This column is about simple little habits that can help you accomplish significant changes in your life.
You may have read the first three articles, but if you missed them or want to recall them, they are available online.
Go to DrKestner.com and look for the 52 Healthy Habits tab.
Each week, I present a single concept to serve as an aid in bringing about transformation in your personal life.
Each column is intended to be encouraging and possibly a stimulant to initiate a positive change that will be of great benefit for you.
I recall hearing a phrase many years ago that goes: “To be, act as if.”
In other words, if you want to be healthy, act as if you are healthy.
Do what healthy people do. If you want to be respected, act as if you are respectable.
If you want to be happy, start acting like you’re happy.
Any change that will ultimately affect you has to begin in your own mind.
If you cannot begin to visualize yourself as being thinner, you will have difficulty losing weight.
If you want to be an ex-smoker, it is important to see yourself as being someone that used to smoke, rather than someone that still struggles with the habit.
Any kid that has ever learned to play basketball first began by visualizing the roaring applause after making the winning basket.
The same process is involved in becoming someone that can play a piano well, or becoming someone that can give a great sales presentation.
Like many readers, you may share the goal of losing weight before the holidays. Between now and Thanksgiving, there is a lot of time to learn how to see yourself as a person that is very conservative in their eating habits.
Once you are successful in envisioning your evolving thin persona, you have plenty of time to practice the role of a conservative eater, rather than someone that gorges when abundant food is present.
I have a friend that took up painting a few years ago.
I visited his makeshift studio last year.
There, I saw a number of paintings on the wall that all seemed to depict the same scene.
When I looked closer, I saw that each one had small refinements compared to the one next to it.
I asked him about the paintings.
“Well,” he began, “I started with a simple scene that I wanted to create. I could see it clearly in my mind, but when I began to paint, I found that I did not have the skill to transfer that mental image to the canvas. After I finished the first version of it, I learned from my mistakes then started over with a blank canvas. I corrected my mistakes as I learned, and each version was a little closer to the image I could see in my mind.”
Is that any different from the process that you or I would go through to accomplish any transformation?
He began with a clear image in his mind, and then practiced repetitively until his outcome was closer to his vision.
In summary, the three steps to transformation are:
1. Create your vision of successful accomplishment.
2. Begin acting as if you have accomplished the objective.
3. Practice, practice, and practice some more.
Most people still have dreams of accomplishing great things in life. I hope you are among the ones that have the courage to persist until the dreams become a reality.
Enjoy your transformation. |
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