Empowering Beliefs and Positive Self Talk

Weight Watchers has 10 tools for living. They're written in the week 1 Getting Started booklet we're given when we join. What are tools for living? The book says "These are a set of techniques that deal with the "inside" of weight management - the thoughts and feelings that influence your weight-loss behaviors".

I don't really want to cover all 10 tools today. I just want to talk about a couple; mainly empowering beliefs and positive self talking.

Lets talk about empowering beliefs first. What are empowering beliefs? Well, have you ever heard the saying "if you think you can, you will and if you think you can't, you won't"? Well empowering beliefs would be the part where "if you think you can, you will". How many times have you thought "I can't do that, it's too hard"? Well how will you know if you sit there and talk yourself out of it? You have to believe you can do it.

The nice thing about belief, is you are in charge. Nobody can change what you believe unless you want to change what you believe, they are your own thoughts. Only you can change what you believe. Sure, others can try to persuade you to believe differently than what you do, but in the end, you have the ultimate power to make that change or stick with what you know. If you have dis-empowering beliefs (those would be the "if you think you can't, you won't"), you will probably never achieve what you want to (in weight loss or otherwise). You can change your own beliefs though.

In order to change your beliefs, first you have to have the desire to change. Talk to yourself (I don't advise doing this out in public, people may think you're weird), but give yourself a private little chat and ask yourself, "is this a belief that I really want to hold onto?" Visualize yourself holding this belief. How would you become a better, happier, more successful person. Concentrate on your desire to be this new person and how rewarding that would be. Seek the information you need to make the change. This could be anything from reading, going to meetings, asking a friend, joining an online group, etc. Find the knowledge you need to make the change happen. Next you'll need to boost your commitment. This would be seeking help from others to help you stay committed to your new belief. This could be help from a spouse, friend, sibling, parent, meeting, etc. Stay away from anyone who wants to take your empowering belief away from you (misery loves company). You'll need to immediately start acting like a person who holds this belief. If you wait for this to happen all of a sudden, it won't work. Think how this person would walk, talk, etc. and then start acting like that. If your belief is that you can be a skinny person, then you need to start acting like a skinny person. Think about how skinny people behave. Do they load their plates up and go back for seconds? No! Do they lounge around on the couch all day and eat bon bons? No! (if by chance you do know some who do, pick another skinny person to follow. LOL! Maybe one that has to work at being skinny. Let's face it, some people are lucky to have great metabolisms. We aren't following those people around for an example. LOL). The last thing you need to do to is you need to find new ways to grow. After your belief has empowered you to change, and you have succeeded, you can't sit back and relax. Reward yourself for making the change, but you need to stick with it. Find new ways to help you do that. If you get bored with what you're doing, change it up. Walking the same path everyday on your daily walk? Take a new path or even get off of the path and take a hike. Eating the same thing for lunch everyday? Try something new. Keep it fresh and exciting.

Another thing I want to talk about is positive self talk. Have you ever said to yourself "I shouldn't have eaten that pie! I'm so stressed! I just can't do this! I have no self control! I give up!"? This is called negative self talk. It's pretty depressing isn't it? What if you had that same conversation again, but this time with positive self talk? What would it sound like? Would it sound like this? "I wish I hadn't eaten that pie! It was a bad choice and I know how to make better choices. Looking back, I realize I wasn't really hungry. I was stressed and I thought pie would make me feel better. What can I do the next time I'm feeling stressed so that this won't happen again?"

Self talk is internal dialog; the words we use when we talk to ourselves. According to Dr. Shad Helmstetter, our self talk reflects and creates our emotional states. You can feel calm or worried, depending on what you tell yourself. Your self talk can influence your self esteem, outlook, energy level, performance, and relationships with others. It can even affect your health, determining, for example, how you handle stressful events, or how easily you replace unhealthy behaviors with healthy ones.

Negative self talk can be changed with awareness and practice. Replace negative messages with positive ones. Say "I can" instead of "I can't". Personalize your affirmations with "I", "me" and "my". You can't always control circumstances or other people, so make your affirmations about what you can control, which is yourself. Make your affirmations state your own goals, wants and values, not someone else's. Make your affirmations believable and realistic so that you can say them with sincerity. Always state affirmations in the positive. To say "I don't eat fried food" only focuses your attention on the behavior you want to avoid. Instead say "I eat nutritious foods". Make affirmations short and easy to remember. Catchy slogans stay with us longer than essays. Repeat your positive affirmations often and positive thinking will become routine.

You Can Because You Think You Can

Everything is possible when you believe it's possible.
It's your mind that sets your limits.
What you envision you can do, you can do.
What your mind can conceive and believe,
your mind can achieve.
Success is actually a state of mind.
Start thinking of yourself as a success.
Believe in yourself.
Know in your heart,
that you can do the job you've set out to do.

If you think you can, you can.