FitLifeSF

As I mentioned, I’ve been getting up early in the mornings to run. In the past, whenever I’ve found myself having dragged my ass out of bed at the crack of dawn for some special reason or another (or, perhaps, heading home having not yet been to bed at all), early mornings have always felt like I’m getting a secret peek into something infinitely spiritual. Sure, it might just be passed-out homeless stirring in the doorways for their morning cigarette, or produce vendors hosing rotting vegetables from their stands into the streets, but it’s a moment in the cycle of rebirth that many city dwellers never witness. So it felt somehow irreverent to listen to the same fluffernutter music I listen to on Sunday afternoon long runs. I decided I’d try my hand at listening to some inspirational podcasts, and stumbled upon StevePavlina.com – Personal Development for Smart People. The other morning, when listening to his podcast “Faster Goal Achievement,” he hit on some ideas that resonated so strongly with me that I just had to share them with you.

Many of Steve’s podcasts have to do with “The Law of Attraction.” In a nutshell, the idea that “if you really want something and truly believe it’s possible, you’ll get it, but putting a lot of attention and thought onto something you don’t want means you’ll probably get that, too.” So, for example, if you are thinking “I need to get rid of my debt!” What you are really doing is putting thought energy into debt. Or, “I need to find a man who’s not a complete jackass!” You are manifesting jackasses left and right. (As an aside, many of you know that I was adamantly against Prop 8 in California. I had stickers on my car about it being unfair and wrong. I would talk to anyone who listened about it being hateful and discriminatory. So, what was I manifesting with my thought energy? Quite literally: “Prop 8,” “unfairness,” “hate,” “discrimination”… My mind was on those things, not love, unity and equality. I am trying to align my thoughts, messages and actions on those things that I DO want to manifest, not what I DON’T want.)

But, I digress… The message of this particular podcast was striking, whether you give two craps about “The Law of Attraction” or not. He said, simply, that you need to “become the person you would be if your goal were already met.” You need to already be acting as if the goal had come to reality, in fact you need to know that the person you are is a person who is already in perfect alignment with that goal.

He uses the example of, “what would happen if a 110 pound aerobics instructor woke up tomorrow in a 200 pound body?” Well, they would freak out because the person they identified as “themselves” is not 200 pounds, and they would do everything to get back to the shape that they KNOW they are meant to be. For me, I try to stop thinking the progress I’ve made on my fitness is “good enough” by channeling what Jillian from Biggest Loser would think, feel and do if she woke up in my body tomorrow.

Now, you might say, “I know plenty of people who are 200 pounds and are doing everything they can and it’s just not working for them.” I think using a weight-related example might bring up a lot of emotional triggering and protesting that keeps people from getting to the meat of this one. So, here’s an example that might better drive home the cognitive place he is talking about being in to manifest substantial changes—Imagine you wake up tomorrow homeless. You might even wake up homeless with a crack pipe or some other really harrowing hurdle to overcome. But, you are YOU. You know that you are not homeless. What do you do? I bet you’d find a place to sleep away from the street. “I am not homeless, I should not sleep on the street.” You would get as far away from the “bad parts” of town as possible, “I am not an addict, I should not hang out in the Tenderloin.” You would head to the library and seek out charities that can help you. “I am employable, I know that I need to find a nice suit to wear to interviews, print up some resumes, look on Craigslist for some jobs… etc.” I would be willing to bet that, in less than 12 hours from waking up on that street, most of you would have a warm meal, a place to stay and a list of at least 10 things that you would do IMMEDIATELY to change your situation. And you would not stop until your outward reality met what you knew to be true on the inside.

For a lot of people struggling with weight, the mantra really is, “I am doing everything I can and it’s just not working.” In other words, they are using thought energy to create a reality where they are, literally, completely out of options and nothing is working. (Just as many homeless believe, “I am stuck, I have no options,” but our example shows how much that is relative to mindset.)

So, what to do about it?

In the podcast, Steve talks a lot about the theory of “Cognitive Dissonance”- namely the specific application of the theory that predicts, “when there is a discrepancy between what you are thinking and what you are doing, your thoughts will come around to align with your actions.” In other words, if your goal is to be a 125 pound person, by taking actions that you believe a 125 pound person would, your thoughts will come around to support that, whether you believed it to be true or not. (Interestingly, despite the crux of the theory being that “when two things are not in alignment, one must change to bring things back into alignment,” I have never heard this theory used in reverse. In other words, to propose that, simply by “thinking” yourself a certain way, your actions will come around to support it. There seems to be an inertia supporting the “actions influence thoughts” idea that doesn’t work the other way around.)

And, when I say, “actions that you believe a 125 person would take,” I don’t necessarily mean, “Well, a 125 person would lose weight!” It’s actually much simpler than that—Using myself as an example- I did this long before I heard this podcast and had an a-ha moment when I realized it’s what I had been doing- I remember reading that people who drink tea have a lower BMI, and I have always thought of people who carry around water bottles all the time as “healthy.” So, I make myself a big Nalgene bottle of tea every night before I go to sleep and you’ll rarely see me without it during the day. Holding that bottle is a constant reminder of my intention and works to keep my mind aligned with my goals, whether drinking tea has any metabolic effect or not. Kind of like an object-oriented meditation.

Or, another example- I want to have a job that I feel truly passionate about. (Don’t we all?!) So I made a list of all the things a person who felt passionately about their job would do- They would probably show up to work on time, they would be intently focused on each task, they would read literature related to their field, they would engage others in conversation about their field, they might even drink their tea or coffee out of a company logo mug. Some would say step one is, “Well, find a job you feel passionately about!” But, the real learning here is that, if the dream job came about tomorrow, would you be a person who was in alignment with seeing that reality come to fruition, or have you spent the past year practicing being a person who is effectively apathetic?

An example Steve uses in the podcast- He and others in the Law of Attraction community are trying to manifest a million dollars. So, he was asking himself what kinds of things might he do if he was significantly richer? Possibly donate more to charities, check your bank balance less often… one that he honed in on was that if he had a lot more money, he’d probably feel more comfortable carrying cash around in his wallet. So, he started keeping $200 at minimum cash in his wallet at all times. Surely, if he ever wanted to be in a place to be ready to have a million dollars, he needed to be someone who “felt comfortable carrying around uncomfortable sums of money.”

So, my challenge to you is this: Write down one or two goals and think of people who have achieved those goals. Imagine that you are following those people around for a day. Write down several things that you think (or know from observation or research) that people who have already accomplished your goals do. Pick at least 3 easy actions for each goal and commit to doing them. What is your experience like?