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Mental Strength

27/07/2012

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Emotions – The Mental Strength Secret to Lasting Change

Actions determine results, right?

I think it’s safe to say we all know this.

It’s your consistent and routine behaviors that determine your personal success, whether it’s in your finances, relationships, career, health, or in other areas of your life.

However, unless you’re the exception to the rule, you probably have behaviors that are holding you back from greater success, self-empowerment and robbing you from the full joys of life—and you find them very hard to change.

This leads to the biggest gap in the self-empowerment movement today.

  1. We all know successful people do things differently than the rest of the population (whatever area they have great success in—be it financially, romantically, professionally, with their bodies and health, happiness, and anything else).
  1. Because of a great many high-quality books, courses, and seminars, we’re easily able to learn what successful people do differently.
  1. BUT, despite this, most people feel unable to actually change their behaviors and natural inclinations for any significant length of time to actually emulate their role models and reap the rewards.

On top of this, we all have things that we truly yearn to change about ourselves, but many of those things just seem out of our control and stop us from reaching our human potential.

Well, I’m here to tell you that if you’ve ever been down on yourself because you can’t seem to make the changes you dream of—i.e., you seem stuck, destined to be this way forever, and unhappy about it—it’s really NOT your fault…well not in the way you might think.

Why?

Because at your core, there’s nothing wrong with you.

You’ve just been learning an ineffective strategy to reach your full human potential.

Most of us have learned as we’ve grown up that the only possible way to try to change our thoughts, behaviors, and habits is to try to change them directly.

When we get stuck in life, we try to change our behavior.

The problem, though, is that when it comes to patterned behaviors—the habits that run the overwhelming majority of your life—trying to change these things directly is actually NOT the most effective way.

In fact, it usually guarantees you’ll experience struggle, guilt (from constant relapses back into the behavior you’re trying to avoid), and a lot of pain.

So, what is the biggest secret when it comes to effortlessly changing behavior in a way that lasts?

Well, fortunately, it is actually very simple—start with your emotions.

Let me give you an example…

Smoking is one of the most difficult habitual behaviors to break, we all know that.

Most smokers try to give up smoking by attempting to discipline themselves to avoid having another cigarette.

They try to resist their urges, and it’s very tough work.

If, however, the same smoker learns how to change the way he or she feels about cigarettes—from overwhelming desire to disinterest or even repulsion—then suddenly he or she won’t need to fight against the urges; the behavior will change effortlessly, without willpower.

A few more examples to think about…

  • How hard is it to act confidently when you don’t feel confident?
  • How hard is it to thrust yourself full throttle into life if you feel depressed?
  • How easy is it to appear calm and unflappable during a critical business negotiation, if inside you’re stressed to the hilt?

These things are very, very difficult, aren’t they?

That’s because attempting to think or behave in a way that runs counter to the emotional state you’re in is extremely difficult, no matter how much willpower you have.

On the flip side, how easy is it to act confidently if you really are feeling confident?

How easy is it to go out and consume life if you’re feeling passionate, happy, confident, and truly alive?

Your Emotions Are the Greatest Leverage to Change Your Behavior

Attempting to think or behave in a way that runs counter to the emotional state you’re in is extremely difficult, no matter how much willpower you have.

On the other hand, it’s easy to act in a way that follows your natural feelings.

If you feel confident, for example, you’ll naturally and automatically act with confidence.

So why do people fight against their emotions when they can use them as a friend and ally? It’s simple – no one’s taught them how our emotions really work. We learn how to drive cars, surf the net, read and write – isn’t it time we also finally learned how to direct one of the biggest controlling elements in our lives more effectively—our own emotions?

How easy is it to be calm and unflappable in a critical business negotiation if you really feel able to handle anything with ease, and you’re coming from a calm, collected, and centered state?

These things suddenly become not only easy, but also effortless.

Why?

Because they’re the natural and automatic consequence of the emotional state you’re in.

Your emotions drive all of your behaviors, and your mental strength dictates your emotions.

If you only learn one thing from this post, get this principle, if you learn how to direct your emotions, everything else follows automatically.

The big question now, of course, is how do we change our emotions?

Isn’t that also extremely hard too; just as hard as trying to change behaviors directly?

Well, not if you learn a few critical insights and tools that make all the difference. And that’s where we’re heading now.

To start with, let’s immediately clear up two dangerous misconceptions about emotions that most people seem to have—misconceptions that can hurt, damage, and keep anyone stuck for years.

What are these misconceptions?

It’s all explained in the next post…next week.

You are your biggest supporter.

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