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With only the draw one week earlier, the combination of physiological and the psychological preparation helped Collingwood very convincingly win the grand final.

The belief and the confidence in themselves gave them the mental armory to crush St Kilda. The draw only a week early indicated that both teams were fairly evenly matched, ultimately it came down to the their belief system.

“We’ve got a very young group and they had the belief they could go all the way”

With the help of an AIS Professor Allan Hahn, using medical based recovery techniques and with their sports science director David Buttifant the players were subjected to ice baths and recovery sessions in the water.

Ultimately it came down to eliminating any doubt or hesitation that they would lose, that every member of the team could visualise the win.

With St Kilda, a similar situation happened last week when they were behind but they had the belief they they could win the Grand Final however only a week later history wasn’t to repeat itself as Collingwood maintained there mental and physical advantage over St Kilda.

Some players had no confidence in their kicking while their defence fell apart.

So not matter where you are at whether part of an elite sports teams or someone trying to achieve their weight loss goals, ultimately it comes down to your belief system for success.

Quite often the hardest habit to change is the habit you need to change the most. We have the greatest resistance, fear, anger and hesitation to the habits or beliefs that are so ingrained that bring about any changes seems the most challenging.

Think about the one thing which you would like to change the most, the habit can be smoking or eating too much junk food or chocolate, do you find when someone asks you how you are going with giving up smoking or reducing your chocolate consumption you become highly emotional.

Do you react defensively or get sad or upset, our minds we deliberately create these barriers as our deep subconscious mind really doesn’t want to change.

Are habits can be formed over many years with the belief being supported and re-established by our behaviour. By constantly reaffirming an undesirable belief system, it becomes so entrenched that to make a positive change requires a real commitment to bring about a change.
It’s all about creating new pathways and maintaining these new pathways.

So often we start off we great intentions to lose weight, to change are dietary intake but after a short period we quickly fall off the wagon, lose motivation and resume our old well trodden pathways. The thought patterns that we are familiar with gives us the most comfort and security and reassurance as opposed to pursing a thought pattern or belief system which is contrary to what we have performed for years.

There are many stages in changing your belief system, like any achieving any goal, its about persistence to override resistance.

Often when we think about weight loss, we think of changing the ratio of energy consumption verses energy expenditure which is great however if you are truly not committed and truly believe it will happen then your chances of success are very low.

When you get down to the nuts and bolts of weight loss, it’s more like 20% based on the frequency and intensity of exercise, 20% about what you consume, the amount and the frequency but more importantly 60% is based on what you are thinking.

Think about the Yo-Yo diet, you get weight loss results then just as quickly you get weight gain, how can this be? Well if you don’t have the belief systems in place and the right mind set then old habits will return very quickly.
It’s like a children’s seesaw, one day you are in perfect balance where everything works, both children are of similar weight and contributing equally then the next day a different kid sits on the other end of the seesaw who is heavier or lighter or maybe isn’t contributing to seesawing by just sitting there or is pushing off too hard and making the other kid fall off.

If you don’t have everything in sync with the kids on the seesaw, ie the right weight (nutrition), the right level of exertion (mind) and contribution (exercise) the seesaw doesn’t work.
You can compensate on the seesaw if one kid is heavier or not contributing enough by one person working harder but this can only be sustained for a short period of time BUT if one kid does nothing and just sits there, guess what? nothing happens no matter how hard the other kids tries.

So if your scared of the seesaw, you don’t believe you have the skills to use it or you were forced to play on the seesaw by mum nothing will happen, similarly you wont lose weight.

I like the analogy of the hole in the footpath, you can either keep walking into the hole every morning or change your thought patterns and beliefs by choosing a different street with a different footpath.

The mind plays a massive role in everything that happens in our life, what we do, how we do it etc so get the mind in tune and the weight loss will follow:))

What an inspirational person Jessica Watson is for her epic journey to circumnavigate the world.
It shows you what a strong belief in yourself can accomplish, a feat many people said wasn’t possible for someone so young or without the necessary ocean experience.

Well with lots of determination and a never give up attitude she successfully completed this amazing journey in 10 months covering a staggering 38,000kms. Against everything that mother nature can conjure up from 10meter seas, 60knot winds, strong currents, treacherous conditions and an early incident with a bulk carrier ship, Jessica’s strength shone through.

Think about the fatigue involved in being alert for 24 hours a days, every day for 210 days, the physical and mental exhaustion.

The biggest part was the psychological side as the isolation and loneliness at being out of sea without any personal contact for such a long period of time. The other big thing that stops most of us is fear of failure or doubting that we can succeed.

In her own words “I’m just an ordinary girl who believes in her dreams, believe in it and work hard”. She is absolutely awesome with such an amazing attitude and belief “proof what can be achieved if you set your mind, anything is possible” She went further by saying that it’s overcoming small challenges and moving in small steps.

It was only 12 months ago that Susan Boyle proved that if you truly believe anything is possible.

One thing that was great was that Jessica craved fresh fruit apart from the usual chocolate requests.

Everyone of us has our own unique journey or dream, for some it’s to be healthier, lose weight and live a better life. If you have the belief system, anything is possible.

I heard a great story about a King who loved to go deer hunting, back in the dark ages.
Going deer hunting was an activity the King used to relax and remove him self from the regular pressures of running the kingdom.
Due to the responsibilities of being the King, his fabled deer hunting activities were no more so the Queen enlisted the help of a person known to have good fortune and luck. Such luck would help the King find the deer (apparently deer are hard to find as the bow and arrow is there natural enemy).
So off the King went one day to hunt deer with this person of good luck, within no time had they entered the forest that a deer appeared, the King drew his bow and within seconds the deer had fallen victim to the Kings arrow, unfortunately the deer was still alive so the King went to his faithful bearer of good fortune and asked for a knife to ends the deers suffering.

In a moment of haste, the man of good fortune dres his knife and in the process cut the finger tip of the Kings finger. “What have you done, you are useless, this is not good fortune, off to the dungeons for you” expelled the King, “Something good will come from this” said the person of good fortune.

This only antagonised and infuriated the King even more, so the person of good fortune repeated “Something good will come from this”.

Well off to the dungeon he went, with the person of good fortune “Something good will come from this”.
After a few weeks passed, the King decided to go deer hunting again but this time alone, off he went deep into the forest. Not a deer to be seen so he continued deeper and deeper, before long he was lost, it was getting darker and the all mighty King was getting a little concerned.

Before long he heard some voices in the distance, louder and louder the voices got until he was surrounded by savages.
The leader of the tribe was most happy with his find as the tribe performed regular sacrifices to the gods for continued good fortune. Sacrificing a King was the ultimate offering to the gods so soon the King was in the middle of a Bon fire. The leader of the tribe went to the King and noticed that he was missing his finger tip, “well we cannot make a sacrifice when the person is incomplete, without their finger tip.

So they untied the King and sent him on his way.
Back in the kingdom the King went back to the dungeon to tell the person of good fortune that he was right about something good will come off this. he apologised for the appalling conditions of only bread and water.

The person of good fortune said to the King that something good happened for him as he could have been with the King and been sacrificed:)))

So the moral of the story is you never quite know how one event will effect future events.
As there were hundreds of events that lead to the King losing his finger, there were equally a lot of events since and more events in the future.