Tag Archives: confidence

The most important ingredient of success

February 8, 2016 By in Get motivated Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Is likely believing you can be successful.

Belief is the breeding ground for confidence, effort and persistence. And it is these qualities that predict success much better than your natural ability can.

When you believe that you are capable, you are (much) more likely to:

  • Set more difficult goals,
  • Engage in the behaviours necessary to achieve these,
  • Put in more and better-directed effort, and most importantly,
  • Persevere through the obstacles and challenges that come.

And belief not only predicts goal achievement. It also predicts physical and mental health, as it:

  • Helps to promote optimal well-being,
  • Is crucial for successful change in virtually any healthy behaviour, and
  • Directly improves your body’s physiological response to stress, including strengthening of the immune system.

The best news is that just like your health or fitness, belief is something you can actively develop.

Here’s how:

  1. Think about your strengths and reminisce on previous times you have achieved something important to you.
  2. Find and talk to people who have achieved what you want to, from a similar position to where you find yourself now.
  3. Spend some time imagining yourself actually achieving your goals.
  4. Surround yourself with people that believe in you, and question the people who don’t.
  5. Practice relaxation and deep breathing during times of failure, and be conscious not to explain your failure with a lack of ability alone, and
  6. Remind and affirm to yourself what we know to be true: that you are more than capable.

Develop an unquestionable belief in your ideas, goals and capacity for achievement, and you’ll not only be healthier.

You’ll also find yourself with very few limits to what you can actually accomplish.

Why eating healthy isn’t as hard as you think

January 5, 2016 By in Quit the dieting Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

First, consider these 3 dinners:

  1. Cheese pizza, soft drink and chocolate.
  2. Beef lasagne.
  3. Vegetable and lentil salad with quinoa, kale and freshly grown herbs.

Next, notice these 2 observations:

1. There are some nutritional benefits to eating the beef lasagne. It contains protein, B vitamins, iron and zinc, and is more nutritious than option 1.

2. We don’t need to eat a meal like the vegetable and lentil salad every single night. Healthy eating is compatible with a wide range of foods, because one unhealthy food in small amounts doesn’t make a diet unhealthy.

This all means that good nutrition is far from black and white.

Thinking about food in terms of all or nothing only creates a cycle of aspiring to eat perfectly (unnecessarily), and beating ourselves up when we don’t.

Instead, good nutrition is best viewed as a scale, and best achieved like this:

Step. By step. By step. By step.

The goal is actually not to eat like someone very different to you.

The goal is to eat better than you did yesterday.

Just because…

November 26, 2015 By in Change your thinking Tags: , , , , 3 Comments

Just because someone failed to see the value in what you create, doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable.

Just because someone said you didn’t measure up to some standard of achievement, doesn’t mean that they are right, or that standard of achievement actually matters.

Just because someone said it can’t be done, doesn’t mean that you can never do it.

Just because someone got angry at or judged you, doesn’t mean that you are wrong.

Just because someone believes you are not good enough, doesn’t mean that you are not enough already.

Just because someone said you can’t make a difference here, doesn’t mean you do not possess unique gifts and talents that only you can contribute elsewhere.

Just because someone couldn’t see the beauty within you, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Just because someone doesn’t want you in their life, doesn’t mean that your presence is not the most amazing gift for another.

Just because someone isn’t willing or able to love you, doesn’t mean that you are not lovable.

Why your dreams shouldn’t wait for tomorrow

November 19, 2015 By in Get motivated Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Because you are worthy of them today.

The most essential thing to understand is that there are no prerequisites to your worthiness.

Right now, you are worthy of love, of belonging and of having what your heart desires.

Right now, you are worthy of sharing your gifts, ideas and talents with the world, and you are worthy of being all of you, without the fear of judgement, ridicule or hurt from others.

Those feelings of doubt and fear that hold us back very rarely have anything to do with our actual capabilities, and very often have everything to do with the voice inside of our head. The very voice that looks down on us and says, “Are you sure you’re enough?”

