Gym Dreaming

Pre-summer resolutions are all beginning to roll in thick and fast. Attention on ones goals are often very fluid and move from one to another with an underpinning grand master plan. That is of course the way to get things done. Just remember to stay focused, and that once you reach the top of one mountain, the journey has only just begun. Which mountain peak did you want to climb next? Its been a grand year so far.

But stop right now and ask yourself - Are you in control of your destiny?

Do you consciously make decisions to shape your future, today, tomorrow, this week and for the rest of the future?

Are you pro-active in your approach to taking responsibility, making and acting on your decisions?

OR, does it sometimes feel like you are just reacting to life. Bouncing from one thing to another, not fully in control, always wondering just what crap life may throw at you next?!

Which of course we can all appreciate.

HOWEVER, the time to make a decision to take control of your life is NOW! And that means to take control of your thoughts that lead you to your results. Take control of the vehicle that is going to provide you with quality results - your body. Its time to understand your emotions - the messages that keep you updated on your progress to the results that you desire. And its time to put yourself on a financial position of freedom and independence so that you have the choice and flexibility to enjoy a better quality of life.

Now I cannot promise you that by reading this article, that you will wake up tomorrow morning a wealthy, enriched and happy soul. I would never try and convince you that life is like that. You understand the ever scaling principle of the pinacle? Well, there's never a peak to climb to...there are many peaks, and once you reach one, you should have set goals to strive for the next one, and then the next one. This is the principle of never ending improvement. Progression. Or quite simply - everyday, in everyway I get a litlle bit better. Every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

NOTHING NEW HERE IM TELLING YOU RIGHT!

Then why do so many people never take that first step?! If you want those results...you must make the journey.

What prevents most people from doing this?

Well thats simple - its a matter of fear. People, have a debilitating fear of the unkown and what it may bring. They have no references to what it would be like to achieve. They have no eveidence to believe that they can do it. They have set up rules that state...if I do this...then I will feel or act like this...and people may think this about me. And there is a distinct values conflict between staying safe and in the comfort zone and setting out on a bold adventurous journey of self discovery and mastery.

I suppose one can appreciate this fear. Nobody goes hunting for treasure without a treasure map right?!

OF COURSE!

So what people require is a treasure map.

Now theories are good. Science is good. There's lots of good stuff in the world. Of course, as you know, some of us are more interested in results in the real world and not in the test tube. Much of what we (athletes and bodybuilders) are discovering and promoting has happened so fast in creating real life, real world results, that the science has not been there to back it up. Although, if you follow some of the information, it may just work. Not only may it work, maybe it will optimize your life forever. And then one day the science may just appear to back up what you have been doing for years.

This is true of the world. The world is not shaped by the normal, but the abnormal few who go against the grain. One day the masses laugh at proposterous ideas. Years later the very same idea may be accepted on a small scale apposingly. Then many years later that very same idea is just socially accepted as the norm and any other possibility frowned upon. DO NOT fall into the same trap as to be so narrow minded to accept new possibilities of change. DO NOT be so open minded to accept everything blindly regardless of the results you achieve.

Be methodical. Try new things. But NOTE THE RESULTS. And consistently check with yourself as to whether these are the results that you wanted. And it really is that simple.

This is one of the fundamentals to diet, training, thinking, habits, fears etc. Noting the differences in the actual content.

Think outside of the box - but look at the surroundings out there and appreciate them.

HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE WASTING THEIR LIVES AWAY IN THE GYM AND DOING MORE HARM THAN GOOD?

Answer - most of them. Dont become one of them.

What would happen in your life if I told you there was a way to not only achieve the good results (we hope you are at least achieving now) but to send them through the roof so that you were fitter, stronger, healthier and thinking far clearer, sleeping better and all round functioning superior. And at a fraction of the time you are currently spending. And not only that, you will have less stress and damage on your body and mind and far less drains on your resources. How many benefits could you find for that in your life. I can list at least ten for myself.

When I finally stopped my three days a week in the gym at an hour at a time I FINALLY started seeing real results. And remember Im talking RESULTS here people. Im not talking enjoyment of going to socialise and talk in the gym. Im talking about being stronger, fitter, faster and functioning at an all time high.

This means more time to work and less time sleeping. More time to play with the kids. More family time. More time to go into a trance and dream of new projects of how to improve life. More time feeling wonderful. Because your body affects your mind and your mind your body. Its a feedback loop system.

The benefits are AMAZING. Its not the ONLY system. Its just a system. Its also a system you will be hearing much more of in the future.

Work out once per week or less. Time invested 5 - 10 minutes. Results achieved 200 - 300% higher than ever before. All inspired by reading and dreaming.

DREAMS! Thats what makes the good stuff in life. And thats what makes things happen right?!

Because for anything to happen in the real world it first has to happen in the imaginary world.

If you can grasp this concept - you can understand the fundamental guiding principles of life.

When you're working on a truly worthwhile dream, the dream is also working on you.

