Article by Paul: Change your life in 2008 (Evening Standard)

TotallyHypnotised · 18-02-2008, 06:54 PM

Change your life in 2008

FROM weight loss to boosting confidence, the New Year would not be the same without a list of "new" resolutions. The challenge though is sticking to your goals and this is where many fail. But the key to making lasting changes is simple, according to Britain's top mind guru Paul McKenna. The country's leading motivational coach reveals all you have to do is train your brain to think positively.

McKenna has already inspired millions with his books and CDs, including bestsellers such as I Can Make You Thin, now out in a new version. His clients include Geri Halliwell, Sophie Dahl and Robbie Williams. His weightloss system was launched three years ago and independent studies show nearly three-quarters of its followers have successfully trimmed down.

Here is Paul McKenna's exclusive guide to transforming your life in 2008.

TotallyHypnotised · 18-02-2008, 06:55 PM

GET THE BODY YOU WANT

BY FOLLOWING these four golden rules you will find it easy to lose weight and transform your relationship with food.

January is always the month for faddy diet launches. However, research shows that as soon as you starve yourself your body goes into "survival mode" your metabolism slows and you start to store fat. Your relationship with food is upset; if you starve, you will binge.

So instead follow these rules:

RULE 1. WHEN YOU ARE HUNGRY, EAT

You must recognise the difference between emotional and physical hunger: physical hunger builds up gradually, emotional hunger happens suddenly, when you feel bored or upset (emotional hunger can be overcome with the Craving Buster technique).

THE HUNGER SCALE:
1. Physically faint 2 Ravenous .
3 Fairly hungry 4 Slightly hungry 5 Neutral 6 Pleasantly satisfied 7 Full 8 Stuffed 9 Bloated 10 Nauseous

Each person is different, but as a general rule, you want to eat whenever you notice yourself between 3 and 4 on the scale when you are fairly hungry but before you become ravenous. If you wait until you get down to one or two, your body will go into starvation mode and you'll wind up probably eating more than your body needs and storing the excess as fat.

Ideally, you'll want to stop eating at around 6 or 7 on the hunger scale when you are feeling pleasantly satisfied or full but not yet stuffed or bloated.

Never go to the extremes of the hunger scale ever again.

RULE 2. EAT WHAT YOU WANT, NOT WHAT YOU THINK YOU SHOULD

As soon as you tell yourself to not eat certain foods (usually because you've been told they're bad for you), you upset the natural balance of your relationship to them. Rather than wanting it less, that "forbidden food" instantly becomes more attractive to you. The inner battle between your positive intention and your resistance to being controlled even by yourself can be exhausting. As you begin to make peace with food and learn to listen to the wisdom of your body, you experience freedom from the tension and guilt that comes from NOT following your intuition.

Also, as you stop resisting and start to follow your natural intuitions about what to eat when, you may notice your tastes changing. You may even find yourself naturally attracted to the very foods you're "supposed" to be eating now.

RULE 3. EAT CONSCIOUSLY AND ENJOY EVERY MOUTHFUL

People who are overweight often shovel food into their mouths as quickly as possible in order to get high from the happy chemicals we release in our brains when we eat. Unfortunately, because they are eating unconsciously, they never notice the signal from their stomachs that lets them know they are full. So they keep on stuffing their faces, expanding their waistlines and putting on weight.

The problem is that even though they feel temporarily high from cramming in lots of food, they feel fat and guilty afterwards. In fact, they feel so bad that they repeat the whole ritual of unconsciously stuffing themselves again in order to anaesthetise the bad feelings they have just created.

The single most important key to success with this system is: You can eat whatever you want, whenever you want, so long as you fully enjoy every single mouthful.

Put the knife and fork down while you are chewing your food and really enjoy it savour the taste, and enjoy the wonderful textures and sensations as you thoroughly chew each mouthful of food at least 20 times. If all you did for the next two weeks was to slow your eating speed down to about a quarter of what it used to be and chew each mouthful thoroughly, you would find it easy to leave food on your plate.

