Personal Belief System

Conditioning

Take the example of a circus elephant that from an early age has been chained to a large timber pole buried deep in the ground. The young animal will pull, push and struggle against its constraint but will never be able to escape. Eventually, after long years of this conditioning, when the young elephant is fully grown — and has become one of the strongest creatures on the planet — even though the heavy pole cannot withstand their enormous pulling power, the elephant will not even attempt to escape. It will stay within an area equal to the length of the chain.

Just like we have with our weight-loss attempts, elephants conditioned in such a way also live in daily fear — the fear of being unable to escape from their predicament which has conditioned them to accept the status quo even though the power of freedom lies within them.

Tomorrow
A wise person once said; “If you go into a battle with the intention to lose, you have just lost the battle!”.

For example, you have just lost 10 kg and attained your goal weight, but have been invited to a friend’s house for dinner. This person is famous for their apple pie, which just happens to be your favourite dessert! After dinner, you keep saying to yourself, “don’t eat the pie, don’t eat the pie!”. But what is on your mind the whole time you are saying this to yourself — APPLE PIE! And this is where your fear sets in — fear of gaining weight, but also equal fear of turning down the apple pie and never being able to enjoy food. So you decide to treat yourself this once and have a few pieces of the pie. Then the “all-or-nothing” mindset comes into play — since you have just “broken” your diet, you give yourself permission to eat whatever you want today and start “fresh” again tomorrow. But guess what — tomorrow never comes!



To lose weight successfully and permanently, you need to change your personal belief system about your ability to lose weight. I am going to help you reprogramme your personal belief system for weight-loss success.



Why do our belief systems need reprogramming?
Since the beginning of time human beings have desired those things that are “off limits” — this is the essential wisdom contained in the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit.

However, willpower is something that will generally last only between two to four weeks — it is the short-term motivator that helps you to look good at your brother’s wedding, for instance. And what do you do at your brother’s wedding? Let me guess — stuff your face with food! Why? Because you have prohibited yourself from stuffing your face in the build-up to the event.

Consider this scenario. If I say to you “Don’t think about the colour red” and then ask “What colour are you thinking about now? Let me guess — RED?” I will most probably be correct. If your answer wasn’t red, then you are obviously a person that is completely in control — even though I have yet to meet such a person — and you can put this book down right now because you don’t need my help. Otherwise, I suggest you read on . . .

Changing your personal belief system
As I said earlier, all human beings operate with a set of beliefs (good or bad) or a belief system. According to popular motivation guru Tony Robbins, an opinion is like a tabletop with no legs while a belief system is a tabletop supported by four legs. Those legs are the experiences you have had in the past that support your opinion. So if you have lost weight before but ended up putting it all back on, then your weight-loss opinion is supported by experiences/legs that tell you that there is no point in even trying to lose weight in the future because you will end up failing to maintain that weight loss again anyway.

At this stage you might be wondering how all this psychoanalysis is going to help you lose weight. Well, here’s the answer:

You cannot change what you are not aware of.

A lot of the negative beliefs we have about our weight operate at a subconscious level. All I have been doing is to make you aware of them. Once you are aware of them, I can then help you change them.

To be continued......