Yes, you’re imperfect. Yes, you’ve made mistakes. Yes, you’ve got plenty of room still to grow.

But you are worthy. Not just tomorrow, but in this very moment, just the way that you are.

We’re ready when you are.

The 12 steps to setting (and achieving) your New Year’s resolutions

August 29, 2015 By in Change your behaviour Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Step 1. Brainstorm your dream list. Write a list of everything you may possibly want to achieve this year. Think big, without limits.

Step 2: Link each goal to your core life values. For each goal, ask yourself: Why is this important to me? What is it (exactly) that will make the sacrifice, discomfort and effort that’s required to achieve this goal truly worthwhile? If you don’t have a good answer, cross it off your list.

Step 3. Re-frame your remaining goals to capture your motivation. For example, the goals “Go to the gym” or “Lose weight” might become “A strategy to improve my fitness in an enjoyable and sustainable manner, which will be evidenced by having more energy and being able to enjoy playing with the kids when I get home from work.”

Step 4: Decide on what’s most important to you. You can’t be an Olympic marathon runner and our Prime Minister at the same time. Of the goals you have left, decide which are most important. I suggest choosing your top 4, that you truly believe can be achieved together over the course of 1 year.

Step 5: Ensure there is a balance. If all 4 goals are about climbing the corporate ladder, is that really how you want to spend your year? Research shows our well-being is highest when we find a balance between relationships, religion/spirituality, work and generosity/focusing beyond ourselves.

Step 6: Re-check before you commit. Ask yourself: are these goals really, truly how I want to invest much of my time this year? (Hint: If you’re not screaming out yes, the answer is probably no.)

Step 7: For each goal, write a (very) specific action plan to get you there. Decide on the small and simple behaviours you will commit to regularly that will get you to your goal. They should be things to do (go to the cycle class on Saturday mornings) as opposed to things not to do (stop eating chocolate). Consider also any extra skills, knowledge and support you’ll need, as well as the potential barriers that may come up.

Step 8: Create a clear timeline for your action plan. Divide your behaviours into steps you can do on a daily (or at least weekly) basis.

[Important: if you’re not extremely confident that you can do the action plan, read this post, or change it so that you are.]

Step 9: Plan exactly when and where you will do the actions. Choose both a time and a place that you will come across every day (or week).

Step 10: Each day (or week) you encounter that time and place, do the action. I highly recommend creating a chart that you can mark off every night before bed so that you can see your progress.

Step 11: Put a monthly reminder in your calendar to review your progress. Don’t wait until the end of the year to realise that what you have been doing hasn’t worked. If you find that at the end of the month you are not making consistent progress towards your yearly goal, revise your action plan (and double check that it’s truly an achievable goal).

If the problem is that you are not doing your action plan, either i) make the action plan easier, ii) understand and question your thoughts that are holding you back, or iii) make changes to your environment to better support your desired behaviour. (Note: Don’t beat yourself up here. It’s normal to fail – the trick is to learn from it and change accordingly.)

Step 12. Celebrate! Decades of research shows that when you do this process, it works.

That is, if you have the courage to face the possibility of failure, you also have the ability to make your dreams come true.

How to find more motivation

August 13, 2015 By in Get motivated Tags: , Leave a comment

We are motivated simply when we:
1. perceive something as important, and
2. have the confidence in ourselves that we can actually achieve it.

If you’re struggling with the motivation to move more or eat better, ask yourself: why does this matter to me? If I do this, how will my life be different in 3 months time?

Find something that is important to you. Something that truly excites and inspires. Once you’ve got it and it feels right, write it down and tell your world.

Next, honestly ask yourself: on a scale of 1 to 10, how confident am I that I can actually do this?

If confidence is lacking, how can you change that? How can you change the starting line so that you truly believe you’re capable of achieving it?

Sometimes success is not about finishing. It’s about starting. And you’ll be surprised what you’re capable of once you find yourself there.

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