Welcome back to my Mindset 101 Series! Throughout this series I will be sharing the fundamentals of mindset work. In this episode I’m going to answer:

• Why you struggle to stop doing the things you don’t want to be doing
• What needs to happen in order for you to start doing the things you want to be doing

---

Our actions are all the things we do or don’t do in the world. They are our outwardly or physically expressed behaviors, habits, responses, or reactions. It also serves us to pay attention to our inaction – the things we are not doing.

Actions can also be the things we do internally, within our own mind such as beat ourselves up, spin in thought loops or confusion, judge ourselves or others, mentally collect more evidence to prove our beliefs true, imagine scenarios playing out in various ways, etc.

Last week, you learned that your emotions are the driving force behind all action. The way we feel dictates the things we do, the way we interact with others, and how we show up in our life.

All of the action we take then creates the results we have, or don’t have, in our life.

Many of us have things that we want to stop doing as well as things we want to start doing. For example, my clients come to me because they want to stop overeating and gaining weight and they want to start being in control of their eating and lose weight.

We also tend to have certain ways we would like to be able to behave in relation to others. Instead of blowing up, yelling, and fighting all the time with a partner or child, you may want to interact in a more curious, calm, and understanding way.

We often wonder why we are unable to do the things we really want to be doing. The answer is always found in how you feel. When your thoughts and emotions are out of alignment with the actions you want to be taking, it’s like a math equation that just doesn’t compute. It’s impossible to take effective action when behind-the-scenes, your subconscious or concious thoughts and emotions do not match up in supporting and perpetuating that action.

For example, you want the result of losing weight, so you think you just need to take the action of dieting and exercising. You can utilize willpower to do this for a period of time, but ultimately, it’s going to be extremely counterproductive if you are thinking things like, “losing weight is impossible, I am always a failure at losing weight, I hate these foods and these workouts, I know I can’t do this forever,” which create feelings like unable, defeated, disgust, and uncertain. Those thoughts and feelings are never going to effectively and consistently support taking the actions of dieting or exercising. This is why when you want to permanently change your habits and lose weight for good, you need to work on your mind first and foremost.

When you desire to do things differently, it requires feeling differently, which requires thinking differently. Everything tracks back to your mindset and the things you think and believe. This is why going all the way to to top and working on your mind is so much more effective for long term results as opposed to trying to just change your actions.

All the things you are doing/not doing right now have created the version of you, the body, the relationships, the life, and lifestyle you have right now. If you want to change any of those things, it requires operating from a different way of thinking and feeling.

Your actions dictate your outcomes or results, but your actions are spurred by the way you feel, which is generated by the way you think. It literally all comes down to your mindset!

---