You Can't Call Yourself Healthy If Your Thoughts Suck

A healthy body is wonderful, and it's easy to think 'job done' on the health front. Problem is, and the one thing that so many people miss, it's only half the picture. The parts of us that needs to be worked out, toned, nourished and fine tuned all start with our thoughts.

We think a crazy amount of thoughts every day (50-70,000), around 80% of those do not serve us, in fact they are thoughts that feel alien to our progress because they are naturally negative. And although our brains have a clever filter, known as DDG in NLP: Deleting, distorting and generalising, not having a handle on what is being DDG'd can keep us stuck.

Unless we do our thought work, 98% of our thoughts are recycled from the day before, locking us into a cycle of around 56,000 thoughts a day that are not serving, and worse, holding us back in negative thought spirals, a.k.a. stopping us taking the kind action we need to take to get on and achieve the kind of success we dream of.

In the words of Eckhart Tolle:

"The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but the thoughts about it, Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking"

Unhelpful thoughts, are not healthy.

• They keep you stuck
• Attached to bad habits (comfort)
• Repeating patterns of behaviour you're 'over' but can't stop
• And ultimately have you miss opportunities.

What can you do right now to change the patterns?

• Start to become aware of your thoughts. Sounds annoyingly simple, but the first place to start. When you can uncover the thought behind an action, it's a game changer, because you can change that thought. If you reflect on something you've done that wasn't your finest hour, work out what you were thinking when you did it, who were you being? And the opposite, reflect on a great success, what were your thoughts then?
• Get factual. Is the thought actually true? 98% of the time it's not. There's a difference between fear and danger. Fear is predominantly in our subconscious, danger is usually physical. What you fear, could be in thought only. And guess what? You can change that thought.
• Our thoughts are relatively neutral until we attach a feeling to them. And it's the feeling that scares us, sometime it even feels like the feeling can kill us. But what if you let yourself feel that feeling anyway. It changes everything.
• Your circumstances are never the issue. We can get lost in pain about immovable situations, when actually every circumstance is just fact. It's what thought we give it that changes it. Change that thought, and options open up. Every time.
• If it helps, journal. I free write every day for three pages (The Artists Way inspired) to declutter my brain. It helps chuck out the thoughts that are loitering around for no good reason.
• Practice changing the thought for one that's helpful;

1. I can't do this = unhelpful, keeps you stuck

2. I'm figuring this out = positive, motivating and doable.

1. I feel like a total failure = emotional, not factual, very unhelpful
2. Why do I feel like this? What's the thought behind it? = Curious, fact finding, growth inducing.

I'm the most inquisitive person most people have met, because I know our thoughts come out in our conversation so my ninja listening skills come in pretty handy. I can spot them a mile away, it's what makes me such a good coach (I've done my own thought work on self promotion ??) If you listen carefully, you'll start to spot them too. Your thoughts creep into everything you do and because you have 100% control over them, getting into the habit of working with them, rather than letting them run a mock over your life, has the potential to change everything.

So, when thinking about your health, next time you're out for a run or down the gym, put a podcast on to help you think more about the positive future you, rather than the you that's stuck in a rut.

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