Most people wait for a crisis to make changes to their lives.  But why does it take something really bad to happen for us to shake things up and start looking at what we really want?

This recently happened to me when I had a skiing accident and badly damaged my knee. I was in a great, positive, accepting state of mind and thought I was recovering well.  The damage I’d done to my knee was healing and my rehab sessions were going really well. But then I had a second fall.

That second fall had almost the opposite affect. It put me into such a state of fear for 4 weeks that I was paralysed by it.  And over that 4-week period my healing slowed down so much that it virtually stopped and I was making no progress at all. The surgeon even told me he thought I would be a ‘slow healer’ and that I would recover much slower than most, after my operation. I couldn’t understand it at the time, but looking back, of course, it was the fear that had been dramatically slowing down my recovery. It caused me to believe that I would never get better. It stopped me living. It shrunk me. It made me vulnerable, a victim.

Then, one morning my outlook changed, again. Driven by that fear, things got so bad that I hit an all-time low, crying and crying for hours.  And it was after that, an almost minor breakdown of my feelings towards my circumstances, that things changed.  I began to feel lighter and in that lightness and relief that the fear had lifted, I took advantage of that moment to begin creating a different reality for myself – a reality that included me as a quick healer, not a slow one.  I imagined a positive vision of myself, getting fit for the operation, breezing through it and then tackling the long 9-month road of rehabilitation with positive energy, rather than feeling drained or daunted by it.  I started to see myself running, playing tennis, walking the hills and feeling what that would be like.

So I just wanted to share an exercise with you whereby you could change your reality, too.  It’s really not that complicated, it just takes a shift in mindset and 30 mins, or even less, a day until it becomes commonplace in your life.

1. Begin by asking yourself what would it be like to be healthier, happier, more fulfilled, wealthy or excited about your life – whatever it is you want to change in yourself or achieve in your life.
2. When you ask yourself these questions, your mind will begin to ask itself what that would be like.  Start to imagine and feel the emotions around what you would like to achieve and your mind will begin to create your intention.  At this point you’re altering your brain chemistry and you start to define yourself by your vision of your future, instead of defining yourself by your past.
3. Next, write down the choices you need to make in order to achieve this better life. Review the things you’ll need to do, including the experiences you’ll have, the goals you’ll need to set in this new future and how you’ll need to change your behaviour in order to achieve them.
4. Then review the limiting thoughts and behaviours that will prevent you achieving what you want (“I can’t, “I’m not good enough” etc). Write them down as a list and look at them, be so conscious of them so that you never believe them again.
5. Also write down the habits you need to break, the things you need to avoid, the people or places you need to avoid. 

This limiting belief zone is where 95% of most people live.  Most of us don’t want to make the time to do the thinking involved and exercises shown above.  But the minute you do, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to begin changing your behaviours, releasing the things you believed you couldn’t do and creating a whole new reality.

Understand that in this exercise, your mind works in such a pretty simplistic way.  By just imagining a new reality for yourself, feeling it and being fully conscious of your blocks and the more willing you are to get beyond those behaviours that are limiting you, the greater you will move forward and the greater life you will become.

This does take practice, so take 30 mins each day to write down what you want in your life and keep going when you’re struggling as it will get easier and easier.  Really feel the emotions around what you want for yourself.  Try and stay in that state for the rest of your day and keep trying until you can. It’s a skill you can practice daily and the more you practice, the better you will get at this.   Make sure you sit down and disconnect from your outer environment when you do this.