Open your mind to see

In This Issue:
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* Today's daily dose: Open your mind to see
* Motivate Me to find work: Turning a job offer down
* Motivate Me to Exercise: What are you training for?
* Let's Connect:
* Share this e-zine:

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Today's daily dose: 16th August 2010
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"Some things have to be believed to be seen"
Ralph Hodgson

There have been occasions in recent times when my mind just cannot make the leap. I am constantly told that I can do it, and I will be shown what to do, but in my mind I am unable to believe the words so my body is unable to comply. However, my personal trainer Hilary of Efit121 - (http://www.efit121.com.au) is a persistent lady and she helps me to break down the exercise and position by position I am able to work through the mental blocks. It is a fascinating process to observe, because there does come a point - when my mind finally gets it, and, as soon as my mind can "see" what I am supposed to be doing, it is then quite happy and my body can then catch up. I'm not sure exercise has always been that way for me, but in recent times I have noticed the phenomena - be it climbing the 242 steps of Jacobs Ladder or the rough terrain of the Kokoda Track steps, indoor rock climbing, canoeing, pole dancing and of course learning lots of new techniques with personal training.

As you know I do like to challenge my body, and I will never ask you do things I am not willing to try myself, but first I have to challenge my mind to be open to the possibility that I can - are you the same?

Perhaps it's trying to protect me from falling flat on my face, perhaps, but I am not adverse to making a complete idiot of myself, and have landed many times and yes even face planted, so you'd think my mind would be used to it by now. I also figure if I can't laugh at myself, then what is the point?

But I still don't know how to get over those mental blocks except by having a go and continuing to work through it until I feel comfortable.

What mental blocks do you have? How do you overcome yours?

Of course, it doesn't have to be exercise related as mine usually is, but it could be anything.

• Have you ever stared long and hard at a blank computer screen unable to start writing your reports / assignments because you didn't know how it would all fit together?
• Have you ever wondered how you are going to save up for a deposit on a house or for a holiday?
• You can't "see" yourself ever being thin, your mind certainly can't accept that you could ever be thin and as a result we can get swayed by our emotional eating patterns. The same can be said for being free of cigarettes, alcohol or drugs.

But there are some techniques we can use.

I've mentioned 2 of them already

1. Use a personal trainer (or mentor / coach / friend to keep you on track) and
2. Break it down.

These 2 techniques are I believe, THE most powerful weapons at our disposal and with them we can achieve many amazing goals.

Every day you face millions of micro decisions, each decision gives you a new path to take and therefore alternative decisions to face.

Each one of those micro decisions we are using technique #2 - break it down.

Think about it.

• Spend $4 a day on coffee or save $4 a day.  Spend about $1,000 a year on coffee or save $1,000 a year as a result of not buying coffee. Do you make a decision to go into the coffee shop or do you walk on by?Over eat your daily calorie allowance and gain weight, or eat below your daily calorie allowance and lose weight. Every meal time, every day we are making a conscious decision. Only by repeating those decisions over a period of time will we lose weight.
• Do you wait until the last minute to work on your assignment, or do you break down the piece - each piece will have different segments, under each segment header we can add the bullet points that we want to cover. Breaking it down we can work out our strategy to complete the piece. Each piece of course is just a small component of the bigger qualification we are gaining.

You see we can have a million goals or we can have one or two - these are usually "biggies" and will be several years away. Sometimes we may not believe we are capable of achieving those goals, but if you break each one down so each chunk is a micro decision - guess what - you can't but help to achieve these and many other goals.

Remember as one wise man once said

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step"

What step are you going to take to get you through your mental blocks?

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Motivate Me to Find Work:  Turning a job offer down
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“My father always told me, "Find a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life.”- Jim Fox

Are you afraid to say no to a job offer? After all, you did spend a great deal of time putting your application together, organizing your interview clothes and then answering a million questions during the rapid half an hour you'd been allocated to prove you were the best person for the job. So why would you consider turning a job down?

There are many reasons for turning a job down. It may be you have been offered the perfect job and the one you are now turning down doesn't even come close. Or it may be that you didn't like the people or the place. Unfortunately, people feel obliged to take a job because they may feel they are:

• Never going to work again, because the job market is so tight, they may think there is not going to be anything else going;
• Wasting everyone’s time – including their own, the interviewers, the HR people, the employment agency;
• Desperate for the money.

This internal negative dialogue can be deafening, and most people are afraid of it, so they give in, reasoning that anything will do, and it will solve a few problems after all.

In reality all this does is create more problems than it solves. You may start out by trying to do the right thing by your new boss, you arrive on time, you do what is expected of you – but no more, you don't make the effort to fit in.

Then what happens?

You don't want to get out of bed in a morning, your appearance isn't as sharp as it used to be, you may take longer lunch breaks than you are supposed to. As things start to progress you resent those people who are “getting on”, receiving pay rises that you don't seem to get any more, people don't include you in their conversations or out of work activities, you may even start to take time off work because you hate the place and the people in it.

Most people are afraid to trust their instincts that says – actually this job isn't right for me. The job sounded great on paper, and that is why I applied for it. But it’s not really what I want to do at all.  I know something better is just around the corner, one that will fit my skills and abilities far better, and be far more challenging than this role.

So don't be afraid to say no, but before you do - make sure you ego and your attitude is completely in line with your skills, abilities and ethics.

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Motivate Me to Exercise: What are you training for?
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I wanted to challenge myself this morning. I wanted to be able to get to the top of the Kokoda Track steps without stopping.

Sounds easy - well if you saw the video from the last time I did it, you might realize it's not as easy as it looks as it's virtually straight up the Mt Eliza escarpment.
Read more: http://www.motivateme.info/motivate-me-to-exercise/2010/8/8/what-are-you-training-for.html

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