For today’s fat loss tip my buddy Tom Venuto was kind enough to let me to share this motivation/mindset question and answer that he recently answered on the Burn The Fat Inner Circle member forums because he thinks that self limiting beliefs are an issue that many people deal with and it’s one of the reasons people start to falter as early as late January or early February in their 2009 goal pursuits.

QUESTION:

"Tom, I’ve followed your guidelines by writing down all my goals, and I’ve also identified all my self-limiting beliefs (and believe me there were a lot, including a belief that I didn’t deserve it).

Ok, but what do I do now? Do I visualize my goals or work on repeating my new beliefs? I also took the list of limiting beliefs and made a new list called ‘self enhancing beliefs’. This is the list of beliefs that I am wondering if I should affirm everyday until they sink in.
Should I do this BEFORE affirming my goals?

I Very much appreciate your advice.

TOM VENUTO ANSWERS:

We could break this down into 2 major steps, 2 quick questions and
4 ways to challenge a limiting belief.

STEP 1: IDENTIFY LIMITING BELIEFS

We’re well aware of some of our beliefs because beliefs about spirituality or politics or animal rights any other topic are the types of beliefs that are usually conscious.

But the beliefs that affect us the most in our physical development are NOT conscious. They are unconscious.

So the first step, which you’ve already done, is to make sure you’ve flushed them all out. For our readers who haven’t done this yet, here’s how:

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2 Quick Questions Will Draw Out Your Beliefs
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It pays to do this as a formal "exercise" with serious quiet time and pen and paper.

Question #1. What causes me to be overweight (or unhealthy, not having body I want, etc)?

Question #2. What’s preventing me from getting leaner?

Spend some time with it.

Consider the answers; what you may come up with may be legitimate issues that you can deal with or which you have no control over, but either way, you will also see limiting beliefs flushed out through this questioning process.

Example: "I can’t because I have no time, I’m too old, I can’t stop eating, I hate exercise, You just can’t do it when you have 4 kids, after a hip replacement, it’s impossible…
And so on….

Thing is, those are not accurate facts. Those are beliefs (negative thought patterns) that hold you back.

STEP 2: CHALLENGE THOSE BELIEFS

How do you challenge a belief? 4 ways:

(A) Challenge it directly: is it even valid at all? See if you
can find a counter example. For example; you think that when
you’ve had 3 or 4 kids you cant get a nice flat stomach, meet
Maxine or Bonnie , or any one of our other super fit moms who have been profiled within the Inner Circle.

Now… if they did it, then how could this belief be valid?
Answer: It WASN’T valid! Your belief wasn’t true. You were
believing in something false and inaccurate and it was holding
you back!

Out of all the psychological techniques that we can apply to
create belief change, I have never found a way easier or better
than finding role models that are counter-examples, therefore
dis-proving a limiting belief.

(B) Challenge the source: is it your belief, or have you been
living what someone else handed down to you? Just the realization
that a belief wasn’t yours to begin with is enough to shatter it.

(C) Challenge the usefulness of the belief. Ok so you believed
something before, does still believing it has any usefulness today?
Does it help you move closer to what you want in your life?

(D) Challenging the belief by weighing the consequences. If
you keep this belief what is it going to cost you? what will
the pain be like? What will you miss? And what will these
consequences be if you don’t change it NOW?

Last but not least, You’re RIGHT about "deservability." So start
with an affirmation every day that "I deserve it."

keep in mind that affirmations alone won’t do it in the case
of having feelings of unworthiness. You MUST take massive action.
The more action you take, the more you will feel "worthy" of
receiving.

That’s why it’s harmful to seek something for nothing; you
can’t get something for nothing in the long run anyway, but
even if you could, you would not feel worthy.

There would be an incongruous feeling inside you and you’d
sabotage yourself… kind of like those lottery winners who
win a million dollars overnight, but they never became millionaires (in their mind/self image), so they blow the money faster than they got it…

You can create affirmations about all kinds of things and work on
them at the same time – things you want to change, get, improve, attract. Goals get turned into affirmations. Beliefs can be written as affirmations.

Affirmations are simply stating your goals or your desired empowering belief in a way that your subconscious mind is receptive to.

The difference between a belief affirmation and a goal affirmation
is that goals all have end points. Beliefs don’t. Most of your
empowering beliefs you will want to keep. But when a goal is achieved, you have to set new ones.

So when you’ve found that belief that you know is limiting you,
write an affirmation for what belief you would want / need to
hold instead. Read it right along with your goals every day. Keep
it up until you start to see your behavior change and your results
fall in line with what you want.

If you’re diligent, you will see changes in attitude and
behavior with 21-30 days. It may take longer if you’ve carried
deep, lifelong, life-impacting limiting beliefs, but the roots
of the new pattern will be formed.

Then you can move on to another goal or belief you want
to work on… and the effect of changing a few beliefs one after another can be nothing short of life-transforming.

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto
Author of "Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle"
Burn the Fat inner circle

Sincerely,
Lewis & Sarah
Publisher – AtoZfitness Total Body Makeover