If you had a dog and didn't treat it well - you starved it on some days, overfed it on others, gave it far too many doggie treats and not enough doggie nourishment or water, kept it indoors in front of the TV and gave it no exercise, berated it for being lazy and fat - how would you feel about yourself as a dog owner?
Would you say you were negligent? Would you expect the animal welfare people to be keeping an eye on you?
You'd feel bad about that, right?
But when it comes to you, how do you treat yourself? Are you like the bad doggie owner?
Would you say your health and well-being are worth as much as any dog's?
Of course they are!
Somehow, because we are responsible for our own health we think it's Ok to be neglect ourselves. At least we think it's Ok until something goes wrong - until we get to the stage where we hate our shape, we have heart problems, we can't get around so easily or whatever.
And then we struggle with changing our diet and our way of life because those old ways have become a comfortable habit.
But you CAN switch to being a "good owner" if you think your body and your health are worth it.
And not just for a few weeks or months while you get in shape but permanently so that you never have to think about it again.
Like a dog, you can't just retrain yourself overnight by switching your routine - you have to relearn new habits so that the whole process becomes automatic and as comfortable as your old way of living. But they can be learnt without too much effort. It takes just 21 days to learn a new habit.
And the rewards are huge - the difference between a happy dog, full of energy with a wagging tail and an overweight snarling miserable dog lying in its basket all day is really just a few new habits away.
Which habits will you start to change today?
Copyright 2005, Janice Elizabeth Small
To Lose Weight In A Week
For a lot of folks, the road to personal transformation and self-improvement is a long and winding highway filled with tricky barriers. Drug companies in particular have capitalized on and created colossal fortunes based on the elusive search for the "Magic Pill" that will make all of your dreams come true. As it turns out, there is a secret formula for success, and it begins in the human mind.
One of the presuppositions of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is that "there is a positive intention behind all behaviors." And based on that law, when it comes to successfully eliminating negative behaviors, there is an equation that we should always keep in mind. I'll let you in on the secret equation in a minute. But I have a riddle for you to solve first.
Riddle: A holy man made his son drink lye, which burned out his voice box. What was the positive intention behind this behavior?
If you are like 99.9% of the clients who have visited my office since 1978, you'll exclaim something like: "There's no positive intention behind that behavior." But you would be 100% incorrect. To answer this riddle, first you must separate the behavior from the positive intention of the deed.
The preacher's son was cursing. And the minister believes that if a child curses, his soul will be condemned to Hell. So the answer is that the minister was burning out his son's voice box so that he couldn't curse. By doing so, he was saving his son's soul from being predestined to suffer in Hell.
The secret equation for success works as follows:
We should always value the positive intent that motivates each behavior. If we have a compulsion to employ a behavior that we do not appreciate, we can quickly get rid of the impulse to use that behavior. All we must do is to find another behavior to substitute in its place. To be successful, the new action must be as available and efficient at accomplishing the same secondary gain, but be more consciously tolerable. We call this a REFRAME.
When clients come into my practice, the first thing I do is to take a comprehensive case history. In this instance, let's imagine that they come in and ask me to help them eliminate their appetite. Experience tells us that the two main reasons that people eat excessively are: (1) to reduce stress; (2) because eating can be a behavior triggered by other behaviors that it has been associated with (this is also known as a conditioned response). For instance, if a person eats while they are talk on the phone, they will develop a conditioned response, and thereafter, every time they talk on the phone they will get an urge to eat.
However, the above answer only takes into consideration the possible secondary gain received from the eating behavior. What if they also have another behavior that is concerned in the equation? Case in point: What if being chubby is also a behavior for this person? I can hear your mind grinding right now as you think, "Being tubby isn't a behavior, what are you talking about?"
Sorry but you could be 100% incorrect. Here is a common textbook example that will clearly illustrate the fact that being tubby can be a behavior. It can be a behavior because it can accomplish positive outcomes.
Example: A woman is in love. Her partner leaves her, and her heart is broken. Her unconscious mind wants to shield her emotionally and stop her from having her heart broken again. So it motivates her to get tubby to keep her out of relationships. That way she won't get her heart broken again.
The point is that everyone is totally different. And sometimes there are unconscious elements at work causing uncontrollable behaviors. These are elements that are different for each person.
Here is another case: A woman comes to my practice complaining of an out of control compulsion to eat way too much at dinnertime. During the case history, upon questioning, the woman explains how she was never able to satisfy her father.
We did an age regression, and one of her earliest memories was of eating a meal with the family. And dad was insisting in a very loud voice that she eat everything on her plate, even though she was full. So she finished the food on her plate because of fear, and dad praised her for eating everything. It was one of the only times in her life that she could recall her father telling her that she had made him happy.
Jump forward to the present. Her father has been dead for many years, but the subconscious program he installed is still operational. She still has a compulsion to clean her plate, even if she is feeling stuffed to the gills, because by cleaning the plate, in her subconscious she is getting her dad's approval, and eliminating her fear!
So if you are finding it difficult to make personal changes, you should remember that there is a positive intention that causes all behaviors. And the secret formula for successful change is to substitute another behavior that will realize the same secondary gains, but in a mode that is more consciously acceptable to you, as an individual. The most efficient way to get your unconscious mind to accept the responsibility for making this kind of change for you is through an NLP Six-Step Reframe.
Both Janice Elizabeth Small & Alan B. Densky, Ch are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Janice Elizabeth Small has sinced written about articles on various topics from Lose Weight, Cardio Training and Lose Weight. Janice Elizabeth is a weight loss coach, slimming club owner and author of "The Diet Exit Plan". Her system promotes permanent healthy and automatic weight loss through making small changes to your everyday habits. Get her FREE 15 page report ". Janice Elizabeth Small's top article generates over 27100 views. to your Favourites.
Alan B. Densky, Ch has sinced written about articles on various topics from Lose Weight, detox diet and Health. Alan B. Densky, CH is an NLP Practitioner. He opened his practice of hypnosis & NLP in 1978. He offers an interactive
Commercial Bank Loan Rates Good credit history and lesser borrowing as compared to the value of collateral certainly enable in taking a reduced interest rate
