POWERLIFT
By now, after months of reading my blogs on positivity, you are in the habit of power lifting your thoughts. Prepped and ready to soar, you have created a positive pattern of thoughts that enhance your daily life. Your mental muscles are strong and you know how to spread you wings to their widest span and fly high.
Do not take this new life pattern for granted. Going to a gym once a year is not going to make you physically fit or develop muscles. Equally, your new mindset must be power-lifted your every day, strengthening your resolves and the promises you have made to yourself.
Here’s a reminder from previous post – Amp up Your Day. Study – a new language. A degree. PHD. Learn how to repair your own car. Do crossword puzzles. Play scrabble – great fun online with someone on the other side of the world. Write that novel you’ve been dreaming about.
Oxford English Dictionary has added more than 700 new words this year, so no shortage there. Read award winning novels, biographies, books on positivity, learn how speed read. The choice is enormous and available online, often for as little as 99 cents. Classics are FREE! What are you waiting for?
Let this be your mantra. ‘I’ll stretch, revive and keep alive my mental muscles.
YOUR PROMISES
What promises have you made to optimize self-improvement? Are they practical? Can you visualize yourself working at them on a daily basis? Can you make the time and more importantly will you make the time? Are they smart? Have you chosen the right path? Do you feel passionate about it? Do you have the right tools? Determination. Positivity.
Are they achievable? This might seem obvious, but often we tend to over-optimize our capabilities and fall at the first hurdle. Your promises to ‘self’ should be like a jigsaw puzzle. You can see the complete picture on the lid of the box and gradually you add each piece, discovering what piece fits where. It’s all about Your Personal Journey of Discovery.
I recommend the movie ‘The Queens’s Gambit’. The heroine reads and absorbs everything about chess. She practises, practises, practises. She visualizes her chess moves on the ceiling, seeing the ‘what if’ possibilities. She has a goal. Does she achieve it? Watch the movie.
Fulfil your promises: Be your own masterpiece. Paint it with clarity and vivacity. Add to it daily. Stand back and visualize the end result. Is it going in the right direction? Does it need more light? More colour? Only you have the answer to that. This is about You.
YOUR PERSONAL JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY
Metaphorically speaking – are you walking towards your goal? Are you running? Are you taking the bus or the train or a plane? Are you travelling on a privately chartered jet? This is something only You can decide. That will be the first step. Your choice of how you travel, be it slow or fast, and what your goal is has no limits but choose wisely. Achievable aims will win the day.
Perhaps you want to lose weight. Forget the quick-flash in the pan (no pun intended) and choose an achievable option of losing one pound a week or even half that. Take it slow and steady and that slight alteration will become habit. Do that with all your goals.
A slight alteration in your daily routine is the rocket fuel you need to propel you forward. Tweaking your daily routine and ensuring your passions and goals are top of the agenda will make you feel like a champion. Sometimes, we need to kick our own posteriors into action, want time out, or get disheartened. Nothing seems to be happening.
Our mind loves playing tricks on us. Return the favour and trick it back. You see that huge negative ball of thought hurtling towards you? Hop onboard and use it for the momentum you need to get ahead. It won’t be easy to stay on top but you know you can. As it prepares to crash into a wall, leap up and jump over. High five!
NOT SO OBVIOUS
Okay, I know it’s repetitive and boring – the usual weight-loss story, but it’s all about being healthy physically, wealthy in word and deed and wise in thought. The same rules apply to mental weight-loss. What is that one element that is making you fail? Why can’t you get over the next hurdle? Why are you giving up?
When you’re looking for your favourite sweater and it’s not where it should be, you trawl through every closet and drawer until you find it. You know it’s the One you Need to wear today so you hunt it down. You may even end up with a pile of discarded clothing on the bed, but you find it.
Do the same mentally. Hunt down that niggle, that worm that’s holding you back. It may be a painful process but once you find it you know what you are dealing with. It’s your ‘get out of jail’ card and you can now move forward. This doesn’t mean it won’t try to trip you up again which is why you need to power-lift every day. Strengthening your mental muscles will enable you to deal with this worry-wart.
MENTAL STRENGTH TRAINING
I suggested a few weeks ago in the blog about The Great Divide we are often our own best enemies. Not our worst enemies but our best. We can do this so well. Quoting from that blog: “Make friends with yourself today. Acknowledge your depression, your dark moods. Your quirks and quibbles. Then befriend them and use them to shift that darkness away. Visualize yourself doing this. It hurts, doesn’t it? It’s exhausting, isn’t it? No, don’t stop and say you’ll start tomorrow. Do it now”. That is another option.
Best to know your enemy and there will be no surprises. Befriend those annoying negative thoughts and treat yourself with care. Allow and use them to give you the momentum to move forward instead of blocking you. Visualize them as barbells with weights attached. Make them work for you not against you.
You want to strengthen your muscles mentally and physically? Increase the weight. Visualize those negative thoughts which tell you it’s not possible as fuel for the fire in your belly. Get those negative thoughts working hard and wear them out. Then discard them knowing you have won the first battle.
OPTIMIZE
Choose to wake up and live the life you want. Optimize. Recognize your strengths. Acknowledge them. There is nothing wrong in knowing that and working accordingly. Self-deprecation is not the way forward.
There is no right way and no wrong way. That seems like a contradiction but the operative word is ‘Way’. It can be a different way of how you live your daily life, how you think. It can be a different path you choose to follow. The important element is your thought force and approach – to optimize the choice you have made.
Human beings are all different, physically, mentally, and spiritually. We come from different cultures and backgrounds. We carry a load on our shoulders. We carry a load on our minds. Declutter your mind with positive words and positive attitude. Drop the slump and stand up and deliver! You may have to acclimatize to this new mental attitude. Just do it. The reward is instant.
Visualize yourself walking into a room full of people. They turn and smile at you. They applaud. You raise your hand in acknowledgement. Do not panic. You have the knowledge, the kudos, and the right to be there. Why? Because you know you can. The OPTIMAL YOU is ready to deliver.
Congratulations on developing Olympic-worthy mental muscles. Congratulations on staying onboard and not giving up. Congratulations on creating the best optimal you.
Read my blog – Free Your Inner Grace ans Soar!
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I have written two novels available on Amazon