RULE 4. WHEN YOU THINK YOU ARE FULL, STOP EATING

The natural design of the human body is to eat when we're hungry and stop when we're satisfied, but many of us are conditioned to eat until we think we're full or, even worse, until whatever food we put on our plate is gone.

When you've eaten enough, your stomach sends a signal a sensation that says: "I'm satisfied, that's enough." Most people experience this gentle, clear, satisfied sensation in their solar plexus (the area below your rib cage but above your stomach).

The more you pay attention to it, the more obvious it becomes. If you are not sure whether you are full or not, just guess. You will soon find it becomes easier to tell.

TotallyHypnotised · 18-02-2008, 06:56 PM

SUPERCHARGE YOUR METABOLISM

A great weight myth is that certain people cannot slim because of a "slow" metabolism. But metabolism is not fixed.

It can and will change in response to how you eat and use your body. The faster your metabolism, the quicker it burns off excess fat from food on your hips, thighs and stomach. The secret to burning calories is exercise, which simply means taking more steps.

A 15-minute walk or 2,000 extra daily steps can make the difference between being overweight and being thin.

Do not diet: you will gain weight and keep it on for life.

Increase your step count.

TotallyHypnotised · 18-02-2008, 06:56 PM

BOOST YOUR CONFIDENCE AND MOTIVATION

THE START of any new year is when relationships are under the greatest strain and many people want to hibernate, not struggle to work. What is needed is to boost your confidence a skill that can be learned.

ARE YOU LIVING UP TO YOUR FULL POTENTIAL?

Not one of the hundreds of thousands of people I've worked with over the years believes that they are and they're right. Even the business leaders, Hollywood stars and Olympic champions I've worked with who were at the top of their game knew they were tapping in to only a part of what we are all truly capable of being, doing and having.

TotallyHypnotised · 18-02-2008, 06:56 PM

INSTANT CONFIDENCE BOOSTER

1. Hold your head high in a comfortable and relaxed position on your shoulders. Let your spine support you. Imagine a golden thread runs vertically up through your spine and straight up to the sky and that that thread supports you. Let yourself relax, safely held by that thread. This relaxed upright stance is the natural position of confidence and it will soon be as natural to you as breathing.

2 Remember a time when you felt totally confident. Return fully to that time now, seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard and feeling how good you felt then. (If you can't remember a specific time, just imagine how much better your life would be if you were totally confident and secure if you had all the power, strength and self-belief you could ever need.)

3 Now make the colours brighter and richer, the sounds louder, and allow your feelings of confidence to intensify.

4 Notice where that feeling of confidence is strongest in your body. Give this feeling a colour and move that colour up to the top of your head and down to the tip of your toes. Double the brightness. Double it again!

5 Repeat steps 2-4 at least five more times. Vividly imagine that event where you are confident again in detail. You can use the same experience or add new ones each time.

THE POWER OF GOALS

If you want to achieve anything worthwhile, you absolutely have to have goals but how you design your goals can make all the difference in the world.

1. Size really does matter

Your goals have to be big enough to get you out of bed to make you feel motivated even before you push the switch. Just being "a little more efficient at work", or "losing 5lb" is rarely a big enough target to aim at.

You need BIG goals goals that will ignite your passion and get you off your arse and into action. Then all the things that you do in your daily life become easier. As Donald Trump has said: "You have 50,000 thoughts a day might as well make them big ones." Write your goals down, describe them in vivid detail and imagine living them. Do this every day.

2 Who cares what you don't want?

Far too many people continually focus upon what they DON'T want.

"Don't want to be fat, if only I wasn't overweight, if only I wasn't such a loser" The unconscious mind doesn't process the negation. In order to "not" think about something, we first have to bring it into our consciousness. For example, try not to think about elephants right now. Go on no elephants.

This is also why it's so important that as you work on creating your BIG goals, you focus exclusively on what you DO want. Rehearse achieving it in your mind. And for goodness sake, don't think about succeeding EVERY time you focus just imagine what would happen if you did.

3 Break your goals down until it's easy to take action

When Dr Richard Bandler went to transform the US army pistolshooting programme, one of the first things he did was cut the distance to the target in half. As people's confidence and skill increased, the targets were gradually returned to the original distance. The result? A vastly increased success rate in less than half the original training time.

