I Think I Can

How we think about things influences everything we do. If you believe you can achieve something, you will achieve it, regardless of how many things seem to set you back. The unwavering confidence in yourself that you WILL win, eventually, regardless of the circumstances, is invaluable.

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When we set our goals for the new year, we need to have this confidence in ourselves. Many people I meet with have very low self-confidence when it comes to achieving their weight loss goals. We are very good at looking at the past as an indication of the future, and so set ourselves up to think “Well, if I failed before, what’s to say I won’t fail again?”. Then, we start to absolutely fear anything that could possibly throw us off our desired path. That fear then leads us to a black and white mentality of success. We think that either you’re winning or you’re not. And with most things, that’s just not true.

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Our future success depends entirely on how confident we are in ourselves. Building and maintaining that confidence is what makes the difference between us becoming the people we want to be or not. How do we build our self confidence? Here are my top tips:

1) Visualize your success

The first thing to do when you set your goal is visualize how it feels once you have won. Most of the time, we are caught in the feeling of “what if I fail?” and imagining our failure over and over again. All this does is make us behave out of fear and subconsciously change our actions.

Your brain really wants to prove itself right.

If we constantly imagine failing over and over again, your actions are going to prove you right. Succeeding with a new goal almost feels a little scary, as it is part of the unknown. Visualization helps make that feeling of success more familiar. You DESERVE to win. You have already DECIDED to win. What does that look like? This can go back to remembering your “why” behind your goal. If you wanted to lose 20 pounds so you can feel comfortable taking pictures with your kids, imagine what those pictures look like. What are you wearing (some new clothes since you’ve lost weight)? Are you at an event? Are people noticing your loss? Who is taking the picture? Get every little detail of the scenario down. Make the situation familiar to you. Your subconscious mind will start to accept success as the familiar and safe option.

2) Behave like the person who has already won

Many people ask me how to become a person that does ____ (any behavior). My answer is usually to behave like a person that does that thing. We tell ourselves stories about ourselves every day.

“I’m not a morning person.”

“There’s no way I could run 3 miles without stopping.”

“I hate vegetables.”

These are all stories we tell ourselves. Remember how I said your brain really likes to prove itself right? Well, you will continue to NOT be a morning person if you keep telling yourself you’re not. You will continue to NOT run 3 miles without stopping if you keep telling yourself you can’t. Do you think saying “I can’t run 3 miles” will cause you to start behaving like a runner? Of course it won’t. It will keep you locked in the same pattern of believing you’re not a person who does that type of thing. And so you never will.

Instead, let’s start assuming the behaviors of the self we want to become. If you want to become a morning person, assume the behaviors of someone who wakes up early. Get a nighttime routine. Go to bed on time. Set your alarm early and get up on the first alarm. It sounds so simple, but just changing the narrative around your behavior can really make the difference.

“I am already becoming the person I want to be.”

You are already someone who can do everything you want to do. It’s time you start telling yourself that story.

3) Assume things will throw you off - and know that you will succeed regardless

When we start our journey of goal setting, we often absolutely panic about failure. And that often leads to overthinking, over-planning, and a black and white mentality where you’re either succeeding or failing.

Let me be the first to tell you: things WILL go wrong.

Successful people already know that. But do you know what else they know? They know that it doesn’t matter. They have decided they will win anyway.

Stop being so afraid of “getting off track”. So what? You are already the type of person that will succeed no matter what. We already decided that. So you got thrown off for a a day or a week or a month. You didn’t eat your veggies when you said you would. You didn’t go for that run when you said you would. So what? Think of someone who inspires you that is living in the way you want to be. Would a runner say “oh, I missed my run yesterday, I guess I can never run again.” Most definitely not. And you’ve already decided that you are a runner. You do eat vegetables. You do get up early. Who cares. Just set your alarm early for the next day and start over.

Once you start understanding that it doesn’t matter when you mess up, you’ll stop living in fear. You aren’t a bad person. It doesn’t mean you’ll never win. It just means you are human and life is messy and we do the best we can. Get back on it the next day. Keep fighting.

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Do you need help building your self confidence? Let’s talk about it. Contact me for a free consultation so we can discuss your goals and how to become the person you’ve always wanted to be.