Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.

- Carl Jung

I've been studying the psychology of weight loss for many years. Some of my learning has come from my personal struggles with losing weight, and the rest has come from the teachings of many experienced and well-respected health experts.

There are several common themes among people who struggle to lose weight. I'd like to explore one of the more powerful themes, which is negative self-talk as it permeates our lives and our beings on a daily basis. There isn't one person on this planet, no matter how successful or "perfect" that doesn’t experience a stream of negative thoughts now and again.

Unfortunately, more often than not, many of the messages we send ourselves just don't serve us well. For example, how many times have you done something that wasn't the smartest move on Earth and out of your mouth came something like, "you idiot" or "well, that was stupid" or "how could I be so dumb?" Think about it. How often do you cut yourself down for your imperfections?

How often do you tell yourself that you're fat, a failure, a loser, etc? You may not even realize how often you do it. Sadly you may not realize that these patterns of negative self-talk are holding you back from becoming the best person you are meant to be. If your goal is to lose weight, than you’ve got to lose the negativity.

Here's the cool thing about all of this. You get to choose the thoughts in your head! You can decide whether you want to think happy thoughts or crappy ones. Nobody else but you can do this. Are you starting to feel hopeful? I hope so. Now here's how to get started changing from thinking mostly negative thoughts to almost exclusively positive ones.

1. Awareness: You need to catch yourself in the act of thinking negatively and acknowledge that you're doing it. The more you become practiced at this the quicker you'll get good results.

2. Talk back: Tell yourself, "There's that old thought, but I no longer choose to think that."

3. Reframe it: If your negative thought was something like, "I'm never going to lose weight" or "I hate my body", then your new thought will look something like, "I take care of myself everyday by eating healthy food and drinking lots of water" or "I love and appreciate my body, and eat healthy food everyday." If you don't completely agree in that moment with the constructive thought you come up with, but have the intention of making it come true, than use it! Over time these wonderful thoughts will become true for you.

These steps seem very simple, but once you begin applying them you'll notice how powerful this practice can be. I challenge you to give it a try for one full week. After you've finished out the week, email me or send me a post on Facebook and let me know how it worked for you.

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