strategies – Personal Growth Cafe

August 31, 2017September 26, 2017

Five Simple Diet Tips to Stop Food Guilt

Guilt surrounds many diets. You feel guilty if you cheat on the diet or don’t lose weight fast enough. Guilt doesn’t have to dominate your meals. Learn to diet without feeling like you did something wrong.

For example, you can enjoy small treats in moderation without destroying all of your weight loss efforts, so there’s no need to feel guilty!

Consider these tips for the tasty details in avoiding food guilt:

1. Learn to recognize food guilt.

Food guilt tends to follow a common cycle. The cycle usually starts with you setting a goal to lose weight or get in shape. Then, you go on a diet and start working out. However, you may cheat on the diet or accidentally eat the wrong thing. This is followed by shame and guilt.

* The cycle starts with denial, moves to temptation, and ends with remorse. * You beat yourself up for every mistake that you make on the diet. However, many diets allow for small diversions.

2. Accept that diet mistakes happen.

A diet error doesn’t mean you’ve failed and can never lose weight. It simply shows that you’re a human being who struggles like everyone else on this planet.

* Food is neither bad nor good. Some foods may be healthier or more nutritious than others, but avoid labeling them as good or bad. Assigning such descriptions creates the shame you feel if you eat an item that you’ve labeled as bad.

3. Find your balance.

Even the healthiest dieters and nutritionists allow themselves the occasional treat.

* One way to find balance is to give healthy food a percentage goal. For example, you can eat healthy 80 percent of the time and allow treats or sweets 20 percent of the time.

* This is a balanced approach to temptations that won’t make you feel guilty.

4. Create coping strategies for overeating.

One of the biggest challenges for dieters occurs when they overeat. The feelings of shame and guilt can spiral out of control and lead you to give up on the diet or eat even more.

* For example, if you know that stress at work will send you running toward the ice cream in the freezer at home, then don’t buy any ice cream. Replace it with frozen grapes. Removing the temptation can help immensely.

* Another idea is to create a strategy for the occasions that you give in to temptation. Perhaps you’ll want to do some extra exercises to burn up those extra calories, so they won’t make any difference at all. Dwelling on your guilt won’t make the calories you just ate disappear. This will only make you feel worse about your body.

* Stop the inner critic and have compassion. Recognize you have faltered from your diet plan and move on. You can commit to doing better next time and trying to avoid the stumbling blocks that lead you to overeat.

5. Do the math.

Sometimes fear takes over, but math can help.

* Before you start panicking that eating a bag of chips has forever ruined your diet, you can do the math and realize the calories won’t affect you long-term, and you can still lose weight.

Guilt is a common emotion that is often tied to how we eat. Many people feel ashamed about their weight and shape, so guilt is part of their lives. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Take steps to eliminate the guilt and you’ll see your self-esteem soar.

Why do you feel guilt while on a diet?

Do you think this diet can help in your life?

Talk about that in the Personal Growth Cafe Community!

Also, as your gift for taking this to heart – and this is profoundly important… to us ALL – go to UnitingPlanetEarth.com/ignition/ and do the Uniting Planet Earth 7-Day Quick-Start Ignition Program… and Allow it to Transform Your Life.

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August 30, 2017September 26, 2017

Five Strategies to Stop Doubting Yourself and Pursue Your Dreams

Whether you feel that achieving your dreams are a long way off or just a few moments away, it’s essential that you feel confident that you can reach them.

The key to getting your dreams to become a reality is to believe in yourself and your abilities. Only you can make them come true. Only you can stop the doubts.

If you’ve doubted whether you can reach your dreams, try these strategies to regain your confidence:

1. Learn to recognize self-doubt.

Are you aware of how much doubt is affecting your dreams? The first step is to recognize the power that self-doubt has over you.

* You may have a dream, but are you actively pursuing it? Doubt can paralyze you and stop you from going after your dreams. It can creep in slowly and destroy them. You may not even notice how much it’s hurting your dreams.

2. Avoid letting your struggles stop you.

Struggles can increase your doubt about your abilities to achieve your goals. They can cause you to give up and walk away – if you let them.

* Struggles and challenges are a natural part of the journey toward your dreams.

* Rather than pretending that the issues don’t exist or that you can avoid them, face them head on. Know that you can find a solution and continue moving forward toward your dreams. It might be a different path than what you originally planned, but consider that it might be even better, too.

3. Recognize excuses.

If you don’t believe in yourself, then you can create many excuses to stop going after your dreams. You may tell yourself that you’re not worthy of your dreams or that they’re foolish. You may convince yourself that you don’t deserve success, happiness, or other good things. Doubt can make you stay in a comfortable place that isn’t fulfilling.

