So then how can you turn your past into a trampoline that will lead you to success?

1. Choose to forgive
I am sure you have heard this many times. But it is VERY necessary for YOUR mental health and physical health as well as for your future success, that you forgive everyone from your past.

They may have disillusioned you, disappointed you or downright betrayed you. It really does not matter. You need to forgive them.

Do they deserve your forgiveness? Probably not. But we are not really talking about them. We are talking about YOU and YOUR health and prosperity.

Anger and resentment will eat away at YOUR health (not theirs). So for your sake, choose to forgive.

Now take note:

• Forgiveness is a decision, not an emotion. (You don’t need to feel like forgiving).
• Choosing to forgive does NOT mean you are obliged to trust again.
• Trust is a completely different area. Trust is EARNED.

2. Decide to release your past.
When you forgive you give up the right to rehearse those mental dramas of what you would like to do to that person if it were legal and ethical. You actually release a very heavy load from your life.

Justice is no longer your problem. (Believe me, the Creator of this universe does not need your help to bring justice. You are actually in His way when you insist on taking revenge yourself, even if it is only in your mind).

So now it is time to release the people involved and the situation itself completely.

You cannot change the past. However you CAN find some benefits within this situation that will help you in your future, especially now that you are not emotionally involved.

3. Determine to learn from your past.
You have forgiven the people who helped create negative influences in your life in the past. You have released the situation which means you are choosing to no longer allow your mind to dwell on those things.

The decision to forgive will have released much, if not all of your emotional ties to the situation. You also released the situation itself. This means no more blame and revenge dramas in your mind.

Note: You may also need to forgive and release yourself. You cannot move on towards success if you are still stuck in the bog of self blame.

Now get out your journal (or a sheet of clean paper) and a pen. Quickly look back to this situation in your mind. Your mind should be clear of emotion when you think about it now, so you are free to learn.

• Write down everything you learned from this situation.
• What would you do today if the same thing happened?
• How would you react?
• What decisions would you make?

You are starting to build your trampoline as you turn your past situations into learning experiences.

You are learning to conquer the negative and pursue the positive. This will lead you to success!

Photo: From szlea’s photostream on Flickr
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Some of these obstacles may be simple and practical things. Nevertheless they can take discipline and determination to overcome. Obstacles are meant to strengthen you and challenge you to rise to higher and greater things.

Becoming a champion takes sacrifice, discipline, diligence and determination. Every time you overcome an obstacle in your life, you strengthen your determination to win and to succeed in life. Your champion mindset is reinforced and your focus on your goals sharpens.

You are a winner! You are a champion!

In this and the next 4 articles (posts) we are going to take a close look at some of these practical areas of your life that can be obstacles to maintaining the champion mindset. Of course we will focus on ways you can overcome these obstacles and strength your champion mindset.

Once we identify the hindrances it is always much easier to conquer them.

Ready? Of course you are! Here is the first obstacle:

Diet

Now why did I have to go and meddle with diet?? Well actually diet embraces the areas that can affect both your body and your brain (and thus your emotions).

In fact, your brain is much more affected by your diet than you realize. So does this mean that diet can affect mood swings, clarity of mind, focus? Well the latter two you probably already know about, but mood swings affected by diet? Yes!

Diet includes – food, exercise AND sleep.

Oh dear – sleep too? Yes. I am a night owl by nature. I was born at midnight (so I am told), and my best study and work hours have always been late at night. The only problem is that presently I have a job that requires the alarm to go off at 4.20am!

After a few late nights followed by very early mornings I find myself wondering why I am depressed, unable to concentrate and get anything done when I come home.

Then one day recently I ate something that was not quite right and a dose of food poisoning resulted. That meant I had no option but to rest all day. In fact I slept all day.

Result, the next day I was back in the stream of life feeling SO much better in every area.

Yes all aspects of diet will affect your mood, your enthusiasm or lack of it and your ability to focus and concentrate.

To overcome anything in life, you need to be positive, enthusiastic and be focused on your goals.

