Your mind controls everything. Nothing happens, your body doesn’t do a thing, unless your mind instructs it to.
Think about picking up a pencil, tying your shoe, lifting weights, lighting a cigarette, blinking an eye, driving a car, taking a step, eating an apple. All of the conscious actions humans do cannot happen without direction from the brain, which then fires off remarkably complex instructions through your central nervous system to activate a diverse group of muscles and organs.
You can’t pick up a pencil unless you first make the choice and generate the thought to go pick it up. Your body can’t do the action without your mind telling it to.
But it goes deeper than that – much deeper. As William James, an American philosopher and psychologist in the late 1800’s stated, “As you think, so shall you be.”
What does that mean?
It means your reality, your being, who you are, how much you weigh, is shaped by your thoughts. Good thoughts or bad thoughts, positive or negative, they will shape your reality.
The world is going to return to you exactly what you ask for. In other words, what you focus on is what you’re going to get.
That’s a very simplified definition of what’s called the Law of Attraction. The things you focus on in your mind, the things that you focus on every day, those are the things you will get more of. You will attract into your life more of those things that you think about regularly, good or bad.
Think about the person who lives in fear of always lacking money. That person is always going to lack money. If they spend every day obsessing about not having enough of something, they never will have enough. The reality is that obsessing about a problem is unlikely to ever generate a solution to the problem.
We all know somebody who is convinced the right person, Mr. Right or Mrs. Right, the love of their life, their soul mate, just isn’t out there.
“Mr. Right? Hah, he just doesn’t exist, ” she laments to whomever will listen.
You know what? Mr. Right could be sitting right in front of that person and she won’t even recognize it because she’s convinced that Mr. Right, the love of her life, doesn’t exist. How can you see something, even if it’s right under your nose, if you are totally convinced that it doesn’t exist?
We all know people who just seem to have a negative outlook on life. You know the type. They’re never happy. Their thoughts are generally negative. They’re quite adept in seeing the bad in every situation. They’re usually great at pointing out problems all around them, but never offer any sort of solutions. The sky is endlessly gray in their world, and they are just a complete drag to be around.
Have you ever noticed that these people with negative outlooks almost always have negative outcomes? Bad things just seem to keep happening to them. Hello Eeyore.
Even the simple things don’t work out for them.
You might be thinking that maybe their negative outlook stems from the fact that all of this bad stuff is dumped on them. Consider this possibility though: bad stuff keeps getting dumped on them because of their negative outlook.
Their mindset only allows them to see the bad stuff and not the good. In actuality, they create their own reality that is designed to support their negative beliefs.
After a while, they simply fall into a vicious cycle – another negative outcome today gives them something to bitch about again tomorrow, furthering their negative outlook, which ultimately attracts more negative into their life.
They surround themselves with other negative people so they can bitch back and forth to each other. Misery truly does love company, and these people are miserable to be around. Want your guests to leave your party early? Invite one of these dour individuals over. They’ll clear the room for you in a flash.
“Most of us are just about as happy as we make up our minds to be.”
William Adams
Not buying it yet? Then think about those people you know who have positive outlooks. The ones who are always cheerful. The ones who aren’t stressed out. The ones that have a good outlook on life, a positive outlook.
I’ll wager that good things often seem to happen to them.
Of course, the negative people will say it’s simply a matter of luck, or that they have some sort of unfair advantage. Sorry Skippy, but it has nothing to do with luck. People with positive outlooks attract more opportunities and put themselves in better positions to achieve positive outcomes.
That, not luck, is how the world works.
“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
Gary Player
Think about those people who are obsessed with their weight. Maybe they hate the way they look or hate the way they feel. They’re not in the body they want to be in, and every day they tell themselves how they hate the way they look and hate the fact that they can’t seem to lose weight.
