One of my favorite clients has achieved enormous success in a very short period of time. She's highly motivated and driven. She's a perfectionist. She holds herself to an incredibly high standard. Unfortunately, those last few traits worked against her a few times throughout the time we worked together. More than once I had to remind her that she is indeed human and will make a mistake or two. When I helped her to understand that you are not your thoughts, you are the observer of your thoughts, she was able to quickly recover when she made mistakes. With this new skill, she achieved massive change and has sustained her success.

You are only human

Those of us who are driven, motivated, high achievers, always reaching for the top, tend to forget that we are indeed human, and we will falter. One of the key things that I helped this client learn and that I have had to learn myself, is that you are not your mistakes and your mistakes do not define you. Just because you fell off the wagon and ate a cookie, or maybe even the whole box, does not mean that you are a failure. It means that you failed at that time.

Separating yourself from the actions that cause you to succeed or fail is critical in keeping a positive mindset and preventing yourself from getting frustrated and giving up. Very rarely do you hear someone say “I am success” or “I am a success”, but I hear people say “I am a failure” all the time. Why do we feel like it's OK to classify ourselves as a failure, but we are reluctant to classify ourselves as a success?

Answer: We hold ourselves to a very high standard, so that once we reach a goal, we are already moving on to the next one. Welcome to the high achiever club!

Celebrate your motivation

Your drive is what has gotten you so far in your career, helped you to raise a great family, or achieve other successes that many people admire and wish they could attain. Celebrate that!

Don't beat yourself up because you happen to make a mistake or because this goal has been harder to achieve than any other. Celebrate the fact that you are even trying!

Do you have self-integrity?

When you set your mind to doing something, do you follow through? When we set out to achieve something and give up or quit before we get there, we are breaking a promise to ourselves. Breaking promises to yourself leads to a lack of confidence, which leads to your brain saying, “Why bother?” when you set goals. It knows you won't follow through.

Just like it takes time to develop trust in a relationship after it has been broken, it is going to take time for you to develop trust in yourself.

Start small. Set a goal of talking to yourself every day about the mundane little tasks that you perform. Tell yourself “I'm going to brush my teeth “and then follow through. Tell yourself “I'm going to make breakfast “, then follow through.

It may sound crazy but our brains, highly sophisticated machines that they are, are pretty easy to reprogram. The simple act of telling yourself that you are going to do something and then following through builds trust within your mind.

You begin to reprogram your mind to trust that you’ll follow through with the plan. Unbeknownst to you, your subconscious then encourages you to follow your plan and steers you toward success. The opposite is also true. When you fail to follow through with your plans, your subconscious reinforces your failure with negative thoughts.

Sound crazy? Here's an example:

Sarah has tried and failed on many different diet plans. She starts strong. A few weeks in, she makes a mistake on the weekend. Then she throws in the towel because she believes that she has blown it. 

Every time she’s started a new plan, this has happened. Now the thought that goes through her mind subconsciously is “Weekends are my downfall “. The weekend comes, she is faced with temptation and the thought running through her mind reinforces negative behavior and she's unable to resist the temptation. Her subconscious now believes and reinforces the thoughts that Sarah will never be able to finish a plan because she will always make a mistake and give up.

If Sarah goes through the steps to properly reprogram her subconscious thoughts, she will begin to develop trust in herself that she follows through on what she has set out to accomplish. The next time that she goes to try a new plan, the thought in the back of her mind is “I always finish what I start “. When temptation creeps on the weekends, she will hear the positive thought that she finishes what she starts and be much more likely to turn down that temptation.

Your mind is way more powerful than you believe

You may not believe that magicians can bend metal with their minds, but believe this, your mind is unlike anything ever created. It runs the most sophisticated being on the planet. It can be programmed and reprogrammed.

Learning how to master your mindset gives you the key to this powerful machine.

My client achieved the incredible success that she did because she finally learned how to overcome the negative loops in her mind. She replaced them with positive thoughts. The barriers that used to stop her in her tracks became hurdles that she could jump over. She gained confidence and trust in herself with every hurdle that she jumped.

True to the high achieving person that she is, she has reached her goals but has now set new ones. She's constantly striving to be stronger, leaner, and more confident. She understands that a healthy lifestyle is a journey, not a destination. Now she has the tools she needs to get to any destination she chooses along the journey.

What negative thoughts are running through your mind? Are you ready to reprogram your brain? If so, follow along for the next few weeks as I uncover more ways to MASTER YOUR MINDSET!