Summary: This episode will be a little different. I don’t have any new food tips to make your meals exciting. I am not going to talk about a new trick to help you lose weight. I don’t have a secret hack to make exercise more fun.<br> In fact, I am not going to talk about weight loss. Or rather, I’m not going to talk about it directly. Today, I want to talk about getting the right mindset for a successful long-term weight-loss journey. That journey is not just about losing weight, but also about how to keep it off once you’ve reached your weight loss promised land.<br> Our weight is tied to more than just our eating habits and our activity level. It is strongly affected by our mental state and daily attitude. Have you noticed that you make more poor choices on days when you are feeling sad, depressed, or anxious? Or probably even worse, when you are bored? Have you seen the correlation that when your life is busy and productive, and you are feeling confident about life in general that your food choices are better?<br> Weight loss MUST start in the mind first. Henry Ford once said, “If you think you can, or think you can’t, you are right.” That certainly applies to weight loss. If you go to a work party and say to yourself, “I just know I’m going to blow my budget” I’d bet the mortgage payment that you at the end of the night, you did blow your budget. That is because our minds are powerful. When you thought that, your brain took that as a command, a request for action, and not a warning of a dangerous situation.<br> <a href="https://i0.wp.com/makeyoursomedaytoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/affirmation-woman-1195270__340.jpg"></a><br> So what can you do?<br> You need to start changing your internal monologue. Change the script that your brain reads. Stop focusing on negative worries and change the focus of success statements. These are called affirmations.<br> These are not goal statements. Goals are specific to an event, and affirmations are far more general. If you consider a marathon, a goal statement could be “I will finish this run in under 3 hours” or even just “I will finish this run.” A statement of affirmation about the marathon could be “I am successful because my training was efficient”.<br> When I sold vacuum cleaners door-to-door, my manager had us read affirmation statements in the car before every demonstration. But looking back, they were goal statements. One that I remember very well is “I will walk make a sale at this home.” That is a nice goal statement, very specific to that appointment. A better affirmation statement would have been “I am successful because I can solve my customer’s problems.” That is a better statement because it starts with a statement of fact (“I am” indicates something that already exists, whereas “I will walk” is a prediction of an action.)<br> You may have a weight loss goal statement of “I will get skinny before my wedding”. (As a side note, that really isn’t a good goal statement. It isn’t SMART. I discuss <a href="http://makeyoursomedaytoday.com/Smart">SMART goals in episode 67</a>). That goal also will back-stab your progress, because as you focus on it, and as you fail to reach it, it will generate more anxiety. And anxiety itself can reverse your weight loss progress. I talk about <a href="http://makeyoursomedaytoday.com/Anxiety">anxiety in episode 102</a> .<br> So what are affirmations and how do they work?<br> They are statements of positive thoughts and self-empowerment. Affirmation statements work best when you read them aloud several times a day, ideally in the morning and right before going to bed. Focus on one or two affirmation statements for a full month, then choose another one or two. Keep changing your statements monthly. This will help implant these positive thoughts deep within your mind, so that act as the foundation of your day. And when you read them aloud, you active multiple sensory data streams into your brain–not just sight and soun...