* Your excuses might include that you don’t have enough time or resources to achieve your dreams. You may also blame your family, background, or other features of your life.

* Recognize that you’re using these reasons for excuses. For better results, think of them as simply challenges that you can find a solution to, and get busy!

4. Act with confidence.

Even if you’re scared to step forward, it’s important to act with confidence. The old cliche of “faking it till you make it” can apply here. You must go after your dreams with passion and confidence even when you’re scared and uncertain.

* Practice by doing things that take a little (not a lot of) courage. Not only will you get some things done, but you’ll also have more self-esteem because you’re doing things that scare you. You can build up your confidence over time with little steps.

5. View your challenges in a new way.

Life is filled with teachable moments that can help you get to your dreams. Usually, they take the form of challenges.

Challenges can shape and transform you. Instead of thinking of your challenges as failures, look at them as learning opportunities, or results that can show you a new, more effective approach.

* Each challenge gives you the chance to experience something new and learn from it.

* They’re a sign that you’re growing as a person and making progress. They mean that you’re getting closer to your goals. They’re the stones in your path that act as markers for the final destination of your dreams.

Self-doubt can destroy any dream. It can make you feel like you’re worthless. It can make you think that your dreams aren’t possible and will never happen.

But this isn’t true! You can defeat this negative thought process with strategies like these. Regain your self-confidence and go after your dreams!

How can doubting impact your life?

How can doubts hinder you from fulfilling your dreams?

Talk about that in the Personal Growth Cafe Community!

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July 18, 2012

Calming Your Mind and Lowering Your Stress Levels

More often than not, we tend to focus on too many things every day, leading to confusion, anxiety, and annoyance. This stress can be hard on the mind and body, but the good news is that you can lower your stress levels and calm your mind, helping yourself to feel better each day.

In fact, you can overcome these issues with a few simple techniques!

First, acknowledge that you must take time for yourself. Being all things to all people isn’t realistic, and neither is doing everything and solving all problems or concerns in one day. No one should expect that of you! If they do, you must recognize that it’s not healthy, and you must do what’s right and best for you. Your health and happiness could depend on it.

Ways to Calm Your Mind

Meditation and prayer are two of the biggest ways to calm a restless mind, but they aren’t the only things you can do. There are many other choices to help you feel better and live a stress-free life. You might also consider:

* Volunteering or focusing on helping others
* Exercising
* Listening to music
* Using your mind for joyous pursuits that interest you
* Playing with children or pets

Everyone has different things they enjoy in life, and you should find yours and practice them when you start to feel stressed or your thoughts try to run away from you. Avoid letting your thoughts talk you out of your dreams. Your dreams are yours; embrace them!

Being busy is not the problem when it comes to your mind. Being busy with things that aggravate you and make you feel down is the problem. Instead of dwelling on things that upset you, deal with them, let them go, and move on to things that you enjoy. You can do this with your thoughts, just like you would with a physical task in the workplace or at home.

Lower Your Stress Levels Each Day

Stress begins in your mind as thoughts, but it can manifest itself physically. You may feel tense, anxious, uneasy, angry, or have aches and pains you can’t really find a cause for. If stress continues all the time and becomes chronic, your health could be compromised.

You can let stress go and feel good every day.

Try these strategies to lower your stress:

1. Focus on what matters to you. What’s important in your life? Be proactive about your goals and priorities. When you’re working toward something that you want, it makes you feel good about yourself and your future.

2. Find both physical and mental ways to release your stress. Releasing your stress every day keeps it from building up inside you. Make the conscious choice to start each day fresh, without the stress from the day before.

* What relaxes you? Music? Hobbies? Spending time with your family? Enjoy a healthy dose of relaxation every day.

* Get as much exercise as possible. Exercise refreshes your body with a surge of oxygen and releases endorphins, the “feel good” hormone. Even if there’s no time for an exercise session, take the stairs instead of the elevator, park far away from the building so you can walk, and play with your kids or pets.

3. Practice these strategies consistently. Work on releasing your stress every day, even on days when you don’t feel as much stress, so it won’t be a struggle when you really need it. When you’re feeling good, it’s natural to forget about letting stress go, but it’s important to avoid getting complacent.

* Keep practicing and improving, even when you feel great!

Whichever techniques you choose to calm your mind and lower your levels of stress, ensure it’s the right fit for you and your lifestyle. Only you know what you really need and what makes you feel safe and at peace.

If you practice this peacefulness each day, it won’t be long before you start to feel calmer, even in situations where you would have previously been over the edge. Your thoughts will be clearer, instead of jumbled and racing. Physically, you’ll feel stronger, too, because your body will be free from the affliction of stress and anxiety.