Welcome to Part Three of our step-by-step guide in helping you conquer whatever it is you strive to do!
Becoming a champion at something worthwhile is never easy, otherwise everyone would be doing it! So here we are with post number 3, to give you another push in a positive direction towards achieving those dreams of yours!
At League Collective, we aim to inspire you to push forward with a sense of support behind you, knowing that what you’re doing is right, instead of feeling motivated one day and unsure the next. Of course, it is human to feel like this, however, what we aim to give you in this blog is a brief, concise and ordered library of thought to look back on whenever you’re feeling a little subdued to re-motivate you, instead of curling up in a ball in bed deciding it is too cold to get up, let alone start working on that amazing outlandish and far fetched dream of yours…
If it’s been a while since you read Parts 1 and 2, why not have a quick flick back through them before reading this, to refresh your mind of the steps you need to take…
Let’s start this week by giving you a structural guide to making these things happen.
Goals
When someone mentions “setting goals”, most of us immediately panic and freak out that we don’t know exactly what we want, or that our actual dreams are genuinely impossible to reach, so there isn’t really any point in writing them down because we will just feel bad about not achieving them…
But here’s the thing:
As Solomon once said: “When people lack purpose, they perish.”
We make lists and set targets of things to complete during the day, however, it is the BIG goals and that “vision” that help drive our desire forward.
And if setting a goal and writing it down is already making you feel uneasy, then GREAT! You are moving out of your comfort zone.
Write those goals or that vision down in an achievable way, or in bullet point form:
“climb Everest”
“make £20,000 a month”
“be at optimum health”
“learn a new language”
… and then break them down even more into achievable steps so they become less daunting.
What you are doing is giving your brain the chance to process these ideas. If they show up in your mind, then there is at least a chance that these goals have potential to become a reality. Thoughts are real things, remember!
You are beginning to create neurological pathways for them. So! Write them down, keep them in your pockets, read them often. We are habitual creatures, and the more frequent something is in our life, the easier it will become to process in our mind.
Let break this down a little and explain how…
Mind
Nothing is going to change until you change the way that you interact with, or perceive the situation. In other words: the only person standing in the way of you achieving your goals is you… and your mind.
Through our school years, we spend plenty of time training our intellect, in fact an awful lot of time, but something we don’t spend time doing is training our actual minds… We seem to let them run wild and free with whatever emotion drives them to imagine scenarios our virtual self would deem ridiculous – yet we imagine it anyway, until it actually has the potential to become a reality…
Animals have built-in instincts that they follow and it gets them through life exactly as it should… Humans have a creative imagination.
You have this beautiful gift, which means that whatever you think, your mind must conspire to help you achieve it. When you are compelled to do something, you are in tune with your nature, and you will have the drive to do it because when you direct your intention towards something, it focuses your energy and you begin to get things done in the direction that you set those goals. You start momentum, and become consistent with your human nature.
Let’s break down how the mind works, processes information, and how we react to it.
As George Zalucki very simply puts it: “Separate your brain into two main compartments, and you have the Thinker, and the Prover. The Thinker is programmed to think, and the Prover is programmed to prove – which means; your mind will always prove what your thinker thinks to be right!”
Following?
An example of two sides of a mind can be explained quite well with an athlete and their coach.
The quality of relationship between an athlete and their coach is crucial to the athlete’s performance.
In a sense, the coach becomes the athlete’s Thinker mind. They help reset the mind of an athlete when the athlete might feel like they’re going downhill and no doubt their Prover begins to prove it.
The coach sees the athlete flailing or giving up as their subconscious mind interferes (their belief system about themselves). The coach evaluates the situation and says to his athlete “you’ve got this! You can do it! Look how much stronger/faster/agile/fitter/focused you are than your opponent!”
If the coach infiltrates his athlete’s conscious mind in the right way, the athlete processes this new knowledge about themselves and decides, “yes, I can do it!” The athlete’s performance improves as their Thinker mind begins to Think the Prover into doing what it says.
One right word or sentence can be a game-changer in the mind so strong that the performance of the athlete can change in an instant, all through the power of their mind and shifting the focus to something more positive, or going into something with enthusiasm instead of doubt!
Once you know what you want, your mind MUST help you achieve it. The downside to this is that when you don’t focus your mind, it wanders about all sorts of random things, and your Prover will keep proving to your Thinker that you are still wandering and going in no particular direction. If you don’t know what you want, your Prover will give you lots of things that you didn’t particularly want.
So what else stops you from achieving these dreams? You’re setting your goals, and thinking about what you want, but you still aren’t seeing the results you’d hoped for…
Enter emotions.
Emotions
As mentioned in our previous post about self-image and the way your brain has developed over the years, emotions make up how you react to certain scenarios or situations… Feelings are emotionally charged thoughts meaning that, when you step out of your comfort zone, your emotions will most probably go a bit nuts because you have just done something and begun feeling something that isn’t in your programming, and “we’re probably all going to die”… Enter: panic, anxiety, sweaty palms, fear, worry, induced stress, probably followed by an illness or large problem of some sort – meaning you “can’t possibly do it!” – whatever it might be that you are trying to achieve.