"A goal is nothing more than a dream with a deadline." How many of you are thinking this way. How many of you are using the USF system. Know what result you want, know what is the evidence you will need to know when you have achieved your result, setting a deadline to achieve your dream, setting in place a strategy to achieve your dream, and monitoring/measuring your results in the real world, while remaining adaptable and flexible in your behaviour until you achieve your desired result.

Just STOP for a moment and vividly imagine what your life will look like as you are living your dream. What will you see? What will you hear? What will people say to you? What will you say to yourself? As you do this really imagine living your dream in as much detail as possible. Create a rich internal experience as if you are already living your dream now.

True to such an extent. We all know how much our mind affects our body. And the point here is that, YES, YOUR MIND AFFECTS YOUR BODY! No point on dieting to get into shape with your head in a bad negative state. No point in trying to quit smoking with a nicorette patch, if your mind is against the idea.

However, one of the greatest and most misunderstood points is that your brain and your body are one and they act like a giant feedback loop. Your body influences your mind, just as much as your mind influences your body. Sometimes more.

Hopefully, if you've been reading up on the subject of the human body - everything can pretty much be narrowed down to those little chemical messengers we call hormones. Thats right. Those little chemical signals that tell your body and your brain to do things. Seemingly randomly and out of our control. Well not true at all. You and I have quite a bit of control of our hormones through many, many techniques. Some of those are simply by changing our internal structure of experience. But some of the most powerful tools at your disposal - more powerful than drugs, are the tools of nutrition and physical training.

Thats right. The food you place in your stomach and the exercise you expose your body to radically affect your brain, your thought processes and your mental performance.

Did you know by sitting or standing in a slightly different posture can immediately and totally alter your brain thought processes.

Did you know that changing a few timings and quantities and ratios of food can uncloud your confused mind in minutes, not even hours.

Spend a little time treating your body as efficiently as you treat your mind and revel in the unlimited benefits.

People spend time seeing pyshcologists, spending countless hours telling them that they are DISSATISFIED with THEIR LIVES because they have gotten FAT, FED UP and FRUSTRATED. A good many of these people smoke too!

People FAIL to achieve their physique goals simply because they DO NOT BELIEVE THEY CAN ACHIEVE their physique goals.

People fill their heads with references of POOR RESULTS and FAILING.

People set up rules that do not serve the results. IF I LOSE WEIGHT I MUST SACRIFICE and IT MUST FEEL PAINFUL...

Then people always put those states that they value at a higher priority than the state of peak health and fitness. That mental clarity. That unlimited energy. That advantage. That edge. That sharpness. That speed. That stamina. That strength. That endurance. That charisma. That success. That sexual inspiration.

People dont place enough value on these states. When these states would clearly improve the quality of ones life.

Especially when people have discovered formulas that enable people to succeed in their physique goals and got it down to such a fine art it can happen in one session. Period.

For some reason people think that that body they crave is impossible to obtain.

If something isnt hard...dont look to make it hard. If the solution is simple. Just thank the person that discovered it is actually simple and take the opportunity.

I felt compelled to write this brief but powerful article to you, after returning from the health club where I train for five minutes once a week with weights, to see that my bodyweight has increased by 3lbs and my bodyfat percentage is down by a further 2% this week alone.

And I have never felt stronger, fitter or with a clearer more focussed ability to think.

Watching the hundreds of gym go-ers working their systems into the ground, while I sipped on an ice tea, made me very excited. There, we have a building full of middle aged, overweight people, desperate to hold onto their dreams. Nobody could find fault with their motivation, right! Some of them, no doubt attend three to four times per week, if not more. And boy, do they work hard, hard at draining their immune system and causing chaos and free radical damage. And they still look the same as they did five years ago.

As I grabbed my gym bag to leave I just knew that there were exciting times ahead.

This all lead me onto thoughts about the human mind and body and emotions and the fundamental programs we run to achieve things.

Have you ever witnessed the same event of someone else and found out that later that they had a completely different experience of it from you? How is it possible that you could both be in the same place and the same time and experience two totally different things?

And how come some people wont climb a ladder, while some people scale huge mountains - sometimes free climbing, without safety harnesses?

The answer is simple. It all boils down to the state that you are in. Your emotional and mental state. We are each, going into and out of these emotional states all of the time - from love to curiosity, anger, happiness, joy, depression, fear, excitment etc. And what is even more fascinating is that for each of us these states we label, all have different meanings. They are as unique as your fingerprints.

Your emotional state is the mood you are in at any given moment (the sum total of all of the neurological processes occuring within somebody at any one time).

We have all experienced unresourceful states such as anger and depression.

Likewise we have experienced POSITIVE and EMPOWERING states such as joy, happiness and excitement.

This is very important.

BECAUSE ALL HUMAN BEHAVIOUR IS THE RESULT OF YOUR STATE.

and we all know that your BEHAVIOUR precedes the RESULT that you are aiming to achieve.

