Allow yourself room for setbacks!

Allow yourself room for setbacks! One setback is only one setback — it's not the end of the world, nor is it the end of your journey toward a better you. You don't have to give up. Just get back on the bandwagon and keep going.

Understand that there are no mistakes. The things you used to think of as mistakes are now just learning experiences, so don't waste time worrying about stumbling blocks. You'll encounter small failures — everyone does. But you'll achieve successes, too. Just remember, every pound you gain can be lost.

Faith in yourself and your hard work is what will keep you striving for the best. Now, just keep pushing yourself! Don't waste time beating yourself up — tomorrow is another day in your weight-loss journey.

Jillian Michaels

Eat Or Feel

I love reading motivational posts, or blogs. Often others can put my thoughts or feelings into words far better, or should I say, far more eloquently that I can. Brooke Castillo is one of those people. Her blog is amazing, and I highly recommend her book.

This is the choice we have in front of us. Anytime a negative feeling comes up we have the choice to go the kitchen or visit ourselves. So many times we tell our own selves to "talk to the hand." We ignore our need to feel. We ignore what the feeling represents or what it is trying to tell us. We choose not to listen. We walk away from ourselves and into the kitchen for crackers, oreos, or left over mac and cheese.

Imagine how we must feel when we do this to ourselves. Imagine what it must feel like to be ignored and "shut up" with food. Imagine what it is like to be burdened with excess weight and unfelt emotions. But you don't have to imagine this scenario do you? You don't have to imagine what this feels like, because you know. You are familiar with self neglect if you are overfed.

It really is a choice. You can choose to feel an emotion from beginning to end. You can choose to write about it in your journal in detail. You can choose to let a vibration go through your body. That is what a feeling is-a vibration in your physical body that you try to dull with lots of food.

So next time you feel the urge to eat, sit on your couch and feel. When you think you can't stand it for one more second-keep sitting and keep feeling. Don't fight the feeling with your willpower, allow it with your heart. Repeat until the feeling is gone. Notice the thought that caused the feeling.

If you continue this process you will find yourself and hear yourself. You will give yourself the attention you are seeking. You will be in your body without distraction-awake for each moment. Connected.

Meet yourself. You're waiting.

No Looking Back

When desirous of a life change, or any kind of a change, it's wiser to start from a place like: "I am who I am today, where I am today, because this was my choice and it has served me well. However, it no longer serves me, my choices have changed, and I give thanks for the amazing changes that now sweep through my amazing life."

Rather than, "I don't know how I got here. I hate this. I must be sabotaging my own progress. I just won't accept things as they are any more. I'm desperate for a change. By this time next year my life will totally rock!"

OK?? You don't even have to remember the choices that led you to the day, but by understanding you made them, the kingdom, the power, and the glory knowingly become yours.

Retrain Your Brain

Changing your attitude means changing your "self-talk" or internal monologue. Self-talk is the chattering conversation you have with yourself all day long, whether you are aware of it or not. It's the voice in your head that says, "I'm too fat" or "I'm not good enough!" I don't need to go on, do I? You know what I'm talking about — these are the kind of thoughts that hold us back! Guess what? This is the kind of useless negativity that's keeping you from being the best that you can be. It's time to turn it around once and for all. You need to retrain yourself to think positively!

Imagine what would happen if you changed the dialogue so that it sounded more like this: "I can lose weight and be healthy, exercise to the best of my ability, and get stronger and better at it every time I do it." Your self-talk can mean the difference between happiness and despair, and success and failure. If you start making your self-talk more positive and affirming — and less defeatist and self-depreciating — your whole life will change for the better.

by Jillian Michaels

Thoughts from the Universe

First, as a child, it seems like the entire world is there for you and you rush to drink from its every cup, sometimes wondering to yourself how anything could ever be more fun.

Then, as you grow older, if you're observant, you realize much of what you enjoy was made possible by the contributions, work, and labor of those who came before you, and you're taken aback, disappointed even , because with maturity you can now see cracks in the façades, imperfections in the details, and 10,000 ways it could have all been done better.

At which point, folks typically choose one of two paths: Spend a lifetime lamenting how far from perfect things are. Or, to one degree or another, roll up their sleeves and pitch in.

And should they choose the latter with gusto, they will come to know, to the core of their sacred being, that the differences they might make in the world cannot be made by another. And then they will discover the answer to their often-wondered childhood question.... That the most fun one can have in time and space comes from making such a difference, and that the joy derived from serving is 10,000 times that of being served.

At your service -
The Universe

PS This doesn't mean life becomes all work and no play. It just means work becomes play, no matter what you do, and play becomes ecstasy.

What Is Your Mindset?

Your mindset is the sum total of your beliefs, values, identity, expectations, attitudes, habits, decisions, opinions and thought patterns... about yourself, others and how life works. It's the filter through which you interpret what you see and experience. Your mindset shapes your life and draws to you results that are an exact reflection of it. What you believe will happen, happens.

Thoughts are powerful magnets. Whatever our mindset tells us, that's what we attract, whether or not we're even aware of what our mindset is! For example, if you have the belief that "Life is very hard and I have to struggle just to stay even," you don't have to be aware of that belief in order to experience struggle. If fact, if you want to see what your mindset really is, you have only to look at your life and your results. The Bible tells us, "According to your beliefs it shall be done unto you."

When we don't examine our mindset and question whether it supports us or limit us, we are operating "on automatic." We are no longer choosing our beliefs and mindset, but they nevertheless cause us to live a certain way. We create our own mindset, but at some point, our mindset creates us. If we don't question a belief that "life is hard," for instance, we are going to keep struggling without even knowing why.

What is your mindset? Whatever you "think" about must come about. How may you be limiting your results?

James Ray

Exercise

The following was posted by Brooke Castillo today. It speaks truths to me about my relationship with exercise.

How are you treating your exercise?

For some reason, I don't like to talk about exercise to my clients or in seminars. Maybe it is the revulsion in their faces, maybe it is the eye rolls, or maybe it is because I know they don't want to do it and I have my sales job cut out for me. Bottom line is that exercise is required and exercise is distasteful to many many people.

I think maybe the reason is that we mis-use exercise. Some of us use exercise the way others use people. We use it to get what we want. We use it to lose weight fast. We use it to punish ourselves. We use as proof that we are incapable of losing weight. If exercise were a friend of ours, or a person we knew, we could describe the way we treat it as downright rude.

We rarely ever spend time with it and when we do we complain the whole time. We get angry at it for not giving us what we want-namely pounds lost the minute we are finished. We say we are going to show up to see it and we don't. We make excuses as to why we can't spend time with it. We tell it that it is important and valuable and that we are committed and then we let it down time after time.

Think of exercise as the person in your life that is only there to help you. Exercise wants to give you health and vigor. Exercise is the person that wants to tell you the truth about where you are physically. Exercise is honorable, consistent, and true. Exercise is the loyal friend who is worth your time. It may not be exciting each time you spend time with it, but each time you do-you feel yourself getting stronger and stronger.

Sometimes I consider keeping people in my life by who I am when I am with them. If exercise were a person that I hung out with, I would know this is a person I want to keep in my life. Whenever I spend time with it I feel proud, capable, strong, and committed. I give myself the gift of exercise-not because of what I can take from it-but because I am a better person with it in my life. Weight loss or not.

Give yourself the gift of exercise. It is a relationship worth nurturing.

For more great motivational posts - see Why Can't I Lose Weight?