TO ACCOMPLISH YOUR GOALS, DECIDE WHO YOU ARE

I've written in the past about the importance of our thoughts. Whatever we think, or think about, ends up being what we ultimately create in our lives. This isn't magic. It's not manifesting. It's simply that our focus -- whether it's an intended focus or not -- drives the direction we go. In motorcycle riding, they call this "target fixation."

Clients ask me how to change their thoughts when they are focusing on a result they don't want: yelling at their kids, eating more food than they want, not getting along with a spouse. The simple answer is that brains run on habitual thoughts. They think the same thing over and over again. If you keep thinking: I yell at my kids too much, or my husband and I fight all the time, that will become your reality.

To create a new thought habit, choose a thought that will create a result you want that is believable to you. Then, when your brain feeds you your old habitual thought, you answer your brain with the new thought. Bonus points if you answer it out loud so you can hear yourself. It engages the senses and cements the thought more quickly.

The most powerful thoughts concern our identity. So when I form new baby thoughts, it helps so much when I associate them with who I have decided I am. I begin those thoughts with:

I am a person who ...

I have used this on everything from exercise to reading to my kids at night, and it just works.

When my brain offers me: "I can't listen to this whining for one more minute." I answer my brain by saying, "I am a person who can hold it together." When my brain spits out "I'm too tired to get up and work out this morning," I answer with, "I am a person who works out every morning." When I begin getting frustrated with my spouse who sees things differently than I do, I answer my brain with "I am a person who listens to other people's points of view with an open mind."

By using the words "I am a person who ... " to answer our brains, we forge a new identity. An intentional identity. And then, in much less time than you would think, we become that identity.

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