Sunday Story...Can't vs. Won't (or don't want to)

I often have conversations with people who confuse what they can’t do with what they won’t or are not willing to do. There is a huge difference between the two things.

I can’t breathe water.
I can’t grow an extra arm or leg.
I can’t eat nails.
I can’t do an x-ray with my naked eye.
I can’t live without my head attached to my body.
These (as absurd as the list appears) things are things I can’t do. They are physically, anatomically, or biologically impossible. There is no way for my teeth to chew up the nails, nor can my digestive system process them even if I could swallow them.

I won’t exercise regularly.
I won’t eat right today.
I won’t read a book.
I won’t stop drinking soda or alcohol (if you are addicted, it is hard, granted).
I won’t stop using curse words.
These are things you can do if you want to do them, or if you choose to do them. These are things you are making a choice about, things you don’t want to do.

Let’s start being a little bit more honest about these two areas. Too often we allow ourselves to be convinced that we can’t do something…maybe we have tried it in the past and failed, maybe we have friends who are telling us we can’t do it, maybe we just don’t have a template for knowing how to do it. This is much different from the actual inability to do something due to anatomical physical or biological reasons for not being able to do something. Can I run a 10 second 100 meters? I am physically able, I have all the tools to be able but I really don’t believe that I can.

And that is where this conversation leads us. What you believe you can or cannot do. Your mind is your most powerful ally or your most powerful enemy. Your belief system is what catapults you or restrains you. You brain is the part of your body that inhibits your progress. There are times in your life when you just can’t face the thing (whatever that things that day). I know of people whose brains won’t let them go out of the house. I know people whose brains are telling them they will never lose weight (and they don’t). I know people who are convinced they will never learn to read or that they can’t write legibly. These are constructs of a belief system that is operating in error mode. This is a belief system that is working with bad initial data implanted at some point by a bad teacher, bad experience, or bad something or another.

I can do anything I want to do provided they are anatomically, physically or biologically possible. There are three things that must happen for me to be able to do those things, however.
Those three things are:
KNOWING WHAT I WANT
KNOWING WHY I WANT IT
KNOWING HOW TO GET IT
Want to lose weight?
How much weight? Be specific and exact.
Why do you want to lose it? This needs to be powerful and moving. A reason that will have you getting up in the morning like your hair is on fire.
How are you going to lose it? You need a scientifically proven method that you can sustain for a life time. In other words NOT a diet, diets might have you lose some weight but then when you go back to all your old habits, the weight returns along with all the rest of the pathologies (especially the mental defeat.)

Your mental process is probably the most important part of this whole puzzle and it is the one most people miss or forget about. If you have failed at something in the past (c’mon we all have) go back and look at your belief system. What did you believe about yourself, about what you were attempting to do, about how you were going about it? This is the critical component to any lasting and permanent change…belief. You must change your thinking, you belief in order to change your behavior, your habits, your life.

Change your mind, change your life.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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