http://www.free-ebooks.net/t/98
74
Control your state, control your life
There’s only one way to have lifelong success, and that’s to become the master over your states and over yourself.
Let me give you an example of how people put themselves into certain states. Let’s say you just finished making a nice, healthy meal for your spouse. It’s a Friday night and he is over an hour late coming home from work. You’re getting impatient. You start to create pictures of your spouse in your head. He is having an affair; he must be out with that co-worker. You think, “I knew he liked her.” The pictures and the self-talk you are flooding your mind with are going to create your state, and that state is not happiness, its anger. When he finally walks through the door, you’re in a state of anger, and you say in an accusatory tone, “Where were you?” He looks puzzled. Then, reaching from behind his back, he hands you a dozen roses and says, “Trying to find you flowers, honey.” You now have an instant state change, perhaps to one of embarrassment or of loving feelings towards him, but in return, you may have put him into a bad state.
What would have happened if you were thinking that he was late because he loves you and he may be trying to do something nice for you, like buying you flowers? The pictures and your self-talk would have created a completely different outcome when he walked through the door. Your state would have been inviting and happy. Your behavior would have reflected this. “Oh, honey, I am so happy you’re home. How come you’re late?” And in responding to you, his state would’ve remained positive. The truth is, most of us think the worst first, and this directs our state and how we act toward everyone around us.
We need to change our internal representations and physiology so they work together. Once the two are in sync, difficult tasks become effortless. When you tackle tough challenges, such as exercise or healthy eating, positive representations put your physiology into a positive state.
And this state produces the behavior you will engage in.
Think, Act, Love, Lose Weight
http://www.free-ebooks.net/t/98
75
To control and direct our behavior, we must control and direct our states.
Take, for example, the emotional state of stress. In times of stress, few things can be as powerfully comforting or rewarding as food. This is because we have not developed effective coping strategies. If you provide a person with the right strategy, and they have a strong enough belief system, their coping response to stress will completely change.
We have lots of anchors in us that create our states, but most of us do not realize that they are at our disposal.
These anchors start pinning us to states when we are young. Maybe your parents rewarded you with sweets, soothed your hurt with an ice cream cone, or took you to McDonald’s to celebrate your success. The vast majority of us have developed emotional attachments to food because we were programmed this way. People eat to celebrate, to deal with stress, to change their state, to feel better about themselves, and so on.
In neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), you learn a very important concept: the map is not the territory. What this means is that how we represent things to ourselves is just an interpretation of the event. Most of us want to believe that our perception is the only possibility, and that it’s one hundred percent right. But that’s just your own map of the territory. If you don’t change your map, I can promise you that your life will remain stuck exactly where it is right now. As Einstein famously said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” Keep doing the same things, and you will keep getting the same results.
Choose positive representations
There is no objective reality; our perception of the world Chapter 4: Instant Emotional Control
http://www.free-ebooks.net/t/98
76
comes from our own unique perspective. We filter the information that comes to us through our own system of beliefs, values, and attitudes. Even the highest achievers in the world can think of things that aren’t working, and put themselves into emotional states of guilt, frustration, depression, fear, and helplessness. But every high achiever has developed the skill to shift out of that state in a matter of seconds. You have the choice to focus on things that work in your life rather than focus on things that don’t work. If you see yourself as healthy, fit, thin, and enjoying exercise, you’re going to put yourself into a motivated state. If you see yourself huffing and puffing, and hating exercise, you’re going to put yourself into an unmotivated state. So why not choose representations that put you in empowering states instead of disempowering states?
No matter how bad a situation in your life gets, you can choose to represent it in a way that empowers you.
This is really taking control of your emotions, your mind, and your life. The people who achieve their ideal healthy weight, the ones who enjoy a great, healthy body, are the ones who can gain access to their most resourceful states on a consistent basis.
A woman I know named Sarah understands the power of states. Five years ago, just after she graduated, Sarah decided to take her own life. Lying across some railroad tracks, she could hear the train coming closer and closer, until it ran right over her. Sarah’s body was split in two, the bottom half completely severed from the upper half.
She lay screaming in pain. You would think she would have died, but she didn’t.
Sarah survived. She lives today without the lower half of her body. She had to decide how to go on living, and the only way was to represent the event in a way that would put her into a positive state. Despite being cut in half, Sarah found a way to do this. Now she speaks about her experience around the world, and helps people live better lives. Sarah could have just given up, but she chose Think, Act, Love, Lose Weight
http://www.free-ebooks.net/t/98
77
instead to change the pictures in her head and how she talked to herself.
