You may hear the term mindset a whole lot through life, particularly when it comes to attaining your targets. As a personal trainer I understand that choosing a goal is a commitment you’ve made to accomplish something and create a positive step towards a better.
Fine tune your mindset
The difficulty of goals fluctuates, a straight forward short term target e.g. have salad with your food rather than chips tonight will be rather easy to achieve, you won’t have to fine tune your mindset to make this happen. For those who have set yourself the goal though of getting salad instead of fries each night this is where mindset will become more significant. Some people have more armed mindsets than other individuals, many believe that you are mentally strong or you aren’t.
Your mindset can be trained, just like your muscles can! So here’s a quick easy exercise that will not take long that will help start to train your mindset to allow you to abide by the goals that you have set out.
Future Mindset Statement
So to start off, get a pencil and paper. I’ll ask you a question and I’d like one to write down the response. If nothing was unrealistic or out of reach, what would you prefer to have attained this time next year? What you’ve just done is written a Future Mindset Statement, this is what you dream about, what you need to attain. This is something that ought to hopefully get you looking ahead into the future, keep it close at all times read it night and morning, this is the goal and this is exactly what you need to accomplish in the next 12 months. Say it out loud if you prefer, shout it, and believe in it ‘I will lose 3 pounds in another 12 months! As you read it, get rid and closed out the negative emotions and fear out of your own thoughts. I will lose 3 stone in another 12 months!
What do you notice? I didn’t say ‘I expect to’ or ‘I might’. It’s ‘I am/I will’ think that and do everything in your power to do so and you will! Hope isn’t a powerful enough emotion to reach the mindset you require. Now you can begin considering short term goals that will allow you to get the main aim. Modify your future goal if necessary, this is dependent upon your progress, if you attain a lot in the first few months you may aim even higher. Be realistic but aim high and envision the best future possible. Try not to let minor problems like you are too busy or you are not powerful enough to get on your way, things like this is only going to get in the way when you have neglected to create an exciting future vision of yourself.
Set the goal clear in mind
When you’ve the goal clear in mind, your mind will automatically create a burning desire to make this happen, you may feel in control and maintain charge of your future. The vision of this future you’re stronger than any setbacks that you will encounter on your travels. Maybe in a few months you won’t even have to plan each day to work towards the goal, it will become second nature and you’ll automatically do things that will move you closer to that vision. You will know deep down, that one day you’ll get there.
Most people in the world won’t do this, they won’t create a strong enough future based mindset; this is why many of us don’t achieve in life exactly what they set out to attain. Clearly there are lots of obstacles and various things which could hinder your progress, things that are out of your hands, but creating such a strong mindset will provide you the best possible chance of achieving what you want and consequently enjoying your life to the max.