Step 4 of achieving a life you love is to believe in yourself.After working in the fitness industry for 36 years and helping people achieve their goals, I have discovered that there are common traits that exist between those who reach their goals and those who struggle and fall short. So far I have shared the importance of writing down your goals and action steps and creating an outline for what you would like in your life, the importance of of exercise and keeping your body moving and eating like an athlete so you have the energy to get out of bed every morning reach for your dreams.
After all, what good is it to be achieving goals if you don’t feel good enough to enjoy your life!
Today, we move on to Step Four: Believe in Yourself
Achieving your dreams means you have to believe in yourself. You can’t set self-imposed limits on who you are, who you can become and what you can do. You’ve probably heard this quote from one of my favourite authors Dr. Dennis Waitley
“If you believe you can or believe you can’t, you’re right!”
Our dreams are formed first in the mind so if you dream small, you will achieve small but if you dream big, you will achieve so much more!
Someone who embodies dreaming big is Rick Hanson a famous Canadian. If you have ever heard the song “Man in Motion”, it is a tribute to Rick. When Rick was 16 years old, he was in a car accident and suffered a spinal cord injury losing the use of his legs. Initially, like most people who are paralyzed, he went through a phase of anger, depression and resentment. But at one point,he had to make the personal decision to either focus on the 1000 things he couldn’t do anymore or the 1,000,000 things he still could do. He made the positive choice and went on to excel at wheelchair sports and marathons and ultimately wheeled around the world raising hundreds of millions of dollars for spinal cord research. He is now a motivational speaker leading the Rick Hansen foundation and continuing to make a positive impact in our world. He met his wife through his injuries because she was his physical therapist helping him deal with his spinal cord injury and now has 3 beautiful girls.
Rick has been a major role mode and support to a number of my clients who have gone through similar accidents and become paralyzed. Rick teaches all of us to focus our life on what we can do versus what we can’t do ultimately a life we truly love.
The key to achieving great things is to set high, but reachable standards for yourself and don’t accept anything less .
I would encourage you to set 90 day goals for yourself. These goals should be large enough to cause you to step out of your comfort zone, it keeps you young and vibrant, it keeps life exciting and it boosts your self esteem proving you can do anything you put your mind to. It is good to have yearly goals to shoot for but when you break your year down into 4-90 day increments it is so much easier to achieve.
Let each 90 day segment lead you to the next 90 days of reaching for your dreams. Many people take this approach – ‘As soon as I lose the weight/get fit, then I’ll start doing the things I’ve always wanted to do”. But I like to take the opposite approach-start being the person you want to be and doing the things you want to do NOW versus WHEN. As you live out your life visualizing believing in the person you want to BE, this will cause you to do the things you need to DO to have the things your want to have BE, Do, HAVE
So I encourage you to make your “bucket list”. What have you always wanted to experience? Learn to ballroom dance, play tennis or master ZUMBA classes? Where have you wanted to travel to and what would you like to do there? Cycle through France, hike to Everest Base Camp, shop in Paris? (Ah, shopping in Paris, I must add that to my list)! Run a 10km Fun Run, complete a Triathlon or half marathon? Make time for your dreams. Write them down and then start checking off your list.
Stay tuned next newsletter as we tackle Step #5 to achieving a life you love.
Carolyn
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