movie “I will always be a little chubby.” She  might even not notice how that belief is sitting deep in her mind and does not let her lose any weight, no matter how hard she wants it.

The person who is struggling with personal finances, might set a goal of “Getting out of debt” by the end of the year. There is no surprise if he or she finds out at the end of the year that he/she is still “getting out of debt”.

So what can be done then? We need to change our beliefs and values and replace them with the ones that support our achievements. For example, Bridget could say “I have a healthy femininely curved body”. The “getting out of debt” person could say in his/her new year resolution “My financial situation is very good, I have enough money coming in to cover my expenses, to travel and to build financial freedom.”

It all starts with simple things like words that we use. If we don’t like the outcome, we should audit the way we talk. We use the words that our mind provides us to present the patterns saved deep. We get the patterns from home, school, workplace, friends. And if we don’t like the patterns, we can change them by replacing the words and the way we say them.

Just as important is to act as if you already had what you wish for. Stop trying to achieve your goals. BE the change you so much desire. Adopt the behavior, beliefs and values of the people who already have what you want to have and think how surprised will you be one day, long before the deadline you set for your goal, to find out that you have achieved it and you don’t even know how. Fake it to make it!

This is not just positive thinking, I would call it power thinking that boosts our actions to be the right ones without even feeling the pressure or need to change all the time. We can change anything in our lives if we want to and we can drop any of the beliefs and values we have and that are not working for us any more.