Happy New Year?!?

I have a confession to make: this year I didn’t sit down and write down my New Year’s resolutions like I usually do.  I already knew what they were… I’ve had the same resolution for 15 years now.  And I always hope that THIS will be the magical year that I hit my goal weight again!

I made great strides in 2009 when I lost 30 lb.  2011 was good to me, too – I lost an additional 10 lb… until December when I gained 5 of it back!  Which leaves me still 15 lb away from my goal weight.

So I determined that 2012 was going to be my magical year!  Except that 2 weeks into this magical year, I found myself without any magic.  I was sabotaging my goal and failing miserably.  I almost threw in the towel and figured I would be part of the 80% of people who made New Year’s resolutions who failed by January 20 (again – I’ve done this so many times, I definitely know the drill)!  (Not to mention that I could throw on some extra guilt because I didn’t even make it to January 20)

But, this year a new thought popped up!   I thought, “How can you fail a 52-week goal in just two weeks?”  Leaving my fatalistic mentality behind, I chose to see this year differently.

And so I got real with myself and figured out what didn’t work those first two weeks, and I made a new plan.  I jumped right back on my goal wagon, and I lost those 5 lb that I had gained in December!  Which means I am now only 10 lb away from my goal weight!

Today is January 20 and I am proud to say I am one of the 20%!  I am excited and going strong toward my goal!

If you’ve abandoned your New Year’s resolutions, re-evaluate them instead of abandoning them and jump back on the goal wagon and join me in making 2012 the best year EVER!!!

Believe!

If you have read my "Living the Laws of Success" e-book, you know that I have listed belief as one of the two essential ingredients for success!  (If you haven't read my e-book, you can download it here for free - or enter your information to the right of this post!).  Getting rid of doubts and fears in my life have helped me achieve some amazing goals!

However, if you are like me then you may have a few elusive goals.  I can get close to them, but I can't quite achieve them.  For example, I lost 35 lb, but those last 15 lb are eluding me!  And running that 5k in less than 30 minutes -- I'm not even close to that one!  It's almost time to set those New Year's resolutions and I am asking myself if I really believe I can accomplish any of these elusive goals!  Will 2012 be the magical year?!?

When the student is ready, the teacher appears...  I was really wanting to know how to increase my belief so I could accomplish these goals in 2012.  The teacher appeared in the form of a blog I read by Ty Bennett (by the way, you can read that whole blog post here).  He breaks up the word "belief" into "be" which comes from being, which is a state of existence. The second word "lief" comes from the Indo-European word "leubh" which means to care, desire, love.

When you put those two words together, it means to be in love with!  Being honest with myself, I hoped I could achieve those goals but I wasn't in love with the idea (or the process) of achieving them!  It seemed like a lot of work to get there and stay there, and it was bringing up a lot of negative thoughts and programming for me.

I had a huge paradigm shift after reading Ty's article.  I am now falling in love with my new fit life!  When I look in the mirror, I'm not seeing all that is wrong with me... I am consciously looking at all the things that are great!  And I am picturing myself at my goal weight and in great shape -- and I'm smiling while I picture this (looking in the mirror AND smiling at the same time - I highly recommend it -- try it)!

I have created gratitude statements (the other essential ingredient to success) to support the new me!  I'm grateful for the new me, and I'm in love with the new me!  I'm falling in love with exercising, healthy eating, and the new fit, energetic me!  I am no longer dreading my New Year's resolutions -- instead I am creating my best year ever!!!

Are Your Goals Failing You?

For the past 5 years, one of my grandiose new years' resolutions is to run a 5k in less than 30 minutes.  I have walked/run three 5k's in my life, and my time is nowhere near 30 minutes.  So it seemed like a great goal to really push myself.  But the reality is that in 5 years I have made zero progress on this goal!  ZERO!!!

So in November of this past year I decided it was time to get serious about this goal.  I challenged myself to do a really tough (non-cardio) workout for 10 days in a row.  I completed that challenge and was feeling strong and confident.  So with all this momentum behind me, I decided it was time to re-introduce the treadmill.  I set a new 10-day challenge to do a 10-minute (yes - you read that right -- only 10 minutes) workout on the treadmill!  By the third morning, I couldn't even talk myself into doing 5 minutes on the treadmill.  The first challenge was a harder challenge to complete, but I had no trouble motivating myself to do it!  That's when I realized that I wasn't failing my goal, my goal was failing me!!!  I just needed to set a completely different goal!

About that time a friend invited me to go to a Jazzercise class with her.  I had never been to a Jazzercise class before, and I was pretty much hooked from the first session!  So what was my 1 new years' resolution this year?  To do Jazzercise at least 3 times/week.  Do I have any trouble motivating myself to go to Jazzercise?  No!  I am having a great time; I love how I feel all day after doing the workout (one week I even did a few extra workouts!).  My favorite part of doing Jazzercise is walking past the treadmill in my Family Room with ZERO guilt!

Two months into the new year, I am still going strong on my new years' resolution!!!

Is there a new years' resolution (or any other type of goal) that has been failing you all these years?  Maybe it's time to set a better goal for you!

