How Do You Make A Lasting Change In Life?

Weekly I get asked how long do I have to follow the diet or how long do I have to exercise. Usually, I give them a timeframe that sound doable.  Secretly I am hoping that it will be long enough that it will become a habit and stick for the rest of their lives.  So, my question often of myself is how do we make a lasting change in life? 

One of the overriding believes in my life is that we are the cause of and solution to all of our problems.  The problems can be everything from being overweight to suffering through a job that you hate.  To quote Emmet Fox:

“Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. THERE is no such thing as luck. Nothing ever happens by chance. Everything, good or bad, which comes into your life is there as the result of unvarying, inescapable Law. And the only operator of that law is none other than yourself. No one else has ever done you any harm of any kind, or ever could do so, however much it may seem that he did. Consciously or unconsciously you have yourself at some time, or other produced every condition desirable or undesirable that you find in either your bodily health or your circumstances today. You and you alone ordered those goods, and now they are being delivered. And as long as you go on thinking wrongly about yourself and life, the same sort of difficulties will continue to harass you. For every seed must inevitably bring forth after its own kind, and thought is the seed of destiny. Yet there is a simple way out of trouble. Learn how to think rightly instead of wrongly, and conditions at once begin to improve until, sooner or later, all ill-health, poverty, and inharmony must disappear. Such is the Law. Life need not be a battle; it can, and should be a glorious mystical adventure; but living is a science. This is one way of stating the Great Law.”1

I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to attend a goal setting / overcome limiting beliefs seminar.  This was honestly one of the best experiences in my life.  I have done a handful of other “goal setting” workshops and always left feeling great about them, they are always useful to keep your eye on the prize so to speak. 

This particular even was something much different.  We had the opportunity to break boards and walk on fire!  Well, okay burning hot embers.  Still, the coals we walked on were probably 600 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Erin did the same event back in October without a single burn, and she reported that the honestly didn’t even feel the heat.  I had a bit of a different experience.  No, I didn’t get burned at all but I FELT EVERY SINGLE HOT coal that I stepped on!  The reason Erin and I had such different experiences with our fire walks because she didn’t want to feel the heat, her mind told her that she wasn’t going to feel it.  I on the other hand wanted to know that the things I was standing on were indeed HOT but like any sane person I knew I didn’t want to get burned.

The empowering part to this is not the face that I walked on hot coals it is the fact that I was in total control of what was going to happen and how I was going to experience that event.  Those burning hot coals are there to teach you that through proper effort of thought you are in total control of the events of your life. 

Too often in life we are just going with the flow not actively driving the bus of your life.  That evening trip through the drive-thru because we just don’t have the time to cook a meal at home.  Or that one thing we know we need to do but haven’t because we just don’t have time.  These are all just thoughts that are just untrue; we do have the time and the energy to make healthy choices.  And as Dr. Fox says, “thought is the seed of destiny”.  So what destiny are your thoughts currently ordering?

Are you telling yourself that you will never be thin or health?  That you can’t ever give up those foods, that deep down you know are keeping you sick and tired? 

So my challenge to you all is to stop and change the limiting beliefs that you have.  To know that you are in total control of you life and everything you eat, drink, and think. 

Making a lasting change of anything in life can be easy all you have to do is stop thinking wrongly and start thinking correctly.  Meaning you first have to change your thoughts then inevitable the world will bend to you to make those thoughts a reality. 

1. Fox, Emmet (2010-06-22). Power Through Constructive Thinking (Plus) (pp. 257-258). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

firewalking.com for more information on fire walking