Once you have deeply understood, that you need to change, why is it nevertheless a continuous fight? How can your will fight and win it? In this blog series, I am sharing the process needed to achieve deep personal change, based on my story. In this second part, we will look at Acceptance, Deep conviction, and starting asap.
„Not everyone gets to be a winner unless they choose to be. Winning is a mentality.“ – Valentin Chmerkovskiy
The current status:
As of today, I had managed to lose 24kg. I am at 132kg and continue the trend of losing weight. I feel energised the whole day, sometimes so much, that I do not know what to do with all that energy. I have managed to reduce my intake of medicines from 7 different medicaments to 3,5 and the most amazing thing is, already after 11 days of a plant-based diet, I was able to get rid of the Ibuprofen completely…my body does not ache anymore!!!
Of course, there is a whole process behind this. To know how everything started read: The Dark Side under: https://evolving.zone/blog/life-coaching/deep-personal-change-part-1-the-dark-side/
As mentioned there, to achieve deep personal change there is a process a person needs to undergo to achieve deep change:
- Deep understanding
- Deep internalisation (knowledge)
- Acceptance (bow your head, ask yourself for forgiveness and recognise the change is dearly required)
- Deep conviction (mental training for your personal change marathon MACARENA)
- Lose the angst and START asap
- Educate yourself continuously
- Adapt along the way
- MACARENA your mental training – your best friend for difficult times
Last time in Deep Personal Change – Part 1 – The dark side – we looked into the first 2 process steps.
Today in Deep Personal Change – Part 2 – The inner fight – based on my story, we will look at Acceptance and Deep conviction
Acceptance
„The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.“ – Nathaniel Branden
Renowned psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden wrote in his book „The six pillars of self-esteem“ about the practice of self-acceptance. He described the process of self-acceptance at three levels:
First level: „to be self-accepting is to be on my side—to be for myself.“ In other words „Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with myself.“(1) This means to me, that you need to embrace yourself and tell yourself I AM HERE…FOR YOU and I WILL BE THERE FOR YOU. And really, be there for you, with all it takes. Accept, that you are unconsciously doing things that harm you. Self-reflection at all times is needed. Build in phrases in your day, and start talking to yourself. Start being conscious of what you are doing. Whenever you are falling again into the pitfall, beware of yourself. Ask yourself: „what am I doing here?“. „Is this really necessary?“. Do not let yourself destroy yourself! Be a friend that gently reminds you at all times what is at stake here.
Second level: „Self-acceptance entails our willingness to experience—that is, to make real to ourselves, without denial or evasion—that we think what we think, feel what we feel, desire what we desire, have done what we have done, and are what we are.“ „I cannot forgive myself for an action I will not acknowledge having taken.“ (2)
At this level, you basically recognise the mistakes of the past. Accept them. YOU have done them. That is OK.
Third level: „Self-acceptance entails the idea of compassion, of being a friend to myself.“…“Accepting, compassionate interest does not encourage undesired behavior but reduces the likelihood of it recurring.“ (3)
Important is to recognize, that there was a reason for doing what you were doing. Put the mistake in the context of it. Most importantly, here is the point in time when you need to start forgiving yourself. Yes, exactly, forgive yourself for whatever harm you have done to yourself. Talk to yourself! You will need to find every day some minutes of self-reflection in which you do this exercise of telling to yourself: “I am on your side! Whatever happened in the past (Best is if you name it) is part of you, and that is OK…I forgive you and I want to be here for you to support you to change for good!“
It means, that you have to accept whatever mistakes you did in the past and accept them as being part of who you are. They are part of you and that is OK.
The question for the future is: what are you going to do about it? But for the moment, accept the failures as being part of yourself. Be yourself the good friend that tells you what is right and wrong.
As Branden said: „To “accept” is more than simply to “acknowledge” or “admit.” It is to experience, stand in the presence of, contemplate the reality of, and absorb it into my consciousness. I need to open myself to and fully experience unwanted emotions, not just perfunctorily recognise them.“
As mentioned before, you will need to include self-conversation and self-reflection in your daily routine. Later on, we will talk about the future and MACARENA as a mental training process for change, however, I now personally think, that acceptance and forgiving yourself really need to precede any plans for the future.
Just bow your head!!!…and accept the fact as it is and as being part of you!