When people first set their BIG goals, they can get a bit freaked out by them and think they will never be able to achieve them. But by breaking them down into small enough chunks, you will find you can achieve anything you set your mind to.

How small should each chunk be? Small enough that you can take your very next action on it in the next 24 hours.

TotallyHypnotised · 18-02-2008, 06:57 PM

INCREASE YOUR WEALTH AND LIFE QUALITY

HERE are three techniques to make you richer.

1. REPROGRAMME YOUR WEALTH THERMOSTAT

Author Brandon Bays uses the following scenario as part of a study into the psychology of wealth: You have been shortlisted for a job.

Just before the final interview you discover the salary is not what you thought. Instead of £30,000 a year, it turns out to be £300,000. How would you feel and what would you do?

For most people, this brings up all sorts of emotional issues ranging from unworthiness to rage. A number in the study wouldn't even go in for the final interview. A job that pays 10 times what they are used to is simply too far outside their comfort zone.

The simple conclusion from this is that most people have an unconscious "upper limit" on how much they would be comfortable earning. In this way, your unconscious works much like a thermostat. If the thermostat is set for 70, the chances are the temperature in the room is around 70.
The only way to permanently change the temperature in the room is to reprogramme the thermostat.

1. Think about how much you have in the bank. Do you imagine piles of bank notes, stacks of coins, a bank statement or something else?

2 Next, think about how much you have coming in over the next year. What comes to mind cheques, notes, bank statements, envelopes or numbers on your home computer?

3 Now, imagine double, triple or even quadruple the amount coming in. You might see more notes piling up, bigger figures on the cheques or the numbers on the screen increasing more quickly.

4 Next, imagine this f low increases every year for 20 years. Imagine stacks of bank notes being added to your pile or the numbers on your statement dramatically increase.

5 When you are done, let your mind settle on an image that feels expansive and rich to you, making sure that you always finish with more wealth in your mind than you had when you began.

CREATE A RICH VISION

1. Imagine that it's five years from today and your life is filled with the most wonderful things. Write a paragraph or two about what has happened in each of the following areas: Health; Career/finances; Relationships; Spiritual; Lifestyle.

.2 Go back through each paragraph and highlight each key goal or milestone that emerged.

.3 For each one ask: "What do I want this for? What will this give me?" Your answers should be short such as, "a feeling of joy", "a sense of achievement", "freedom" or "making a contribution".

4 Repeat this exercise often, playing with different time frames (one year, 10 years) and different categories ("business success", "leaving a legacy", "family").
Over time, you will notice a core set of goals and values appear.

WHERE ARE YOU ALREADY RICH?

The 19th-century economist Wilfrid Pareto discovered that approximately 80 per cent of the world's wealth was concentrated in the hands of only 20 per cent of the world's population.

More remarkable to him was that this "80/20" rule seemed to hold true in nearly every area of our lives.

Check how much this 80/20 ratio is present in your own life: 80 per cent of your job satisfaction comes from 20 per cent of your work; 80 per cent of the time you wear 20 per cent of your clothes; 80 per cent of your rich feelings come from 20 per cent of your experiences.

Once you act on this principle, you will be able to pinpoint moneymaking and happiness opportunities with almost scientific precision.

1. Do an "80/20 audit" on the most important areas of your life. What are the 20 per cent of your work efforts that lead to 80 per cent of your profits? What are the 20 per cent of your work efforts that give you 80 per cent of your problems? What are the 20 per cent of activities that lead to 80 per cent of your happiness?

2 Based on what you have learned, what should you be doing less of ? What would be worth doing more of?

3 What one, two or three activities create results out of all proportion to the time and energy you put in?

4 If you only had one month to live, how would you spend your time? How many of those activities can you bring into your life this week?

