Overcoming Negative Habit Patterns.
Probably the most challenging issue for all athletes, whether you're a
potential Olympian, or just trying to lose those few pounds and buff up a
little and stay there, is maintaining your personal training schedule as a
habit. You've been there before.
You start doing something, an activity, and
then you have a setback, something that throws you off your path.
In reflection, you may say, "I used to do that without even thinking twice, why
did I stop?" You have fallen victim to a 'Pattern Interruption'.
"First we make our habits,
Then our habits make us."
-John Dryden
Just as a habit can be positive or negative, so can a Pattern Interruption.
A habit is actually just a pattern that has been developed through
repetition. Have you ever heard the term "repetition is the mother of
skill?"
As a patterned habit is reinforced, it becomes ingrained deeper and
deeper into our subconscious. It is the continued repetition of any action
or thought that makes that specific action or thought increasingly natural.
This is why habits are hard for some people to recognize and difficult for
them to alter.
There's a saying, "good habits are hard to develop and easy
to live with. Bad habits are easy to develop and hard to live with." Yet,
doing things in a habitual manner is essential toward our personal
development.
The more habitual our daily routines and activities become the
less thought and energy we need to use to achieve them. Therefore more
energy, focus and brainpower can be devoted to new projects, skills and
achievements.
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The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Nutritional Programs!
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Sometimes we get into bad habits that initially don't seem to be overly
negative. Rather, they appear to be just a slight shift in what we had been
doing, not noticeable, really. Perhaps it is a few errors in judgment
repeated every day, that can, over time land us in hot water!
How Can You Use This?
Habit Awareness Exercise
Take a moment to think about various positive or desired habit patterns you
use to make your life easier or better. List them on a sheet of paper.
Great! Now take a moment to think about various negative or undesirable
habit patterns you no longer want in your life. This can sometimes be very
challenging because it is hard for us to identify our negative habits. Many
of these types of habits are so ingrained that we often don't realize
we are doing them.
Now, as you think of them, list them on a sheet of paper
as well. This is your Master List! Now, take just one (just maybe the one
you like the very least) and write it out on a post-it note. OK, now place it in
a very prominent place, say... your car's dashboard or your bathroom
mirror. This is a place that you look at a few times each day. Consistency is
important, after all, that's how you got this habit in the first place!
Write Down Your Goals:
 | Printable Goal List!
Use this printable log to write down your top 5 goals
and the reasons for your goals to keep handy at all times! |
Now pick that habit that you like the very least and use a pattern interrupt
to change the negative habit to one more desired. Your pattern interrupt for
this exercise is to visualize the worst possible outcome you can muster from
this continued negative habit, and see it clearly in your mind's eye!
If your exercise consistency is the issue or if you overeat or always have more
than your share of dessert, you may see your personal image as huge!
Visualize your pants splitting and your belly hanging over them. Got that
image? Is it painful? If so, continue. If not, get even more extreme in your
visualization.
Get really gross. Get graphic! Now see yourself working out
hard and eating fresh healthy foods, morphing into the hard body athlete you
want to be as you do these activities.
The Rewards From Eating Healthy Foods Will Amaze You!
A little extreme you might say? A
little too unrealistic? Your mind thinks in pictures, the more extreme, the
more pronounced the image and the greater the impression. Remember to be
extreme!
Need Motivation? View Other Tranformations...
Be sure to continue the pattern interrupt until you become conscious of when
you are about to perform the negative habit and no longer need the pattern
interrupt to aid you.
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If you find yourself falling back into your negative habit, run the program again.
Sometimes just running the program in your
head visually over and over will be very effective. In this case you see
yourself performing the unproductive habit and then run the interruption
program in your head numerous times.
"We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
-Aristotle
Have an exceptional week!
Kevin Seaman
Originally published: http://thewinningmindset.com/wms18.html
KSeaman579@aol.com
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