Nothing is inherently good or bad. We choose how we represent things to ourselves. We can represent things in a way that lifts us up or that tears us down. Just like Sarah, who decided to represent things to herself in a positive, uplifting way, we all have that choice.
In my seminars, I take a long, sharp pin and stick it into a board so the sharp end is sticking up. I then get my seminar attendees to smash their hands onto the pin with the intention of crushing it flat. If they hesitate or doubt themselves, the pin will go right through their hand. So they have to represent the event to themselves in an empowering light. They have to come from a place of belief that they can do it, putting themselves in the most powerful state so they can follow through and succeed. Just like life.
The pin exercise teaches people how to change their states and their behaviors in a way that gets them motivated to take action, in spite of fear and doubt. It gets them to break old patterns and limitations. The only way people can do this exercise is if they change their physiology and their internal representations of what they can and cannot do.
Their old state would have prohibited them from following through, but their new state enables them to do what previously seemed impossible.
Think about this scenario. If I say to you, “Let’s go for a day’s hike up a mountain,” what does this stimulate in your brain? What happens is, when I say that statement your brain produces a representation. If you picture yourself walking up the mountain, having a great day getting in shape; if you say to yourself, “I can do this”; and if you position your body as if you were totally confident, the neurological signals that you will produce will put you into a state in which you believe you can hike up the mountain.
However, if you picture yourself barely making it up the mountain, sweating, hating it, seeing yourself only half Chapter 4: Instant Emotional Control
http://www.free-ebooks.net/t/98
78
way up the mountain and stopping to throw up, you’re not going to put yourself into a state that encourages you to follow through.
It’s exactly the same thing with your life. If you represent things to yourself as if they’re not going to work, you’re right, they won’t. I can assure you of that. If you form representations of yourself achieving your weight goals, achieving your life goals, then you will put yourself into those states that will produce the results that you want to achieve.
Can you see how important it is to make the right internal representations in your mind? Your brain can stop you from succeeding or guide you to all the success you have ever dreamed of. Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, and people who successful y keep their weight off forever make representations of the world as a place where they can achieve any result they truly desire. The right representations determine your state, your state determines your behavior, and your behavior determines your results.
Your physiology and success
Now let’s talk about how important it is to be able to use your physiology in the right way to achieve massive success. Physiology is the most powerful tool you have for instantly changing your state and producing amazing results. Once you learn how to change your physiology, you can automatical y put yourself into states of confidence and motivation. It’s very easy to get yourself to take action when your physiology is doing the work for you.
You hear me talk a lot about how the key to success is taking action. And the way you get yourself to take action is to act as if you’re already there. Act as if you were already in great shape. Act as if you have all the resources at your disposal to succeed. Act as if you were total y energized. Act as if you were already thin. Act as if your Think, Act, Love, Lose Weight
http://www.free-ebooks.net/t/98
79
body was exactly how you wanted it to be. Once you put your physiology into a state of acting “as if”, it becomes a very powerful tool for change.
In my seminars, I am constantly getting people into their most powerful physiology. I have them do some of the craziest things. Not because I like to see people dance around like fools, or yell at the top of their lungs while pumping their fists in the air, but because when you get them into their most powerful physiology, people can produce the most amazing results, results that will change their lives. Remember, your physiology is your posture, your breathing pattern, your tonal fluctuations, your muscle tension. When you change your physiology, you automatically change your internal representations, which in turn change your state.
Mind and body work together
So, you see, it works both ways. Mind and body inevitably affect each other. In Western culture, we’re told mind and body are separate, but they’re not; they’re two parts of a whole. Think about a time when you have had pain in your body. I guarantee you perceived the world differently than when you were pain-free. Is that not convincing enough evidence that mind and body are one?
Your physiology is the master key to emotional change.
Sit up straight right now — fast, sit up! Put a big smile on your face. I guarantee your emotional state just changed dramatical y. It’s hard to maintain a negative emotional state when your physiology reflects an uplifting, confident manner. This technique can be used when you feel you can’t succeed at something. By changing how you’re standing, how you’re breathing, and the tone of voice you are using, you can enter into states that will help you follow through and achieve the things you’re after.