30 Days in a Row?!?!?

When I learned the "30 days in a row -- without missing a day" secret, I had been trying to lose weight for over 10 years.  I had listened to affirmations, I had written affirmations, I bought several self-development courses -- without any success!  I noticed that a lot of people who had success would say they read their Vision Statement or watched their goal movie -- or whatever they did -- for 30 days in a row -- without missing a day!

Then I heard Jack Canfield tell a story about a test NASA did several years ago.  They were testing the physiological and psychological impact of spatial disorientation on potential astronauts.  So they put convex goggles on these astronaut candidates that made everything appear upside down.  They had to wear these glasses 24/7 -- without ever taking them off.  So everything appeared upside down all the time.  At first, the astronauts were under a lot of stress and anxiety, but eventually they started adjusting.  About 30 days into the experiment, something amazing happened!  The men's brains had created new neural pathways so they started to see everything normal -- even though they were still wearing the glasses that made everything appear upside down!  They did the experiment again, this time taking the goggles off partway into the experiment, but the new neural pathways did not form.  The brain needed about 30 uninterrupted days for the new neural connections to form within the brain.

When I heard about this experiment, I decided to try my own experiment.  I took a 15-minute self-hypnosis session on weight loss from a highly respected weight loss hypnotist and listened to it EVERY night for 30 nights in a row!  I didn't feel different in any way; in fact, at times I wondered if it was even working!  But I was determined to see the experiment through to the end.

After the 30 nights, I stopped listening to it to see if I really attracted anything different into my life.  Within a few weeks, one of my sisters called and told me about a new weight loss program that many of her friends had lost weight with.  Intuitively, I knew this was what I had been looking for.  To make a long story short, I lost 30 lb in the next 2 months -- after going for 10+ years with zero success!

Try your own experiment -- just be sure that you do it for 30 consecutive nights!  I find it most effective to listen to the recording as you are waking up or going to sleep because that's when your subconscious is the most receptive to new ideas -- as it is coming out of and going into theta brain frequency!  I would love to hear how your own experiment goes!

Happy New Year

When I think of all the learning and growing I did last year, there is no way I could have known last January what was possible for me for the entire year!!! I basically see two big problems with new year resolutions:

1. They say it takes about 30 days to start a new habit. I know that I'm a procrastinator so if I give myself 365 days to accomplish what it takes 30 days to do, then it is likely that I am never going to get around to it.

2. I usually set so many goals at one time and try to accomplish them all at once -- which is a sure formula for failure!

So my new year resolution this year is to stop doing new year resolutions. Instead I am going to do new month resolutions. It takes about 30 days to form a new habit and so I'm picking a new habit every month that I want to create.

My January resolution is weight loss!!! (I'm sure I'm not alone in this!) I lost 30 lb last year, and this year I have lost 6 lb so far; 14 more to go! As I focus on losing weight and feeling better about myself, I will have a better idea of what to focus on in February.

Every month I will be focusing on a new resolution!!! I can't wait to create the best year of my life!!!

Weight Loss Fears

I can definitely relate to the fears that so many people feel about weight. I recently lost 30 pounds (I still have 30 more to go...,) and I can't believe what a difference it makes in my confidence. I keep telling my husband that it shouldn't matter, but then feeling like it shouldn't matter just adds more shame and guilt to what I was already feeling (I'll be blogging more about that next week...). As if I didn't have enough negative emotion already tied into it.

I have learned the importance of being in harmony spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. Each of those areas is like a lock on a gate, and when all 4 locks are unlocked, the gate opens up and literally invites you to walk through. Not scary at all!!!

I was aligned spiritually and emotionally so I couldn't figure out why the weight wasn't coming off. I listened to a self-hypnosis CD by a respected person in that field EVERY night for 30 nights (to get myself mentally aligned). Within 2 weeks, a weight loss method I had never heard of FOUND ME!!! After more than 10 years of "failing," it was great to be completely aligned for success!

I know that fear keeps a lot of people from losing weight (or from any other success in their life), but once I was aligned spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically, all the fear melted away!

(If you want to know more about how I lost weight, feel free to check out my website at www.coachalisa.com. I will be adding more information in the next couple of months, too!)

We are Real!

I love it when certain themes keep coming up for me over and over! Then I know I really need to pay attention and learn from them! One theme that has been coming up for me a lot lately is how we see ourselves. So that's what I'm going to blog about this week.

Most of you know that I recently lost 30 pounds. I hate that when I look in the mirror instead of celebrating the 30 pounds I have lost, I often feel myself getting discouraged over the 30 pounds I still need to lose. How many times do we look in the mirror and see the one or two less-than-perfect features on our bodies, while we totally overlook our beauty?

The media is lying to us when they tell us what the perfect woman is supposed to look like. They use tricks like lighting, angles, photo-shopping, etc to enhance the looks of the models. We were never meant to look like that -- we were meant to look like what we see when we look in the mirror!

A picture is worth a thousand words so I'm going to stop talking now and let you watch this instead: