Everything you do or don’t do is driven by your feelings. Guess what creates your feelings? Your thoughts. Those sentences in your brain.

Thoughts create feelings that drive actions. This is what gets you the results in your life. Wut?! I’m not kidding.

Sometimes the results are good and we want to keep them. Such as: “I’d do anything for my kids because I love them so much.” This thought, or some variation of it, might compel you to provide for and nurture your children in a thousand different ways. The result is, you do what it takes to love and care for your children. Nice job!

But usually, it’s the things we aren’t doing well or the results we don’t want in our lives that we need to pay attention to. This can even relate to how well we take care of ourselves and our health.

I (or your mom or your doctor) can tell you what to do to achieve optimal health, and you might be able to just go out there and DO IT! I mean, why don’t all of us just stop smoking, lose weight, and stop yelling at our kids?!

If only it were that easy. If you are like most people, myself included, it’s not the WHAT we can’t figure out, it’s the HOW. How to get ourselves to consistently take the action we want and stick to it.

YEAH, BEHAVIOR CHANGE IS HARD.

The most important first step to behavior change that lasts is to find the root cause, or the source: YOUR THOUGHTS. 

In order to reverse your Type 2 Diabetes and lose weight permanently, you will need to adopt a new lifestyle. This involves a lot of behavior change.

You can rely on willpower to make these changes, but eventually this will run out. Willpower is an exhaustible resource.

What I am inviting you to do is to want your new lifestyle so that it is sustainable.

You will need to create desire, motivation, and resolve to figure out how to get your blood sugars to normalize. You will need to stay focused and resilient to keep going when you want to quit. All of these feelings will generate from some pretty bad ass thoughts. 

You will want to let go of thoughts that are not serving you in your goals.Thoughts that something is wrong with you. That you aren’t good enough or capable. Thoughts that make you feel defeated, hopeless, or resentful.

So does this mean you need to see a therapist? No, you don’t have to see a therapist to figure this out.

The first step toward intentional behavior change is simply AWARENESS.

Research has shown that humans have as many as 60,000 thoughts every day, and most of them are the same thoughts we had the day before!

Of course, you won’t be able to identify all of those thoughts when you begin, but here are 3 easy tricks to help you in areas you want to focus on:

1. Feelings are an excellent first clue. These are vibrations in your body and originate in your thoughts. These are NOT physical sensations such as pain or hunger. When you are noticing an unpleasant feeling, such as anxiety or annoyance, take a moment to see if you can identify the thought you are thinking that is creating this experience for you.
2. Ask WHY? If you don’t want to check your blood sugar, ask yourself why? If you don’t take your medication when it is time to take it, ask yourself why? You can even do this when you are taking the action you want to take, like going for a walk.
3. Sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and write down your thoughts about a certain topic. You can even ask yourself some really good questions, like: Do I believe I can beat my diabetes and why? What do I need to overcome to reach this goal? You will be amazed at the wisdom in your own brain.

Are you curious about what is going on in your brain? Do you wonder if this stuff really works? You can discover what is driving your actions too. I see the power of this everyday through one-on-one coaching. It is literally like opening up the puzzle that is your brain and finding the cause.

Having a coach allows you to gain tremendous insight and reach your goals so much faster.

If you are curious about what is possible for you, come see me at www.AFutureByDesign.com. You can message me there and learn more about how to take back control of your health and your life.