I’m excited to welcome Krista Dickson to the blog today! Since we talk a lot about mindset, I thought it would be valuable to talk about it in a specific context so that you can start seeing the practical application and value of working on your mindset. In this post, Krista talks about 5 mindset hacks that can help you slay your weight loss goals this year. Her story is a testament to the power of transforming your mindset and how it can transform your life!
12 months ago, I set myself the goal of losing 30 pounds and I started doing everything I could think of to make it happen.
I started tracking the calories of every single bite of food that went into my mouth, and I made sure that I kept my total daily calories under 1,000. I started working out every single day, sometimes twice a day, and practicing yoga every morning.
But try as I might, nothing was happening to my body. The weight was coming off at a snail’s pace, and beyond that, I was also downright miserable. (And hungry. And sore).
Fast forward 12 months later, and I’ve managed to lose over 40 pounds.
I exceeded all of my original goals, dropped 5 pant sizes and over 30 inches, and I’ve never felt better in my own skin.
How did it happen? How did I go from pushing myself so hard and seeing zero results, to losing 40 pounds in less than a year?
Simple: I had a big epiphany, and I realized that I’d been going about my weight loss journey all wrong.
I realized that I need to stop focusing so much on all the external actions I thought I had to take — dieting, working out, etc. — and I needed to start focusing more on the internal stuff.
AKA: My mindset.
The Role That Mindset Plays in Weight Loss
Your ability to lose weight quickly and easily is largely determined by your mindset. Why? Well, because what’s going on inside your head determines not only the physical actions you take and the choices you make, but also what you manifest into your reality.
Once I started doing the mindset work, everything changed. The weight began melting off of my body. I experienced such amazing results just from doing the inner work (and stopping my “dieting” and slowing way up on the gym visits) that I’ve now built an entire business teaching other people how to do the inner work in order to lose weight, too.
Today, I want to share 5 mindset hacks to help you slay all of your weight loss goals this year. Whether you want to lose 10 pounds or 100, these tips will help make your goals a reality. Ready?
5 Mindset Hacks to Slay Your Weight Loss Goals
Hack #1. Kick your limiting beliefs to the curb.
According to the Law of Attraction, the thoughts you think inside your head determine what you attract into your physical reality.
So let me ask you this: If you’re constantly thinking about how HARD it is to lose weight and how you’re NEVER going to hit your goals, what kind of reality do you think you’re manifesting?
One where it’s super hard for you to lose weight and where you’ll never hit your goals!
These negative thoughts are called “limiting beliefs”. I define a limiting belief as anything that isn’t serving you or empowering you to achieve your goals and live the kind of life you want to live.
Eliminating your limiting beliefs and replacing them with more positive, supportive beliefs will do wonders for your mindset, which will then be reflected in the physical reality that you manifest.
One of my favorite ways to kick limiting beliefs to the curb is through the use of positive affirmations. Positive affirmations are statements made in the present tense that affirm the reality you want to experience as if it’s already real and has already happened.
When you say positive affirmations out loud, the statements slowly begin to seep into your subconscious mind, reprogramming your mindset for success.
Here are a few examples of weight loss affirmations you can try out today:
- “I’m so grateful that losing weight is so easy for me.”
- “It is safe for me to lose weight quickly and easily.”
- “I now weigh X lbs”.” (where X is your end goal weight).
For more information on limiting beliefs, check out this blog post where I break down 4 of the biggest limiting beliefs stopping you from losing weight. There’s also a link in that post to download a free list of my top 22 positive affirmations for weight loss!
PIN NOW, READ LATER!
Hack #2. Eliminate all negativity from your vocabulary.
Your words have power — use them wisely! If you’re constantly talking about how hard it is for you to lose weight, you’re only reinforcing that belief. Your subconscious mind then finds more and more evidence to support this limiting belief, and that’s the reality you’ll continue to experience.
When you talk about your body and weight loss, focus only on the positive stuff. Your wins; how excited you are to lose weight; how much you love your body and all the amazing things it does for you.
On a similar note, try to avoid labelling certain things as “good” or “bad”. For example, there’s no such thing as “good food” or “bad food”. Instead, I like to say that some food choices are aligned with my weight loss goals, and some aren’t, and then I simply try to make the aligned choice whenever possible.
Hack #3. Use positive self-talk.