Any time you have achieved an excellent result at anything, or watched as somebody else achieves an excellent result - this was the direct result of the STATE that you or they were in at the time.

So where do these 'feelings' or these 'states' come from?

Well there are numerous influencing factors that affect your state at any one time, which in turn affect the results that you achieve.

Whereas most people who go through life think that they are influenced by the outside world. That this external force controls their state. But you and I know the power of taking responsibility. Learning that in fact there are at least three control points over your emotional feelings and state, that you have 100 PERCENT FULL CONTROL over so that you can take positive actions, rather than be disempowered and just react. Thats right! That means that no one person can MAKE you FEEL bad anymore.

So what are the three main factors?

One of the major influencing factors that affect our state that we most often forget we control is our physiology. Thats right. The classic bio-feedback loop of brain and BODY! That is changes in our posture, breathing, muscle tension, and facial expression, changes in diet all affect our feelings and thus our behaviour.

IF YOU USE YOUR BODY DIFFERENTLY THEN YOU WILL HAVE A DIFFERENT FEELING OF BEING ALIVE!

How many depressed people did you see looking up (accessing visually) and grinning broadly. Likewise how many excited, joyful souls, scrape their feet on the floor, frowning with their shoulders slumped, breathing slow and shallow, eyes down (accessing kinesthetically.)? Thats because your brain chooses and adopts positions for feelings. In reverse, people forget that your body chooses feelings for your brain by adopting different positions. Choose how you use your body to change the way that you feel and thus behave.

Think about the last time you were nervous. How did you use your body. Pay particular attention to shoulder and arm positioning and to your breathing. Adopt that position now - you will be able to regain certain nervous feelings. Alternatively recall a time, specifically, where you were totally and unbelievably alive and happy. Re-adopt all of the body positions, paying especially careful attention to the facial expressions here. You will feel different. TOO SIMPLE for you? Read the snowseed and power of state tutorials from the website links. Learn how to SMILE, as a tool FOR CHANGE!

The next big factor that EVERYBODY should control ALL of THE TIME. And thats your internal representations. That is the STUFF that goes on inside YOUR HEAD!

Inside your head there a few things going on at anyone time. We're not talking EXTERNAL experience now, but INTERNAL. And at anyone time you may have a conscious awareness of images, sounds and feelings that are all happening inside your head. These have been coined 'The Movies Of Your Mind' and they are just that. They are a representation of your life. They are not life itself - but a method for your brain (the director) to represent the world to you and the cast (your body, your thoughts etc).

One of the most powerful and useful discoveries in modern psychology was the fact that internal representation (your internal thoughts) can be changed quite consciously and you do have control. Damn stupid to think that we have to have scientists discover and tell you that YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR MIND - quite literally and in quite a scientific way.

Essentially, if you consciously change the images, sounds and indeed the feelings connected with your internal representations of your world - you instantly change your state and thus your behaviour. THIS IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR TO ACHIEVING YOUR DESIRED RESULT!

And of course changing your external experience of the world, your environment, your food, your stress etc all influence your state - but this is one of the slowest and long winded approaches to change your state.

These are the three major factors that you have full and TOTAL CONSCIOUS CONTROL over to change your behaviour.

Getting into the correct emotional and psychological state will enable you to achieve the result that you want.

Gearing yourself into the peak state of achievement you can then learnt the straight stimulus - response mechanisms known as ANCHORING. Anchoring is like button pushing.

So do this. Go and find a photograph of a person you have great feelings for that you havent seen for a long time. Stare at the photograph for a minute or two and watch your state change. Your physiology, your internal representation (particular pay attentuon to if you change primary representational system - pictures to sounds etc).

You are anchored to feel certain ways - like random buttons. Although they dont have to be random. You can set up as many buttons and for as many different states as you like and access them to change your state at any time you want.

You can literally anchor yourself to SUCCESS! To SUCCESSFUL STATES of ACHIEVEMENT!

What do you think the natural smile is - one of the best in built natural anchors. Smile for 60 seconds and watch your state and emotional feelings change. Only about 10% of you will do this, the rest will think its silly. And only about 10% of people we speak to actually go onto achieve ALL of THEIR DREAMS - because they break outside of the limits of the social constraints built around them by their environment.

Did you know the world is shaped by people that are different. About only 10% of the population make dramatic changes to the world in their lifetime. This doesnt mean that people dont have great lives that are of great importance. Its just a fact that only about 10% of people have massive, dramatic influences on the world.

So as I said. I was sat there in my local health club watching people and anchoring myself into an excited state. Sure, these people were ALL doing inefficient things with their time, probably doing much damage and STILL NOT ACHIEVING the RESULT THAT THEY DESIRED. But the exciting thing was that I realised that there was now an opportunity there for people to learn, to expand, to grow and to share. If only people invested a little time into learning and actually dreaming...thinking outside the confines of the constricting normality society has built around us.