5 Ask yourself Steve Jobs's question: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" The more you can answer yes, the richer your life will become

18-02-2008, 06:54 PM	#1 (permalink)
TotallyHypnotised Paul McKenna's biggest fan Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 38	Article by Paul: Change your life in 2008 (Evening Standard) Change your life in 2008 FROM weight loss to boosting confidence, the New Year would not be the same without a list of "new" resolutions. The challenge though is sticking to your goals and this is where many fail. But the key to making lasting changes is simple, according to Britain's top mind guru Paul McKenna. The country's leading motivational coach reveals all you have to do is train your brain to think positively. McKenna has already inspired millions with his books and CDs, including bestsellers such as I Can Make You Thin, now out in a new version. His clients include Geri Halliwell, Sophie Dahl and Robbie Williams. His weightloss system was launched three years ago and independent studies show nearly three-quarters of its followers have successfully trimmed down. Here is Paul McKenna's exclusive guide to transforming your life in 2008.

18-02-2008, 06:55 PM	#2 (permalink)
TotallyHypnotised Paul McKenna's biggest fan Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 38	Re: Article by Paul: Change your life in 2008 (Evening Standard) GET THE BODY YOU WANT BY FOLLOWING these four golden rules you will find it easy to lose weight and transform your relationship with food. January is always the month for faddy diet launches. However, research shows that as soon as you starve yourself your body goes into "survival mode" your metabolism slows and you start to store fat. Your relationship with food is upset; if you starve, you will binge. So instead follow these rules: RULE 1. WHEN YOU ARE HUNGRY, EAT You must recognise the difference between emotional and physical hunger: physical hunger builds up gradually, emotional hunger happens suddenly, when you feel bored or upset (emotional hunger can be overcome with the Craving Buster technique). THE HUNGER SCALE: 1. Physically faint 2 Ravenous . 3 Fairly hungry 4 Slightly hungry 5 Neutral 6 Pleasantly satisfied 7 Full 8 Stuffed 9 Bloated 10 Nauseous Each person is different, but as a general rule, you want to eat whenever you notice yourself between 3 and 4 on the scale when you are fairly hungry but before you become ravenous. If you wait until you get down to one or two, your body will go into starvation mode and you'll wind up probably eating more than your body needs and storing the excess as fat. Ideally, you'll want to stop eating at around 6 or 7 on the hunger scale when you are feeling pleasantly satisfied or full but not yet stuffed or bloated. Never go to the extremes of the hunger scale ever again. RULE 2. EAT WHAT YOU WANT, NOT WHAT YOU THINK YOU SHOULD As soon as you tell yourself to not eat certain foods (usually because you've been told they're bad for you), you upset the natural balance of your relationship to them. Rather than wanting it less, that "forbidden food" instantly becomes more attractive to you. The inner battle between your positive intention and your resistance to being controlled even by yourself can be exhausting. As you begin to make peace with food and learn to listen to the wisdom of your body, you experience freedom from the tension and guilt that comes from NOT following your intuition. Also, as you stop resisting and start to follow your natural intuitions about what to eat when, you may notice your tastes changing. You may even find yourself naturally attracted to the very foods you're "supposed" to be eating now. RULE 3. EAT CONSCIOUSLY AND ENJOY EVERY MOUTHFUL People who are overweight often shovel food into their mouths as quickly as possible in order to get high from the happy chemicals we release in our brains when we eat. Unfortunately, because they are eating unconsciously, they never notice the signal from their stomachs that lets them know they are full. So they keep on stuffing their faces, expanding their waistlines and putting on weight. The problem is that even though they feel temporarily high from cramming in lots of food, they feel fat and guilty afterwards. In fact, they feel so bad that they repeat the whole ritual of unconsciously stuffing themselves again in order to anaesthetise the bad feelings they have just created. The single most important key to success with this system is: You can eat whatever you want, whenever you want, so long as you fully enjoy every single mouthful. Put the knife and fork down while you are chewing your food and really enjoy it savour the taste, and enjoy the wonderful textures and sensations as you thoroughly chew each mouthful of food at least 20 times. If all you did for the next two weeks was to slow your eating speed down to about a quarter of what it used to be and chew each mouthful thoroughly, you would find it easy to leave food on your plate. RULE 4. WHEN YOU THINK YOU ARE FULL, STOP EATING The natural design of the human body is to eat when we're hungry and stop when we're satisfied, but many of us are conditioned to eat until we think we're full or, even worse, until whatever food we put on our plate is gone. When you've eaten enough, your stomach sends a signal a sensation that says: "I'm satisfied, that's enough." Most people experience this gentle, clear, satisfied sensation in their solar plexus (the area below your rib cage but above your stomach). The more you pay attention to it, the more obvious it becomes. If you are not sure whether you are full or not, just guess. You will soon find it becomes easier to tell.

