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As regular readers of this blog will now, my two sons and I were lucky enough to be taken to Disney Land in Paris by my girlfriend’s parents the other week.
It was to celebrate their 40th Wedding Anniversary, his (Dave) 60th Birthday and my girlfriend’s brother (Tom’s) 30th Birthday which are all this year.
Here we are posing at The Eiffel Tower on our way home:
To get the boys ready and in the mood for Dinsey, we have been watching various Disney films and reading the books.
Due to Disney’s recent acqusition of LucasFilms, this gave me a reason to dust out my old Star Wars box set and work through it with my boys.
As I did at that age, they loved it.
Oli got upset when Obi Wan Kenobi died.
He was full of questions when Luke and Obi wan entered the bar where they were to meet Han Solo – “What’s happened to his face Daddy?” was the common question about the various strange looking aliens.
And at the end of Episode IV, when Han Solo returns and sends Darth Vader spinning off into space, Oli leapt to his feet, pointed at the screen and shouted out “In your face Darth Vader!” 🙂
They love it so much that they even wanted Light Sabres as their present from Disney.
Here’s Oli and Jamie (who is generally referred to by some derivative of ‘Ham’, such as Hammer, Hambo, Hammertime and so on) in a climatic Oli Wan Kenobi vs. Darth Hammer duel (as we christened it):
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Anyway, the point of this article is all this Star Wars action has reminded me what a wise old Jedi Yoda (or Yoga as the boys call him) is.
I’ve mentioned in previous articles about how I’ve used some of his observations and sayings with clients to help them take paradigm shifts (see myrise.co.uk/members/paradigm-shifts-how-to-shift-your-thinking-to-actually-lose-weight) to see things in a way they will find more helpful.
Previously I’ve mentioned his saying “Do, or do not do. There is no try”.
I usually say this to a client when they say they’ll try to do something. To me ‘trying’ is the first step to failure. If you go into something with the mindset that you are going to try to do it, you are already giving yourself the option that it might not happen.
When a client says they going to “try not to eat cake at work” or “try to go to bed earlier”, I know, for a fact, they will not succeed. The best way to maximise the chance that you will do something is to go into it thinking that you ‘will do’ it.
You’ll already be doing this with countless things in your life. You don’t ‘try’ to go to work, feed the kids, etc – you just do it. You have made it non-optional in your mind. All you need to do is apply this mental shift to the things you need to do to get healthier, lose weight, tone up (or whatever you want to archive) and you will vastly increase your chance of doing it.
So, “I’m going to try and eat less rubbish” becomes “I will eat healthily”. “I’ll try and make it to the gym” becomes “I go to the gym after work on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays”.
Next time you catch yourself saying you’re going to try and do something, stop and ask why you’re only trying. Why not just do it. If you genuinely can’t on the odd occasion, it’s not the end of the world.
So, again “Do or do not do. There is no try”.
Another Yoda’ism I’ve been reminded of recently is “Named must your fear be before banish it you can”.
I often find people who are dismiss things without fully considering what their objections and their potential fears be.
This can make it very difficult to overcome these things as the person often hasn’t rationalised what is holding them back.
Whether it be a fear of painful exercise, restrictive diet, being shouted at whilst exercising, or so on, it is useful to ‘name’ this fear to enable you to banish it.
This goes to for the many other FitPros (Fitness Professionals) who I know read this blog – to help a client get past the barriers that are holding them back, you need both need to determine what they are.
These fears need not always be ‘negative’ either.
It is very natural for people to be concerned about what will happen if a positive happens.
“How will my other half feel when I lose all this weight?”
“How will I feel?”
“Will it really make me happy, like I’ve told myself it will for the last decade?”
“How will my friends who aren’t losing weight feel about me?”
I know many Fit Pros who want to be the ‘go to’ name in their town but are fearful of the exposure this will bring them.
They’ll be on a pedestal of sorts.
People will ask them difficult questions.
Some even may take pot shots at them.
We know this well – only the other day “somebody” was spreading rumours that we were going to close our Buxton RISE (Arena of Real Change) to concentrate on the Macclesfield one – which couldn’t be further from the truth.
Fear of success is normal.
It’s useful to know this to help you find what concerns and fears are limiting you before you can hope to work past them.
So, whether you’re one of our ‘RISE Ninjas’, someone looking to achieve your health and fitness goals elsewhere or a fellow FitPro – ask yourself “What are my concerns about the path I am on?”
Only once you know your fears can you begin to banish them.
