Rewire Your Thinking

You’ve Been Setting Yourself Up To Fail

How many times have you tried to make a positive change in your life, only to find yourself back at square one a few weeks later? If you're like most people, this cycle of hope followed by disappointment has become all too familiar. But here's the truth that most “habit ‘experts’” don't tell you: it's rarely about willpower or discipline. It's about your mindset.

When we focus on what we're giving up ("I can't have that cigarette") rather than what we're gaining ("I'm choosing to breathe easier, save money, and be there longer for my children"), we set ourselves up for failure from the start. Our minds respond to positive visions of the future, not constant reminders of what we can't have.

When you learn how to shift your mindset, you lay the foundation that makes ALL healthy habits successful. Once you master this fundamental skill, everything else becomes dramatically easier. The reason is simple: when your mind is properly aligned, your actions naturally follow.

The Courage to See Yourself Clearly

The first step in any mindset shift requires brutal honesty with ourselves. We all carry limiting beliefs – those quiet, persistent thoughts that tell us what we can't do, who we can't be, and what's not possible for someone "like us." These beliefs aren't facts, but they become our reality when left unexamined.

The key is recognizing that our limiting beliefs are just stories – often outdated ones written during difficult or formative experiences. When we create space to question them through mindfulness practices, we can finally ask: "Is this still true for me? Was it ever true at all?"

Tools like transformational breathwork can be surprisingly powerful in this process. When you learn to make use of them correctly, such techniques can trigger profound emotional insights that flip your mindset switch instantly.

Note: This is not as simple as 5 minutes of box breathing, 4-7-8 or the physiological sigh. However while these won't change your life overnight, I’d definitely still recommend them as valuable assets in your emotional resilience toolkit, helping you maintain clarity during challenging moments.

A Process for Lasting Change

When approaching any new healthy habit, follow this straightforward process to set yourself up for success:

1. Define Your Deep Why: Look beyond surface-level motivations to uncover what truly matters to you. Instead of "I want to lose weight," dig deeper: "I want to have confidence, plus the energy to fully engage with my children and create memories that will last a lifetime."

2. Center Yourself: Take 2-3 minutes for breathwork to activate your parasympathetic nervous system. This calms the fight-or-flight response that often triggers self-sabotage when we attempt change.

3. Visualize Success in Detail: Create a vivid mental image of your future self having achieved this change. Most importantly, feel the emotions associated with this success – the pride, joy, relief, or confidence that comes with it.

4. Choose You: At each moment of decision or indecision, action or inaction, consciously return to that powerful image and feeling. You get to choose to become the best version of yourself over and over again; that is empowering!

5. Reinforcement: Give yourself immediate positive reinforcement every time you follow through, regardless of how small the action. Soon you will crave the positive mental reward trap your are setting for yourself and you will become unstoppable.

You have been sold an old paradigm, that it takes 30 days to form a habit - it is a meant to be motivational marketing, but is actually a limiting belief.

When you show up a second time, you have a new habit, so well done. Similarly, it takes just two days to break it if you're not mentally aligned. The difference between success and failure lies in your mindset at each critical choice point.

Empathy as Your Secret Weapon

Would you berate a friend for skipping one workout? Would you call them worthless for enjoying a dessert after weeks of healthy eating? Would you label them a failure for laying in bed for a few hours extra at the weekend? Of course not. So why do we give ourselves such a hard time?

Matthew Hussey shares a powerful perspective here about how we should we should treat ourselves.

When your mindset is right, these moments aren't failures or weaknesses – they're evidence that rather than being beholden to unhealthy habits, you are actually now in control. Life is about balance. Just as muscles grow during periods of rest between workouts, not during the exercise itself, our mindset shifts often solidify during integration periods.

Self-compassion isn't weakness; it's the foundation of sustainable change. The most powerful mindset shifts happen when we learn to be as kind to ourselves as we would be to someone we love deeply.

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