Well, guess what? The way they look isn’t going to change. The fact that they can’t lose weight isn’t going to change. In fact, they’re going to get more of it. Tomorrow they’re going to hate the way they look more, and the next day even more. A year from now it will be even worse because they’re obsessed with what they don’t want, when they should be focused on thinking about what they do want to look like.
“You get what you really, really, really want in life. And you get what you really, really, really don’t want in life.”
Dr. Wayne Dyer
Think about that quote. The bottom line is that you manifest in life what you believe in your head. Again, your body can only do what your brain tells it to do. If you focus on the negative all the time, you’re going to have negative outcomes.
If you believe you’ll never lose weight, you will never lose weight. It simply cannot work any other way. If you believe you cannot have a lean, healthy body, you won’t have a lean, healthy body. If you believe you’re not smart enough, attractive enough or wealthy enough, you never will be smart enough, attractive enough or wealthy enough. It just can’t be any other way.
How could it be?
If you’ve convinced yourself that you cannot lose weight, to the point where you truly believe it, your body simply will not lose weight.
Your thoughts control your body. Your body can’t do anything that your mind doesn’t tell it to do. So if all day your mind is repeating that you can’t lose weight, you will not lose weight. That’s one of the main differences between people who are successful with weight loss and people who aren’t.
“If you’re operating with a fat image in your mind, you’ll never live in a thin body. It just can’t happen.”
Bob Proctor
So in order to change your body you must first change your mind. You need to stop obsessing on what you don’t want, or what you think you can’t do. Stop thinking in the negative and focus on what you do want, what is possible.
You can choose what you think. You’re not forced to think in a certain way by unseen forces. The way you think is a choice.
For instance, instead of thinking that, “I’ve tried everything and I just can’t lose weight,” what if you chose to think, “I feel great. I am eating healthy, and I’m going to look awesome.” Don’t you think that would change your outlook on your day? Don’t you think that might change your behavior? Don’t you think that you might change what you choose to eat that day?
I know that right now some of your are thinking, “Yeah, right, that won’t work.” Fair enough. You’re entitled to choose to think that way. But I guarantee you, my way of thinking has a much better chance of working than yours.
It really requires the same energy to be positive as it does to be negative – to have positive thoughts as it does to have negative thoughts. So why would you choose to have negative thoughts? Why not just try adopting a positive mindset and see how it works?
What exactly do you have to lose?
If your head is filled with negative self-talk, if all day you’re obsessing on what you don’t want, how much you don’t like they way you look or how bad you hate your job or how much your marriage sucks, you’re choosing to have a negative reality and an unhappy existence.
So you need to change your mind and reprogram it to think in the positive. Think about what you do want, not what you don’t want.
In the context of weight loss, that would mean stop thinking about how you hate that fact that you weigh 200 pounds and start thinking about how great it will be when you do weigh 175 pounds.
Now, please don’t think though that I’m saying all you need to do is to start thinking happy thoughts and suddenly your fat will magically melt away. Far from it. You need to take action.
“Nothing happens until something moves.”
Albert Einstein
But when you learn to develop a positive mindset, and steer your mind in the direction of positive self-talk, you’ll actually start behaving in ways that will bring about positive results. If you’re embracing a negative mindset, you’re guaranteeing yourself negative results.
Whether you realize it or not, those negative thoughts are driving the negative behaviors (overeating, not exercising, binging on junk food, etc.) that are the root cause of your situation.
Weight loss success or failure is far more dependent on what’s between your ears than what is on your plate.
The successful person knows that they can succeed.
The person who will fail doubts that they can succeed.
“Our limitations and success will be based, most often, on our own expectations for ourselves. What the mind dwells upon, the body acts upon.”
Denis Waitley
So, what do you think? Buy into this? Or think it’s a heaping pile of bullshit? Let me know below.
~Dave
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)About the Author
Dave Soucy is a coach, trainer, motivator, husband, dad, and former fat guy. His goal is to teach as many people as possible how to achieve a life of health, fitness, and wellness through simply eating right and exercising. Click here to learn more about Dave.
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