A glance in any book shop today is bound to reveal a ton of autobiographies. Successful people explaining how they made it in life. From glamour models to empire builders, they all have a different story to tell. But each has a common thread – they overcame adversity by focusing on the positives. This is the only way to achieve anything we’re aiming for. We have to consume ourselves with positive beliefs, and not allow negative a foot-hold!
And so for someone attempting to reduce their weight, a positive mind-set is fundamental. You can only do it if you think you can! An up-beat, affirmative viewpoint harnesses the right results. On the other hand, a negative outlook blocks us and numbs our ‘can-do’ receptors.
We all have an automatic ‘device’ in our brains, known as our reticular activation system. This system is responsible for everything we focus on. Over our lives, we’ve experienced a huge number of things that no longer remain in our conscious thoughts – the bulk of what we’ve learned moves from our conscious mind to our sub-conscious mind, a kind of store cupboard stocked up with all our past knowledge and beliefs.
When we attempt to do something, our RAS (Reticular Activation System) will search for anything of significance in the sub-conscious mind, and bring it to our attention. If we’re taking a walk for example, only the things that have meaning to us will be noticed.
Therefore, if our conscious mind has generally been transferring positive, upbeat messages to our sub-conscious mind, that’s what it will send back. But if our sub-conscious has been given loads of downbeat messages, then that’s equally what will be sent back.
We have an element of control over this. Successful people have generally worked on their attitude and restricted the amount of negative being stored. And so the reticular activation system emerges as a brilliant mechanism for fulfilling our dreams. The sub conscious has no way of knowing whether information sent to it is imaginary or not.
In other words, we need to build a very detailed picture of our goal in our conscious mind. Dutifully, our RAS will then store that image sub consciously, ready to assist us with our objectives. Because when we need to retrieve our old information on losing weight, the message is that it’s a done deal!
Napoleon Hill once wrote that we can attain any reasonable goal if we keep it clearly in our mind. That’s as long as we don’t allow any negative thoughts about it. Of course, if we keep thinking that we can’t achieve a goal, our subconscious will help us not to achieve it.