Powerful Brain. Healthy Body

1. Powerful Brain. Healthy Body Creating Habits for a Healthy Lifestyle ‘Vision of the Future and 21 Days Practice Dave Blomquist

2. “Thank you for being here and keeping the commitment you made to yourself.”

3. What’s Your Vision For The Future • What do you look like • What are you doing that is important to you • Symbol of something wonderful that’s empowered by healthy, robust lifestyle • Infused with emotion

4. Examples of Vision for Future • I see myself running joyously through the park with my little ones in hand, laughing together at the game we are playing. I feel great. • I see myself energetically running up the stairs to my waiting friends, my mind clear, my confidence secure and my body strong.

6. Visualization

7. What Firm Decisions Have You Made? • After carefully considering what I want my future life to look like – I have made a firm decision to: • Daily give my body what it needs to be strong and healthy • Implement ideas on nutrition and eating • Be consistently health conscious in my food decisions • Be honest and work to let go of my unhealthy habits

8. What Steps Will You Take to Implement Your Firm Decision? • (Be Specific) • Acknowledge my unhealthy urges and deal with them. • Be Compassionate with myself • Drink 8 glasses of water a day • Eat 5-7 servings of fruit and vegetables every day • Park car away from office and walk • Take the stairs in all buildings I visit • Eat breakfast every day • Do pushups at bedside every night before I get in bed • Etc…

9. Remember - a new habit pathway really connects at the point you make a firm decision

10. Changing self-defeating habits • Practiced grow stronger, more automatic • Likely to repeat • Merely trying to stop your self-defeating habit is difficult and rarely succeeds • Easier to replace a self-defeating habit with a new habit pathway

11. 21 Days of Practice • How long do I need to practice? • 21 days (if every day) • 42 days (if every other day) • 147 days (if once a week)

12. What type of practice is required? • Practice strategy is very specific • Practiced every day • Dominant and Automatic(Connection between habit trigger and the new habit) • New health habit becomes natural

13. Two types of practice • “Not in the Moment” • “In the Moment”

14. Practice “in the moment” • “In the Moment” • When your old self-defeating health habit is triggered • Two types of situations: • Become aware of automatic habit • Strong urge or desire to indulge

15. How to practice “in the moment” • Acknowledge the urge, want, or desire • Don’t fight against, ignore or avoid • Simply acknowledge • “Right now I want to , and” • Use “and” instead of “but” • Not an argument

16. How to practice “in the moment” • 2. Clearly state what you really want instead • Vision of Your Future card • Practice Tool • “Right now I want to , and what I really want is (rehearse your Vision of Your Future)”

17. How to practice “in the moment” • 2. Clearly state what you really want instead • Connect emotionally with your decision • Higher priority than the short-term satisfaction • Not an argument with yourself • Vision of Your Future card

18. How to practice “in the moment” • 3. Review reasoning why it’s important to you • Hit high points • Reasons typed on back of Vision of Your Future card. “Right now I want to , and what I really want is (rehearse your Vision of Your Future). This is important to me because (what you concluded in your honest evaluation).”

19. “NOT in the moment” practice • Use on days when self-defeating habit not triggered • Missing a day extends life of time • Risk of relapse • Avoidance is not practice • 21 days of actual practice necessary

20. “NOT in the moment” practice Takes two possible forms: • Most powerful = visualization • It’s like putting fertilizer on a plant • Every day for 21 days

21. “NOT in the moment” practice Takes two possible forms: • 2. Read Vision of Your Future card • Both sides • Getting dressed • Lunch, Dinner, etc • Read frequently for 21 days

22. When I still have urges • Old habit pathway is still dominant and automatic • Be willing to experience sometemporary discomfort • Only 2 to 3 days - be calm • First three days are the most important • Over time - less frequent • Unexpected urge and craving

23. What if I slip & indulge in old habits? • Strengthens the old, self-defeating pathway • Resets your counter - 21 more days

24. Time For Homework • Complete and use 21 Day Challenge Journal • Type your Vision of Your Future statement • “In the moment” practice steps each time your old, self-defeating habit triggers. • Use visualization exercise every day - 21 days • Compassionately observe difficulty