In my case, when I bowed my head the first time during Dr. Abel’s visit, and the second time during the 2 days after the visit. I accepted my diet mistakes, I accepted the fact, that I was addicted to dairy and meat, yes I call it today addiction because I always said that I cannot live without cheese“, I accepted this as being part of me and started really to forgive myself for it. I bowed myself in front of my family 2 days after the visit to the doctor and spoke with my wife and daughters about what was happening and the need for change, what needed to change, and ask them for help. I did not ask them to change their diet, but to help me overcome difficult times and even hit me in the head if they saw me falling back into old habits. When I asked my family to remind me of what was at stake for me, it hit me…
Deep conviction
„My work is a self-portrait of my mind, a prism of my convictions.“ – Fernando Botero
…if I was going to change anything in myself, I had to put my mind deeply into it and develop the deep conviction of achieving it!
Do you know the proverb: „nobody is a prophet in their own land“? Well, luckily, one of the methods, that I use to support athletes in my sports coaching profession is mental training. So, I decided to become a prophet in my own land!
The method I developed and currently use is called MACARENA, which is an acronym for the process behind it. Honestly speaking, when I was developing it, I thought of the fantastic Macarena song which was a hit in the 90’s. As I am half-colombian – you can imagine that I love to dance – I decided to use it, as one of the important factors for any development of a mental conversation (self-talk) for athletes is to find what I call: „the own rhythm“.
Each person, that wants to apply the mental training method of self-talk to prepare for a training, game or championship has to develop their own self-talk. It needs to be your own, and it has to have your own rhythm. There are no blueprints here. Do not get me wrong, the process of developing a self-talk can take some time and needs adjustments and trial and error along the way. The good thing is that you can start using it very soon, after developing the first sentences. This method helps you gain the self-conviction, which is necessary along the way to achieve deep personal change.
The MA of MACARENA.
Yes, I am going to start spoiling my last blog in this series. Sorry folks!
MA stands for Mantra. The first part of any self-talk is to develop a simple positive sentence, short paragraph, or rhyme, with rhythm. Include this mantra in your life, the sooner the better. You will most probably do some rounds, adapting it till you finally have THE ONE mantra for yourself. What I mean with round is, that you should speak to yourself several times a day. The minimum should be 3 moments per day, but the more the better. When you wake up say the mantra several times, when you have a moment alone during the day say it (also several times and the moment you are in bed at night. By doing this over a period of time it will become a habit, your mind will start changing and new perspectives will be discovered. Now many people ask me how much time do I need t do that. Some experts say 21 days some other says 66 days, but reality is that this will depend on yourself and how willing you are to change.
Truth told is, there is not a magic number, as a 2010 UK study, led by University College London research psychologist Pippa Lally showed. The same study refers to an average over all participants of 66 days, but some people adopted a new behaviour in 18 days, while others needed up to 254 days.
Here is the thing…why does it matter how much time I will have to invest in changing me deeply. Every single time you speak your mantra to yourself, you are doing a step forward toward deep personal change. Every single day you use your mantra, you will have improved your life significantly.
After 5 months, I still use my mantra, when I wake up, when I am on the bike, when I am tidying the house and before I sleep. It has become a habit. I cannot tell you exactly when, but what. I can tell is, that after 11 days, having changed to a plant-based diet, it was not a burden anymore and after approximately 1 month, I did not have the cheese desire I had my whole life.
Please remember: one thing is to say and repeat your mantra and another one is to act on it. Remember to act! So, do not be afraid and start as soon as possible to walk the talk. Overcome, what we here in Germany call the „innerer Schweinehund“ or „inner pig-dog“
Next time in this series, we will go into Lose the Angst and start ASAP (overcome your „inner pig-dog“) and Educate yourself continuously.
(1) The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem – Branden, Nathaniel – Pages 147 to 149
(2) The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem – Branden, Nathaniel – Pages 149 to 152
(3) The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem – Branden, Nathaniel – Pages 152 to 153
Erich is an experienced life + business coach. He has a track record of over 19 years in supporting staff and leadership in organizations, athletes, and private people in their efforts to enable changes in their lives.
He knows from his own experience how to ignite the passion in people, how to let people gain new perspectives, set new objectives, and follow through completion.
As a native speaker, Erich provides coaching in German and Spanish, as well as in English thanks to his more than 3 decades of experience working at the international level.
Last posts
Last posts