Scientific studies are proving more and more that a connection does exist between our diet of food, vitamins, exercise AND sleep and our brains (our ability to think clearly, focus and stay positive).

Of course the biggest things to avoid are the processed foods, the chemicals (artificial sweeteners, non diary creamers, packaged foods filled with chemicals), sugars, excess caffeine.

For more information on this area I highly recommend Dr Hay’s book – UltraMind Solution. Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First.

Dr Hay shocked me by pointing out that a part of the brain is in actual fact located in the lower intestinal area known as the gut. So wrong foods, toxins and poisons poured into this area will of course affect our brains.

I am sure you have had many experiences with proving the value of right diet for energy, focus and freedom from depression. Please share your experiences, ideas, tips and discoveries below.

And don’t forget:

Check out the next article in this series: Overcoming Obstacles Takes Discipline.

However there is another area which is not quite as recognized as the other two, but which in fact plays an even bigger part in our succeeding with any resolutions to change our weight. This is the area of our mindset.

Can you stay in a negative frame of mind when you are laughing your head off?
Quite a few years ago heard a testimony of someone who was diagnosed with cancer and given just weeks to live. This person made a decision: “if I am going to die soon, I may as well die laughing”. Not TOTALLY positive, but at least he was moving in the right direction.

So they set off to the local video store to rent all of the old time funnies with stars such as Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges and Abbott & Costello. These movies were their favorites and so they spent days watching these old comedies and laughing and laughing.

I certainly remember these movies, and my favorite comedy team was Laurel and Hardy.

Laurel and Hardy were crazy yet genius in comedy, a very unlikely pair (one from London and one from Georgia). I remember seeing many of their movies during my youth. Of course I am still in my youth

Interestingly enough, as I am completing this article, the public station (PBS) is playing on the TV in the background.

The program is a documentary about the old comedies and of course Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers are there.

For our cancer patient there was of course no room for remorse, sadness or any negative thinking during those days of such mirth. What was result of this exercise? Instead of dying laughing, they LIVED, the cancer gone. Two weeks of laughter proved to be an excellent prescription for health!

Yes mindset DOES affect our health.
Even physicians now agree that things like arthritis and many other ailments can be greatly attributed to harboring bitterness, anger and lack of forgiveness in our hearts and minds.

What about the role of our mindsets in weight loss?
A good twitter friend, Shileen Nixen, has an excellent testimony of how she was able to conquer her weight problem once she faced the fact that “it was the emotional and mindset part that needed major work”. See her article: Weight Loss Weigh More Than a Diet

And let’s face it, how mad or sad can you stay when you are laughing your head off? Of course you feel better. So it is clear that a good laugh can only have a positive affect on your mind. It will clear you mind, lighten your attitude and relax you.

There is also an excellent three part series on Mindset and Weightloss to be found on www.transformedfitness.com

The state of our minds plays a VERY important role in every area of our lives, including health and weight loss. After all Solomon who was the wisest man who every lived did say “As he thinks in his heart, so is he” Ps 23:7. (This truth has become more popular today with the producing of the film “The Secret”).

Solomon also knew that laughter is good! Proverbs 17:22 tells us “A merry heart does good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones.” Now that’s one medicine I can take! How about you?

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• Have a Laugh and Lose Some Weight

With this in mind, here are some tips to help you MAKE 2009 be your best year yet! These are things that I have done (and some I am still in the process of doing).

This is a great exercise to do on January 1st, and will help to set the course for a great year!

First print out this page, and the following two articles from this blog:

Your Passion in Life

Discovering Life’s Purpose

Now you need to find a quiet moment and a quiet place (away from the computer and Twitter!). This may be dificult at this time of the year if you have family and friends visiting, but I am sure you will be able to find at least 15-20 minutes at some time of the day. If not, don’t fret, this is not Cinderella here (i.e. if you have to wait til January 2nd to find the time, it will still work!).

Don’t forget to take a good old notepad and pen or pencil with you to your quiet place (yes pens and pencils do still exist in this digital world

Closing Chapter 2008!