18-02-2008, 06:56 PM	#3 (permalink)
TotallyHypnotised Paul McKenna's biggest fan Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 38	Re: Article by Paul: Change your life in 2008 (Evening Standard) SUPERCHARGE YOUR METABOLISM A great weight myth is that certain people cannot slim because of a "slow" metabolism. But metabolism is not fixed. It can and will change in response to how you eat and use your body. The faster your metabolism, the quicker it burns off excess fat from food on your hips, thighs and stomach. The secret to burning calories is exercise, which simply means taking more steps. A 15-minute walk or 2,000 extra daily steps can make the difference between being overweight and being thin. Do not diet: you will gain weight and keep it on for life. Increase your step count.

18-02-2008, 06:56 PM	#4 (permalink)
TotallyHypnotised Paul McKenna's biggest fan Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 38	Re: Article by Paul: Change your life in 2008 (Evening Standard) BOOST YOUR CONFIDENCE AND MOTIVATION THE START of any new year is when relationships are under the greatest strain and many people want to hibernate, not struggle to work. What is needed is to boost your confidence a skill that can be learned. ARE YOU LIVING UP TO YOUR FULL POTENTIAL? Not one of the hundreds of thousands of people I've worked with over the years believes that they are and they're right. Even the business leaders, Hollywood stars and Olympic champions I've worked with who were at the top of their game knew they were tapping in to only a part of what we are all truly capable of being, doing and having.

18-02-2008, 06:56 PM	#5 (permalink)
TotallyHypnotised Paul McKenna's biggest fan Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 38	Re: Article by Paul: Change your life in 2008 (Evening Standard) INSTANT CONFIDENCE BOOSTER 1. Hold your head high in a comfortable and relaxed position on your shoulders. Let your spine support you. Imagine a golden thread runs vertically up through your spine and straight up to the sky and that that thread supports you. Let yourself relax, safely held by that thread. This relaxed upright stance is the natural position of confidence and it will soon be as natural to you as breathing. 2 Remember a time when you felt totally confident. Return fully to that time now, seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard and feeling how good you felt then. (If you can't remember a specific time, just imagine how much better your life would be if you were totally confident and secure if you had all the power, strength and self-belief you could ever need.) 3 Now make the colours brighter and richer, the sounds louder, and allow your feelings of confidence to intensify. 4 Notice where that feeling of confidence is strongest in your body. Give this feeling a colour and move that colour up to the top of your head and down to the tip of your toes. Double the brightness. Double it again! 5 Repeat steps 2-4 at least five more times. Vividly imagine that event where you are confident again in detail. You can use the same experience or add new ones each time. THE POWER OF GOALS If you want to achieve anything worthwhile, you absolutely have to have goals but how you design your goals can make all the difference in the world. 1. Size really does matter Your goals have to be big enough to get you out of bed to make you feel motivated even before you push the switch. Just being "a little more efficient at work", or "losing 5lb" is rarely a big enough target to aim at. You need BIG goals goals that will ignite your passion and get you off your arse and into action. Then all the things that you do in your daily life become easier. As Donald Trump has said: "You have 50,000 thoughts a day might as well make them big ones." Write your goals down, describe them in vivid detail and imagine living them. Do this every day. 2 Who cares what you don't want? Far too many people continually focus upon what they DON'T want. "Don't want to be fat, if only I wasn't overweight, if only I wasn't such a loser" The unconscious mind doesn't process the negation. In order to "not" think about something, we first have to bring it into our consciousness. For example, try not to think about elephants right now. Go on no elephants. This is also why it's so important that as you work on creating your BIG goals, you focus exclusively on what you DO want. Rehearse achieving it in your mind. And for goodness sake, don't think about succeeding EVERY time you focus just imagine what would happen if you did. 3 Break your goals down until it's easy to take action When Dr Richard Bandler went to transform the US army pistolshooting programme, one of the first things he did was cut the distance to the target in half. As people's confidence and skill increased, the targets were gradually returned to the original distance. The result? A vastly increased success rate in less than half the original training time. When people first set their BIG goals, they can get a bit freaked out by them and think they will never be able to achieve them. But by breaking them down into small enough chunks, you will find you can achieve anything you set your mind to. How small should each chunk be? Small enough that you can take your very next action on it in the next 24 hours.

