Positive Health Online

It is beyond our wildest dreams that we need to go in order to sustain the idea that we can achieve them.  Dreams are what we believe to be out of reach when we don't know how to achieve them. How are we going to reconcile the idea that ‘anything is possible’ when we don’t really believe it’s true? This article will help you understand the process of believing anything is possible from a practical point of view and based on the power of process rather than that of ‘faith’.

“Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.” 

Rumi

When life takes a turn for the unexpected and you need support for a new lifestyle management system, what can you do to make sure all the right pieces are in place? Dreaming of a new body, a new career or relationship is sometimes frowned upon because it doesn't support your current reality system.  But what if you could learn to create a new reality system that supports the way you want to see yourself in the future?  What if you could become the person who is asking to be expressed?

Lifestyle is a way to express who you are without the need to confront who you are in terms of getting a process in place that aligns with your vision.

Inherently, we are all striving for something that is going to give us a feeling of ultimate satisfaction whether it be something we desire to move towards or away from. There are only two directions in which we can train our focus; fear or love. You cannot be in fear and experience love at the same time. Similarly, you cannot experience love while in a fearful state.

Expectations are what keep you from feeling either fear or love. So planning a strategy that enables you to form a vision of how to expect something different is the best way to ensure you remain in control of the process that will move your towards your destination.

The strategy I have used to ensure I have made changes has been useful in terms of helping me see what steps to take and how to structure them usefully. Getting familiar with how you think and what you are aware of are two key factors that will help keep you focused in the right direction.

Everyone who embarks on a health and wellness programme does so for many different reasons. The key to understanding your own reasons is to ask the question ‘who do I need to become in order to live this lifestyle plan?’ For example, if you need to become someone who eats healthy food, you may need to become knowledgeable about diet plans, nutrition and energy metabolism. These practical steps would then inform your choices and support better decision making.

The decisions you make around health and wellness will ultimately guide your experience towards a positive outcome. So let's look at how we can plan a strategy and then take the steps toward getting it done!

Plan Of Action

A creative way to approach your plan of action would be to analyze a way of assessing your priorities. In other words, what are your values and how are you organizing your life around them? There are many online assessment tools such as Dr John Dimartini’s Values Determination Process[1] or the Life Values Inventory.[2] 

“Be occupied, then, with what you really value and let the thief take something else.”

Rumi

I used a Personal Values Assessment tool.  A 5 minute survey where you are asked to select 10 words from a list of values/behaviours.

Here are my 10 choices.

1. Forgiveness
2. Health
3. Adaptability
4. Community Involvement
5. Continuous Learning
6. Creativity
7. Friendship
8. Personal Fulfilment
9. Trust
10. Well-being (Physical, emotional, mental, spiritual)

Source: https://www.valuescentre.com/our-products/products-individuals/personal-values-assessment-pva

After having reviewed your results and defined for yourself which ones are really important, it’s time to realize which ones you are going to prioritize. Do this by asking ‘which ones could I live without if I had to?’

Once you have your priorities in place the strategy then takes on a different focus of knowing what you want to become. Generally all that needs to change is your awareness around your values and how they are organized. So for instance, if you value freedom, how would you set about planning to be ‘free’ within your particular strategy? 

Let’s say you are planning to adopt a healthy diet. In order to build in the value of ‘freedom’ you might choose a nutrition plan that enables you to eat whatever you want but control your quantities. Similarly, if you value integrity you might choose a plan that enables you to record and report your progress to a group or mentor. All of these ideas are worthy if they match your values and align with your outcomes.

In Feng Shui fish are symbols of wealth, abundance and life renewal.

The next question to ask yourself is ‘is this action going to take me towards or away from my goal?’  In this idea this question enables you to demarcate what steps need to be eliminated and which ones need to be considered. There may be many options but deciding which ones deserve consideration is a skill that needs to be developed over time.

Let’s say you have two options. Option one is to take a day off from your plan and track your progress for the rest of the week. Option two is to focus on what you want to eat for the day and plan your meals in the morning or the day before. Both of these options are going to give you a good result because they both fit with your value of ‘freedom’ and ‘integrity’. The first because it allows you the freedom to eat what you like, but then stick to your promise for the rest of the week. The second because it allows you to plan your meals according to your own preferences, but within certain calorific guidelines. Options that are not aligned with your value system are clearly not to be given any credence. 

Given that you are creating an action plan that aligns with your values and goals, you need to understand how you think in terms of being in alignment with your own beliefs and values in order to make clear decisions about how to move forward. I hope this article has given you some ideas about how to start your lifestyle management strategy and that it will kick-start you into believing anything is possible!

Of course we all need faith in our ability to succeed but the real work begins when we can align with our truth and take practical action steps to get there!

Happy planning :)

References

1.  https://drdemartini.com/what-are-values/

2.  https://www.lifevaluesinventory.org/