If not now, when?

Why do we get stuck? How can we be going along just fine and hit a bump or two and then find ourselves stuck?

I saw this quote when I was prepping for our Roundtable, “To get unstuck, first stop doing the things that got you stuck.” This is so simple, it made me laugh. If your head hurts when you bang it up against the wall, stop banging it up against the wall! So, if thinking negative things about ourselves hurts and keeps us stuck, why do we keep doing it? Habit.

“Before something you want can become a fact, it must first be imagined.” I heard this in one of the many podcasts I listen to, I think it was Michael Bernard Beckworth.

I find this concept very interesting and if it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve had it happen in my own life I might slough it off. When I was younger I made things I imagined happen all the time. I was the biggest daydreamer. I would sit on the hill across from our family store and dream! Mostly, I dreamed about leaving Denbigh haha, but also about being a singer and travelling the world and yes, buying into the sappy Harlequin Romance books. Romance novels should come with a warning label! I would imagine it all in great detail, often right down to what I was wearing or the conversations I would have with the people I would meet…like Johnny Carson. At night I would daydream myself to sleep, a habit I kept up until just a couple of years ago. I would imagine ways to live/work in other countries. I imagined how I would feel! And even through crippling self doubt I made a lot of things happen. Travel for example, when I post a destination on my vision board, I never for a single second think it might not happen. Why? Because I have the proof of many of the many trips that did happen, so I believe. But first, I imagined it. And not just thought of it, I LIVED it in my imagination. I lived it so much, and so often, that my subconscious took it to be fact.

But the parts of my life where I’m stuck?? I now see that I wish for something different BUT I don’t imagine it. I don’t imagine success in these areas and what that would feel like. I don’t envision myself being THAT person with THAT life! Instead, I think about how bad I feel or how unsuccessful I feel and accept it all as truth. Why? Because that is my habit, to believe that certain goals will not happen; I imagined it, LIVED it, so often, that my subconscious took it to be fact. I now know that without exception that every time I’m stuck with a part of my life my thoughts about it stem from a place of lack and disbelief. Even when I’m watching TV I notice how I feel when I watch a scene that depicts something I want for my life. If the show takes place in Europe I get pumped up and as soon as the show is over I go online and search out houses to rent, or buy, yes BUY! (It could happen! haha) Or a place to go and volunteer: NEVER does it cross my mind that it would be impossible for me to volunteer helping women in Tanzania or teach English to kids in Italy. NEVER!! And, other times watching TV, I feel sad and think I will never have that in my life. Why? Habit. We all have scenarios of a life that we believe are possible and so they are. And we have scenarios we believe are not possible and so they are not.

Some of you have a weight goal and cannot, or do not, imagine yourself there, and you’re having a hard time getting to that number or you reach it but have a hard time staying there. Why? Because you don’t really believe you belong there. And why don’t you believe it? Habit.

When it comes to your thoughts about weight loss what is your habit? What are you really thinking, imagining and cementing into your subconscious as fact? “To get unstuck, first stop doing the things that got you stuck.” Aren’t you tired of banging your head up against the wall?