Before thinking about new goals for 2009, take a moment to reflect on 2008. Perhaps it was a good year for you, perhaps not. But the key is:

• What did you achieve?

• Are you closer now to your life’s goals than you were at the end of 2007? (Not sure of your life’s goals? The two articles you printed out may help you to discover these).
• If you are not closer, why? If you discover that you have lost your vision or it has dimmed, this is a good time to refocus and get back on track.

  It is also a good time to tweak your life’s goals and vision. Was you vision too small? Too dim? Too vague before?

  Adjustments are ok, as long as you are following YOUR heart. (That’s why we are doing this away from all the noise and influence of our friends and family).

• Are there some things in 2008 you regret? This is a time to forgive the people involved, forgive yourself, close the chapter and be free to open chapter 2009!
• Are there some achievements you are glad about in 2008? Great, but don’t camp there! There is more to do, more to achieve. Your achievements of 2008 are building blocks for greater things.

Ok, ready to close chapter 2008?

Getting Started on Chapter 2009

Let’s get started on our goals for 2009.

There are 3 main things we are going to bear in mind while looking at your plan for 2009:

1. It has to line up with your life vision and passion.

2. It has to include a balance for all areas of your life. You, your mental, spiritual and physical health, your family, your business achievements, your leisure time and any other achievements you plan on doing are all equally important.
3. Life can always throw us some curves, so there needs to be some flexibility in our projects.

Here is an outline of some things you might want to write down for 2009. The following items are just ideas to help you get your inspiration flowing:

What do I want for myself?

• Excellent health, I take care of my health so I will be more careful with what I eat, avoid processed foods. I will also make sure I get adequate rest and exercise more.
• Be more alive spiritually, so I will take some time (or more time) every day to read the Bible and fellowship with God .
• Open up new areas of my mind, so I will read 1-3 books a month, learn a new language or start something new like working on brain teasers.
• Spend more time enjoying life, so I will make sure I get to take time to enjoy some bicycle riding, or sports, take up a new hobby and make new friends.

My goals for my family are:

• Spend more time with them doing active things together where there is more interaction (not watching just TV together)
• Involve them more in my business so they will feel a part of this area of my life too.
• Take time to explore new things together (such as learning a new language together, learning about other cultures and countries together, learning a new sport together)

My goals to reach out to others are:

• Join a voluntary organization to help support the community.
• Start supporting new organizations such as perhaps sponsoring a child, supporting St Judes Children’s Hospital, giving to organizations providing clean water where there is none available.
• Take an interest in a needy family and look for ways to help them.
• “Adopt” a teenager and be their mentor.

My business goals are:
I plan on having my business fully support me by ………. (set a challenging but realistic date here).

To do this I will: (This could include things like:)

• Write at least 3 posts a week for my blog (or it might be 1 a day – whatever is a challenge for you, yet attainable within your time schedule)
• Write at least 3-5 articles a week.
• Learn a new area of business (perhaps more about SEO, or traffic, or website building etc)
• Find some new partners to master mind with.
• Find a mentor to guide me.
• Have a daily plan and make sure I keep on track.

Well these are some things that will guide you to create your own plans for 2009, so that you can MAKE 2009 your best year yet!

This is a great book to work through for the New Year (yes it is not really one to simply sit down and read, it is one to study and make notes on). It will help you move up to the new heights you plan for 2009!

Success Principles:

How To Get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be.

Jack Cranfield Co-author of the Chicken Soup For The Soul series, went from being a school teacher to holding a Guinness world record for having seven books simultaneously on The New York Times® Best Sellers list.

This book contains 64 principles, each principle a chapter that challenges the reader to take practical and positive action to risk creating their lives exactly as they want them.

Some principles are better known (such as “Take 100% responsibility for your life”) while others are inventive (such as “Become an Inverse Paranoid”).

All are well worth studying, considering and acting on as they can only enrich your life and help you get to where you want to be.

Recommended reading: 10 Simple Tips for Making (New Year’s) Resolutions Stick