18-02-2008, 06:57 PM	#6 (permalink)
TotallyHypnotised Paul McKenna's biggest fan Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 38	Re: Article by Paul: Change your life in 2008 (Evening Standard) INCREASE YOUR WEALTH AND LIFE QUALITY HERE are three techniques to make you richer. 1. REPROGRAMME YOUR WEALTH THERMOSTAT Author Brandon Bays uses the following scenario as part of a study into the psychology of wealth: You have been shortlisted for a job. Just before the final interview you discover the salary is not what you thought. Instead of £30,000 a year, it turns out to be £300,000. How would you feel and what would you do? For most people, this brings up all sorts of emotional issues ranging from unworthiness to rage. A number in the study wouldn't even go in for the final interview. A job that pays 10 times what they are used to is simply too far outside their comfort zone. The simple conclusion from this is that most people have an unconscious "upper limit" on how much they would be comfortable earning. In this way, your unconscious works much like a thermostat. If the thermostat is set for 70, the chances are the temperature in the room is around 70. The only way to permanently change the temperature in the room is to reprogramme the thermostat. 1. Think about how much you have in the bank. Do you imagine piles of bank notes, stacks of coins, a bank statement or something else? 2 Next, think about how much you have coming in over the next year. What comes to mind cheques, notes, bank statements, envelopes or numbers on your home computer? 3 Now, imagine double, triple or even quadruple the amount coming in. You might see more notes piling up, bigger figures on the cheques or the numbers on the screen increasing more quickly. 4 Next, imagine this f low increases every year for 20 years. Imagine stacks of bank notes being added to your pile or the numbers on your statement dramatically increase. 5 When you are done, let your mind settle on an image that feels expansive and rich to you, making sure that you always finish with more wealth in your mind than you had when you began. CREATE A RICH VISION 1. Imagine that it's five years from today and your life is filled with the most wonderful things. Write a paragraph or two about what has happened in each of the following areas: Health; Career/finances; Relationships; Spiritual; Lifestyle. .2 Go back through each paragraph and highlight each key goal or milestone that emerged. .3 For each one ask: "What do I want this for? What will this give me?" Your answers should be short such as, "a feeling of joy", "a sense of achievement", "freedom" or "making a contribution". 4 Repeat this exercise often, playing with different time frames (one year, 10 years) and different categories ("business success", "leaving a legacy", "family"). Over time, you will notice a core set of goals and values appear. WHERE ARE YOU ALREADY RICH? The 19th-century economist Wilfrid Pareto discovered that approximately 80 per cent of the world's wealth was concentrated in the hands of only 20 per cent of the world's population. More remarkable to him was that this "80/20" rule seemed to hold true in nearly every area of our lives. Check how much this 80/20 ratio is present in your own life: 80 per cent of your job satisfaction comes from 20 per cent of your work; 80 per cent of the time you wear 20 per cent of your clothes; 80 per cent of your rich feelings come from 20 per cent of your experiences. Once you act on this principle, you will be able to pinpoint moneymaking and happiness opportunities with almost scientific precision. 1. Do an "80/20 audit" on the most important areas of your life. What are the 20 per cent of your work efforts that lead to 80 per cent of your profits? What are the 20 per cent of your work efforts that give you 80 per cent of your problems? What are the 20 per cent of activities that lead to 80 per cent of your happiness? 2 Based on what you have learned, what should you be doing less of ? What would be worth doing more of? 3 What one, two or three activities create results out of all proportion to the time and energy you put in? 4 If you only had one month to live, how would you spend your time? How many of those activities can you bring into your life this week? 5 Ask yourself Steve Jobs's question: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" The more you can answer yes, the richer your life will become

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