Emotions fall into the Prover category of your mind. They are, for the most part, subconscious, untrained and we let them run riot and pretty much rule our entire lives.
Your other half doesn’t text back after half an hour for instance. Your mind thinks up all sorts of stories; ‘I bet they’re cheating on me!’, ‘she must think
I’m so annoying’, ‘maybe he’s been in an accident!’ Within seconds your emotions are backing up your thoughts: anger, fear of abandonment, of self doubt and worry suddenly swing your mood, and whatever you were doing in that present moment is now ruined… all because someones phone may have been on silent or out of ear shot whilst they were reading a book peacefully in another room Meanwhile your mind and emotions have taken you through a them park of emotions for no reasonable explanation.
It’s a safety instinct. A safety mechanism to keep us safe from fear of the unknown. Things that were not built into our original programming from ages 0-6 are not accounted for, and our brains and body cannot handle them.
So it is time to ask yourself: Are you going to let your 5-year-old self and the childhood that came with it rule your success in life…? Or take control of these emotions?
What we need to remember is that these emotions are OK. They are as real as you let your thoughts about any given situation become.
They are only feelings, and you made up what they mean.
It is time to take responsibility for everything in your life.
Your mind, thoughts and emotions got you to exactly where you are today right now. Your Thinker thought, and your Prover proved your thinker to be right. Whatever childhood you had or whatever thought process you had drilled into your brain from a young age, it is up to you to change it. Why?
Because no one else will, and your future depends on it!
There is no point in blaming people in your life for the way you have ended up, because whether it looked like they were showing love or not, or caring for you or not, they were doing the best that they could do at the time, with their own thought process and their brain compilations of childhood data.
So forgive them. Once you forgive everyone and everything, (including yourself!) for getting you to where you are right now – if you don’t like it that is – then you can move from this point forward with fewer feelings of wrongdoing, blame and judgment.
So let’s break down how to make all of this work in our favour, as opposed to the latter:
- Thoughts create emotions, which induce physical feelings in the body, therefore meaning that our mind and thoughts have a huge physical impact on the way your life plays out.
- Once we are able to control our mind and thoughts (our Thinker), we can then back up those thoughts with chosen emotion and feeling.
- Emotionally charged thoughts are so much more powerful. Why? Well, because you have backed your ideas up with a physical feeling, making it seem so much more real, and now your Prover is backing up your Thinker!
Ever noticed how once you have an opinion of someone that you truly believe (backed up with feeling/emotion), it can almost be impossible to change? This is because your Thinker mind (Conscious mind) has already told your Prover (subconscious mind – Huge mass of processed yet un-organised and sometimes completely outlandish thoughts) that it is right.
A way of changing this thought process can be understandably difficult, and the older we get, the harder it becomes to change our opinions and beliefs.
Sometimes, instead of changing old beliefs, it can be easier to just make new ones and overshadow the old ones with new things worth having. This usually takes time and some considerable effort and practice. If we want it enough however, it is probably worth it!
So, here are some steps to help you continue on your journey to success with your dreams and desires:
- Remember, We are creatures of habit. Can you get into the habit of winning gold medals?! Yes. Road cyclist Laura Trott certainly did.
- So the first step is to write down those goals and keep reading them as often as you can until you know them all off by heart, word for word. It is a wise use of time, to be going towards something. Otherwise confusion and indecision kicks in and before you know it, BAM! You’re building someone else’s dreams instead of yours.
- Instead of changing old thought patterns of yourself, just make news ones that are stronger! Read them over and over, believe, feel and see them.
- Re-evaluate your self-image. Do you really feel deserving of this goal? And if not, something needs to change! Begin recharging that self-belief by telling your Thinker many self-loving thoughts, until your Prover has to prove them to be true. No doubt soon enough your mind will be saying “I CAN do it!”
- Once you can envisage and see those goals in your mind, begin to add belief and emotionally charged feeling behind each vision or goal. What is that feeling you would feel when you have achieved it? Find a past similar happy feeling that you can relate to and bring it to this new scenario or vision that you have. Feel it as often as you read it. Let your body and subconscious mind know what it feels like to have achieved that goal, therefore shortening the distance between you and your vision, and surrendering to purpose.
The way you perceive life is all perspective. We strongly believe the power of thought and intention shapes your day, and the attitude with which you meet every situation in your life creates your inward and outward reality…
So, follow these steps, make it a practice, make your mind believe it is possible, and we will see you next week with a new post on helping you to stay true to your word and committed. It’s time to take action!
Our Time Is Now.
Today we are also very happy to be teaming up with #MindYourNextStep. A team from Nottingham who are battling depression in young people by attaching tea to mindfulness as a conditioning process and an alternative to prescription drugs. We LOVE what they do and would love for your support! Visit: https://unilevereuropefll.com/teams/mindyournextstep/ to Vote…
We hope you found this useful. Please drop any queries or questions or feedback you have about being an epic ninja at anything you put your mind to, and we will be sure to get back to you with superhero speed… Alternatively, drop us a personal email at: [email protected]
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Photography by:
Photo 2: Ell Pleasance
Photot 3,4: Eva Paul
