Discover Your Hungers

Chapter 5 How to get Started Having a VISION for your health, wealth, wisdom, relationships, finances and life in general is absolutely necessary for your success in any of these areas. How can you reach a destination if you don’t know what it is? To get started you need to create a Vision Board or Book or Album. It can be letter size, book size, a photo album or a full poster on your wall with pictures and words cut out of magazines, personal photos, or illustrations. Caption: Have fun by creating a Vision Board! Your Future Vision The following three steps will assist you in getting started. You may want to put the questions in these three categories. 1. Vision for your future 2. Journey - Start with where you are right now and then your discoveries 3. Destination The first step is to visualize what you want. For example: What does optimal health mean to you? Describe your ideal state of health. Is it is possible? What are you doing? Who is with you? You can call it a goal, a dream or a new image of yourself. You must then learn new ways to think about and believe that you can reach this destination. You are are a wonderful, brilliant, work in progress. Once you have a clear picture of what you want, then you can create a Metaphor for planning that fits you, such as, creating a Map, Game-Plan, Play Book, compose a Symphony Score, or an Architectural drawing for your life with the starting place is where you are right now, then steps of the journey and the Destination. Becoming clear about your vision for the future will help you to figure out what steps you need to take on a daily basis to bring you closer to your vision of your health, life and purpose. Small steps, or baby steps toward your destination, can help you get there! It is also helpful to have an accountability partner or group. Research shows that when you have support success is even more attainable. The second step is the actual journey of your discoveries, creating new ideas and thinking about yourself. Start with where you are right now and ask yourself what is keeping you from what you want? There are certain actions you can take by adopting new healthy thinking and beliefs, step-by-step actions to create behaviors that are healthy for you. Becoming aware of what your core values will lead you to discover what your beliefs are and how you think. The vital key for you in this process is to become aware of changes of your current beliefs. Those old beliefs that may have led you into your current situation can be changed if you discover what they are and what they did for you. By discovering and adopting new healthy beliefs about yourself, you can then change your behaviors or actions. Then, if you apply new positive actions, your behaviors and your results will change for your desired outcome! The third step is your Destination. How will you know when you have arrived? What accomplishments have you achieved? Recreating and tweaking your goals is good when you learn new better ways to see, feel and take action toward your vision as you go. Caption: My own vision board! 2001 In the upper left is Tibet, I have not been to Tibet yet! I went to Nepal two times (right next door to Tibet!) I have not met Oprah in person yet! The top right is me publishing my first book-The title has changed since I started it, the middle is a company I started in 2005 with Sue Lassetter and it has been a joy to educate and coach hundreds of Bariatric Coaches and Support Group Facilitators! The people pictures are family, friends and health, my amazing husband Ted and the lower left is the 15,000 square foot Estate I lived in for close to 11 years with my family and friends. I hosted many fund raisers for worthy causes like AIDS, and few famous folks for our local high school performing arts building fund raiser. I hosted many weddings, parties and family events in this amazing place. In April of 2002 Carnie Wilson was kind enough to come and speak to a group of about 100 weight loss surgery graduates and those investigating having surgery. How would you create your vision board to achieve and reach a tangible destination? You have a unique well-being outcome or vision depending on your previous experiences, during and after your weight loss surgery and also how your feel about your lifestyle. When creating the vision, you have to know that everyone including you has the responsibility to ask for what you want and has the right to ask for positive, respectful support. A tenet Coach Sue came up with for our support groups. In my group coaching we use visioning exercises that are usually done with guided imagery and music. It helps my clients to remember their vision before weight loss surgery and what they thought it would provide in their life. What hope brought you to weight loss surgery or to finally decide no more excess weight? Caption: Get your journal and start writing! Here are a few questions you can ask yourself. You can use your journal, or just a piece of paper. What do you want? What do you want for your health? Career? Relationships? Life? What is happening for you now? Where are you now? What experiences do you want? What actions are you willing to take daily toward your vision or destination? -0- What choices do you want to take to support your vision? What choices are you willing to implement to achieve what you say you want? What support or help do you need to put in place to accomplish your daily action plan? What do you want to do monthly/weekly/daily to obtain your vision and what you want? What do you want to do at each point of decision? -0- What are you committing to toward your goal? What specific actions with dates will you set for yourself? How can you remove the word ‘SHOULD’ from your vocabulary? In other words, “Don’t should on yourself!” Consider using the word “Want.” Do you notice any changing in your thinking? How will you know when you have arrived at your destination or vision? What are your criteria to succeed? How will you look in the future? How will your body Move? Who will you be in the future? Just look 12-24 months ahead. -0- How will you reward yourself for achieving a goal? How will you feel at your destination? What will you be doing at your goal? What will your environment be like in the future? Who will be around you when you reach your destination? Where will you be when your destination is fulfilled? -0- So this is the beginning of your journey to health, wealth and wisdom! You select the questions that stand out for you and start answering them now! Go to the worksheet W5 at the end of the book, or just write down the answers in your private journal! ***