Speaking positively to and about yourself can physically rewire your brain for success. So instead of talking about your struggles to lose weight, why not talk yourself up?
Your subconscious mind always takes the things you say out loud at face value, so if you consistently talk about how great you’re doing and how easily you’re losing weight, your brain can turn on or turn off certain genes and processes in your body to affirm the truth of what you just said — causing you to lose weight!
Here’s a quick “positive self-talk” script you can try out today (make sure to say this out loud to get the full benefits):
“I am doing amazingly well with my weight loss journey. I’m so grateful that the weight is leaving my body so quickly and easily. I have no doubt that very soon, all of my weight loss goals will be realized and that I’ll be living in my dream body.”
Hack #4. Visualize yourself in your dream body.
Did you know that your mind doesn’t distinguish between an event that happens in your physical, external world, and an “imaginary” event that you create inside your head? To your mind, it’s all the same thing. It’s all “real”, whether it happened externally or internally.
This is where visualization comes into play and why it’s such an effective technique for losing weight.
If you spend five minutes each day visualizing yourself in your dream body, you can activate those genetic and bodily processes we talked about above, turning on the genes that regulate your weight and kickstarting the weight loss process.
Here are a few pointers to keep in mind when you sit down to visualize your dream body:
- Always make it a “first person” perspective.
In other words, inside your vision, always put yourself in your dream body and look out from your own eyes. Don’t imagine that you’re looking down on yourself from an eagle eye view or from some other outside perspective. Put yourself in the scenario and imagine that it’s happening right here, right now.
- Fill out your vision with exquisite detail.
The more vivid and detailed you can make your vision, the better. So let your creativity and imagination run wild! What does every inch of your body look like? Are there other people around you in your vision? What are they saying and doing? What do your surroundings look like? Picture it all in detail.
- Use your five senses.
One of the best ways to make your visualization feel super realistic to your mind is to incorporate your five senses. For example, if were to visualize yourself lying on a tropical beach in a bikini, what would you be experiencing with your senses in that situation? You might smell the salty ocean waves, hear the sounds of seagulls flying above, and feel the sand between your toes. These are the perfect details to add to your vision.
- Feel the positive emotions deeply.
Positive emotions are one of the biggest keys to successfully manifesting something, so when you visualize, be sure to let yourself feel the positive emotions you’d be feeling if your vision was actually real. Emotions like gratitude, joy, love, and freedom are great places to start. Let those emotions swell up inside your body, where they’ll act as a magnet to draw your dream body toward you.
Hack #5. When a negative thought pops up, simply pivot.
This is one of the biggest hang-ups I see people have when it comes to positive thinking.
When they first learn how important it is to keep their thoughts positive and stay focused on their goals, they get really apprehensive and protective around their thoughts. And then, inevitably, they end up feeling super guilty or like a total failure when they find themselves in a downward spiral of negative thinking that they can’t seem to get out of.
If that happens to you — stop, take a deep breath. This is totally normal. It’s not realistic to guard your thoughts 24/7, plus there’s a really simple technique you can use whenever you catch yourself slipping into negative thinking.
All you have to do notice the not-so-positive thought, acknowledge it, and then follow it up with something more positive. That’s it!
This technique is called “pivoting”. To pivot, simply reach for a thought that feels slightly better than the negative thought you just had, and then continuing reaching for thoughts that feel better and better, until finally, you’re back to your normal, positive-thinking self.
Instead of beating yourself up next time you think something negative about your body or your weight loss goals, simply pivot. It really is that easy!
Ready to dive in deeper?
Doing the mindset work is an incredibly important part of your weight loss journey. If you’ve been struggling to lose weight up to this point, chances are, it’s one of the ingredients you’ve been missing!
With that said, mindset work is only 1 of 4 big areas I encourage people to focus on when they want to lose weight. Inside my free 4-step roadmap, I’ll walk you through my signature 4-step framework for manifesting your dream body in no time (*without* slaving away in the gym all day or cutting out the foods you love).
This 4-step system has helped dozens of women just like you lose weight (and keep it off!), and it’s the exact system I used to lose over 40 pounds last year.
Click here to download the 4-Step Roadmap for Manifesting Your Dream Body!
Mma says
With the right mind, you can get everything rightly done and just by thinking about it you attract it to manifestation. And I try as much as possible to stay positive and focused whenever I set personal goals.
This is a great post, Krista. I love it.