Motivate Me

I have been feeling particularly de-motivated about exercising for quite some time. The funny thing is that I used to really like to exercise. I have these exercise videos/dvds which are a bit boring, but nothing onerous, and given my schedule and preferences would be an ideal way for me to work out. Lately, I just have not been doing them…I have also tried many other places and types of exercise but have not seemed to get going for far too long of a time.

The other day I managed to get myself in front of the video and caught myself in a really negative groove. First of all my mind was telling myself how much I didn’t want to do this, but that if I just crunched my spirit down, it would be over soon. Then my mind spent time inwardly criticizing the relentless perkiness of the instructor. Most of the time of the actual exercise was spent wishing it would be over and trying to picture myself as fit again, which just highlighted the gap between now and my former athleticism and made me feel bad.

Well, if that’s a sample of what my mind has been doing all this time no wonder I haven’t been exercising!

Having noticed this, I decided that the next day I would try something different. During the next 24 hours, if I caught myself thinking about exercise, I told myself how much I was looking forward to it and used my NLP skills to create an association between an anticipatory state and the exercise time. Then while I was exercising I forced myself to smile and instead of criticizing the instructor tried to be just as perky as she is, and ended up cracking myself up – thus pairing exercise with laughter! If I found my mind drifting to a future athleticism which was paired with all the times I’d failed to get back in shape, I tried focusing instead on how good it felt to move my muscles right now. Just gently bringing my thoughts back to enjoyment of the present.

Well after doing this for just a few days I can’t wait to exercise. Really.

What makes one person, given the same set of circumstances or hearing the same information, react in a productive way while another person (or the same person at a different time) spins into a negative counter-productive spiral?

The answer seems to lie within. Our brains create associations with words and with feelings and with states that can spark off a chain reaction. One “negative” (currently undesired) thought produces body chemistry that we may have associated with more “negative” thoughts. We create meaning from this chain reaction, and that meaning can be dependent on past decisions and experiences. What may have been life saving for a child, may be irrelevant or not so useful for an adult.

When we are feeling de-motivated it’s useful to create new associations and this can be done through changework sessions which explore and reframe deep patterning creating new meanings and new paired states. Or sometimes, as in my exercise example, simple, conscious mindfulness of being present with our bodies can change our body chemistry and therefore our mindset. Which method to chose really depends on the situation, the availability of resources, and whether it’s a simple environmental change that’s needed or whether it’s leading to a major identity change.

The Single Most Dangerous Thought for Self Employed Professionals

Many people have heard me speak about how a business reflects the beliefs of its owner. For example, a person who is not charging enough in their business is liable to have some limiting beliefs about their personal worth – some sort of self esteem issue.  The “not charging enough” behavior is just a symptom of an underlying set or cluster of beliefs that were probably formed in childhood.

However, sometimes self employed professionals fall into the trap of thinking that not only does their business reflect themselves it is them.  And there is a crucial difference.

This is an easy trap to fall into, especially when doing market positioning work.  In my marketing teleclass for self employed professionals, “Claim Your Niche”, and in the positioning work I have studied by other service marketing gurus, there is a lot of emphasis on determining what differentiates your brand or how to name your “unique selling proposition” (USP).  In order to do that for a service practitioner – especially when the service is somehow personal, involving relationship, style, and a million other factors that vary between professionals in a similar field or target market – we need to look very closely at personality, strengths and weaknesses…in my classes I even go so far as to use NLP techniques to do things like internal searches to further elicit this information.  So it is very easy when your business is this personal to think that your business not only reflects you, it is you.

Again, there is a crucial difference. Understanding this distinction consciously and having this difference wired in unconsciously is what often separates my most successful clients from those that are struggling.  Understanding this difference and wiring this reframe into your other than conscious mind allows you to do things like not take rejection personally.

If you are in business not every potential client is going to be a match and probably some clients are going to complain. If you are running a belief cluster that says “I and my business are one” that feedback is going to hurt.  A lot.  It’s going to feel like a personal rejection and might stop you from moving forward.  On the contrary if your business is merely a reflection of you it is easier to take that feedback and use it appropriately to notice if you are correctly positioned, if your systems are working, if there is an appropriate response or if you just say “OK” and move on.

Even people with loving backgrounds can have these kind of outdated issues and feelings; it seems to be normal and just a product of being human.  What is important to know is that the patterning has a structure that can be redesigned to be more empowering to our adult selves – that’s what I do in my sessions as a practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).  You can make a shift and automate it so that you don’t have to remember to be different, you just are.

Do you have an opinion or experience you would like to share?  Please join this discussion on the Quantum Growth Facebook fan page.

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