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Quite often the biggest barrier to achieving your goals is leaving your comfort zone.

The biggest hurdle that we confront when we are trying to make shifts to achieve our goals, be it for weight loss, improving your fitness level, general well being is the idea of going into a place where we are confronting our fears.

Ultimately this makes us feel uncomfortable and it’s a human defense mechanism to avoid anything which creates pain or discomfort.

How often have you heard that people would rather (metaphorically speaking) cut off the right-hand rather than speaking in public.

This makes the whole process of trying to achieve the goal being very challenging, we will place all types of barriers to avoid feeling any discomfort, we create legitimate reasons, that we don’t have enough time, too busy, it’s too hard, not ready at the moment, I’ll start in January next year.

While it may appear to be easier in the short term to take the easier option of inactivity, in the long-term would pay the price for not jumping over the hurdles that we create.

Maybe your goal is to change job or career however the fear of going into the unknown, of feeling discomfort and possible pain will relegate you to stay exactly where you are.

Initially we can justify not committing to a goal, for example improving your fitness level, however not having the time to exercise is like making small deposits in your health bank that accumulate over a long period of time, so the effects of not engaging in regular physical activity may have a detrimental effect on your health in the long term.

Maybe you have won in the gene pool tree of life whereby you can treat your body poorly and you will live to 100, however is this the sort of gamble your wish to take with your health.

While it is recommended that you perform 30 min. of exercise 3 to 4 times per week, for a person whose goal is to lose weight, the long-term consequences of avoiding the achievement of this goal is a predisposition to cardiovascular disease and diabetes, the possibility of osteoporosis and numerous other ailments.

It’s all about taking small steps, and removing those mental barriers that stop you achieving success at every level of of the process.

How often have you heard of people placing these barriers to avoid leaving the comforts zone, ultimately it’s about removing and changing the negative chatter in the mind that leads to the proliferation of these thought patterns.

Like many emotions in our mind, fear is one of the stronger ones.
So often I hear the same reason for not joining our Boot camp, I’m waiting for my friend to commit, I like to train with a friend, it’s more fun with a friend etc.

There are many activities whereby sharing the experience with a friend is great but is not the core reason for achieving your goals, it’s a supportive belief that exercise cannot be performed without a friend.
Ultimately any goal that you have in life is YOUR goal and not contingent on the outcomes of other people.

Imagine if your goal is to go trekking in Nepal, you have dreamt about it for years, pictured yourself high on the mountains tops, overlooking the valleys below.
Finally it becomes a reality, you pick a time and decide to go with an organised tour company and you chat to your friend about it, you’re both excited, what an awesome adventure.

Suddenly your devastated, your friend has started a new job and can’t get the time off, something totally unexpected has now happened.
So what do you do? Pursue you dream as your friend is understanding and doesn’t won’t to stop you pursing your dream or do you wait for another window of opportunity to travel with your friend?

But if we dig a little dipper to determine what is driving these outcomes, probably fear may be lurking in the depths of our mind; fear of commitment, of discomfort, performance anxiety, meeting strange people, making changes to your lifestyle.

What we need to do is change our belief system that we can exercise to achieve our goals and we will be successful.

So maybe fear is not the only reason but something to consider when you are held back from achieving your goals.

How we feel about ourselves has an enormous effect on our actions. The big one that holds us back is fear yet we continue to entertain these thoughts.

What we really need to be doing is going on a mental diet for weight loss and limiting the consumption of these thoughts.

Do you have negative thoughts, is your mind churning through this negativity on a weekly, daily or hourly basis.
If you are constantly focused on these thought patterns, you will perpetuate this line of thinking with little chance of success.

Does this sound familiar? I can’t; there is no point; can’t succeed anyway; that person X is kucky; they can eat what they want; I just look at food and put on weight; too busy; wasting my time; I hate the way I look; the way I feel; nothing looks good on me; I’m unattractive; I feel fat.

Don’t sabotage yourself with these junk thoughts, get onto your mind diet today.

Changing your belief systems to lose weigh
Once you have decided to lose weight, your mind will be resisting the change and throwing up obstacles to sabotage the success of your new mind set.

When we decide to change, for example to lose weight we undergo numerous steps before we reach the final decision to change on a conscious level.
On a deeper level, our mind is still undergoing neurological change, trying to re wire the pathways, the road maps of our mind that has lead us on the same destructive path year after year.

During this transition period your mind will create barriers to change, you become sick, workloads increase at the office, unexpected events happens such as relationships begining or ending, things happen that prevent you making a change, financial events occur, these events may be viewed as road blocks that your mind is creating to stop change occuring.

Do you say
I will lose weight when I’m ready
No understands or cares
It’s not the right time
It’s the way I am

Your beliefs
It’s to hard
I don’t have the time
It can’t be done
I don’t believe I can lose weight
I’m not strong enough

Your justifications
I don’t know who can help me
It’s just a waste of time anyway
Venus isn’t in alignment with Jupiter
Its too cold and wet
When the time is right or when XXXX happens I’II do it
Too busy with work/family/socialising

How we view ourselves
Not worthy
Not good enough
Too heavy
Too overweight
Not mentally strong enough
Not a valuable member of society
Dislike ourselves

Acceptance of body size
Even though I’m heavy, I’m healthy
People are prejudice
People should accept me for how I am
Fashion caters to overweight people

Fear of change
I will fail
What will people think
I have to many injuries
I can only eat certain types of foods
I cannot afford fitness training or fancy meals
I need to spend or my energy on my family

You have to believe in change, you feel it, visualise it, then mentally you can re program the road map of your mind.

A good friend of mine for years has struggled to either create or keep wealth, similiar to wanting to lose weight, their beliefs predisposed them to activities that ensured that I would never accumulate wealth, poor job selections, excess expenditure on non essential things.

Recently they decided to empower themselves and make the change by not only repeating in their mind that they can create wealth but are worthy of having wealth.
Their whole perspective changed, a shift was beginning to happen.

The catalysist of change happened during this poignant moment when my friend was dreaming of being held prisoner by a gang who demanded that my friend hand over all of their money so that the gang could gamble it at the casino.
Failure to comply would result in an unfavourable outcome.

This represented a transitionally period, that change was being resisted on a subconscious level, yet it was extremely positive as the person was progressing through the stages to move them to financial independance.

Similarly in losing weight, you will undergo similar changes subconsciously but how you handle this resistance and move forward will underline your success or failure.

Ultimately you have to move to the final level of:
I love myself (not in an ego arrogant sort of way)
I am moving closer to my ideal weight
Everyday I am feeling stronger and more positive

So the real question is are you ready to change your belief system to lose weight?