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Ok, last part of the series on ‘Proper Goal Setting’ and I could not be more excited! I am hoping that at this point, you’ve been able to take a look at some of the ‘action items’ provided for each part of this series (I am even thinking of turning this into an eBook because it’s THAT important). I saved the best for last.

When I started my journey to health I was in a very bad place mentally. I had little to no true ‘belief’ in myself and I sabotaged myself with negative self talk and lies that I picked up along the way. They could have been lies that I picked up as a child to lies I picked up from other negative people in my life. In the early stages of my journey I was trapped in a very physically AND mentally abusive relationship and the toxicity and poisonous surroundings were starting to seep into every aspect of my life including me actually believing some of the terrible things I was called.

You see, WHO you surround yourself with and the words they speak into your life are crucially important but EVEN MORE important are the words YOU speak to yourself. 

To succeed at any goal you must first master the art of ‘becoming your own best friend’ and learning to love who you are, as you are. This is not something that happens overnight either. It takes time effort and PATIENCE to create new habits and new thoughts that form a NEW YOU. 

Here are some of my own tips (from having gone through this myself) and I hope that they will help you as much as they did me. You can set goals ALL day long but if you are constantly the one beating yourself up, berating yourself and speaking negatively to yourself, reaching your goals will be but a distant dream.

• Take an assessment of those closest to you. Are you surrounding yourself with people who speak positive words into your life? Do you surround yourself with encouragers? This is so important! One of THE most toxic people to me was my ‘boyfriend’ at the time. I had to eliminate him from my life (no matter all of the threats) to get enough room to breath and start to repair my own mind, body and heart. Toxic people create toxic environments and NOTHING will keep you suppressed more quickly than this.
• Take an assessment of yourself. How do you speak to yourself? Be very honest with yourself here. Only YOU know the words you really speak to yourself. If they aren’t kind words, it is time to make some very important changes. Remember, it’s a process to change our self talk and to create true belief but the FIRST step is acknowledging when there is a problem.
• Create new thoughts. When a negative thought crosses your mind, the first step is to acknowledge it and the second step is to have what I like to call a ‘REDO’ where you imagine wiping away the negative thought and replacing it with a more edifying and kind thought. This takes time, patience and effort because believe it or not, most of what we tell ourselves daily, we do not even realize! Before you know it, you will have created such strong positive thoughts that it will filter through to other areas of your life.
• Do more of what makes you feel good and less of what makes you feel bad. A lot of times we wear ourselves down and create a negative thought life because we are not happy with our “system” or what we are doing. Perhaps you are running yourself too ragged and over scheduling yourself. This, combined with poor eating habits, lack of exercise and a myriad of other things leaves us feeling worn out. I have found that when I am stressed, tired, hungry or not feeling well, I am ALOT more susceptible to negativity. The goal is to create BALANCE in your life and to stop doing what is not working. When your schedule is balanced and you are carving out time for YOU, you feel good. When you eat healthy nutritious foods, you feel good. When you exercise (you don’t have to like it now!) you feel good… even if it is after! LOL! You see, take away the negative triggers in your life and replace them with more positive healthy things.
• Create your new ‘normal’. Creating a healthy lifestyle change means creating a new “normal”. Too many people try to fit the healthy mold into their current habits and routine which often don’t mesh well. You can’t smoosh the healthy lifestyle into your same old lifestyle! Adopting this new lifestyle means creating a new FRESH way of doing things. Perhaps it is creating a one hour slot for the gym instead of TV or a walk at night instead of vegging out on the couch. The key is to build a lifestyle and network around you that is conducive to your reaching goals.

I hope this has given you a fresh perspective on becoming your own best friend. It is nearly impossible to succeed at anything in life if you do not believe in yourself, your goals or that you are worth it. You have to know that this is a journey to becoming a new person as a whole. Not just trying to force feed ‘health’ into your life but by gently and patiently creating new routines, habits and an overall new thought life, starting with how you think about yourself.

Make sure you click HERE to view the awesome action items for this post!

As always, I am blessed to be Coaching you through this and I appreciate all of you,

In health,

A&A