In a previous article we used Mind Chi to create a Plan for ‘Achieving your Perfect Size’ (go to that article).  In this article, Vanda North provides a complete 28 day exectution to ensure you reach your goal. We’ve adapted the following from the book ‘Mind Chi – rewire your brain in 8 minutes a day’

You need to be sure that your BEAT (Body, Emotions, Actions and Thoughts) shows the Current Reality (what you have and don’t want) and Goal (what you don’t have and want to experience). If doesn’t, then amend it. It is important that the words work well for you.

Having prepared your plan, and made several copies which you have placed where you will see them numerous times every day, you are ready to begin the Mind Chi Applied routine and put your Mind Chi into Action.

Figure 1: Mind Chi Basic 8 Step Routine Map

This is how it goes:

Day 1

• Make sure that the Mind Chi Meme (the phrase that your ‘Chi’ will now say to support and encourage you) really suits you. ‘I choose to achieve my perfect size’ or ‘I choose my size’.
• Prepare your Mind Chi Applied (see map and previous article) for this strategy, ‘Achieving your Perfect Size’ by taking a minute for each of the eight steps below:

Step 1: BREATH – deep breathing

Step 2: ATTEND – repeat your Mind Chi Meme: ‘I choose to achieve my perfect size’

Step 3: ADJUST – As you rewind your past 24 hours, particularly look for times when you did not follow the guidelines you have given yourself. A colleague brought in donuts and you ate three. Just observe and consider what will you do next time? Just have one. Count this on your non-dominant hand and brush off any bad feelings as your minute ends.

Step 4: ASSOCIATE – As you review the past 24 hours, particularly look for times when you made a positive step towards achieving your perfect size. In the scenario above, you took three doughnuts, then realised what you had done and offered them to your desk mates. Bravo! Now you can count that activity on your dominant hand and associate that behaviour with your increasing success of attaining your perfect weight.

Step 5: BE AWARE – Check your BEAT, both in general and with specific thought to moments when you were involved with food (or heavy or empty calorific drinks).

Step 6: CHOOSE – Choose your BEAT for now, keep your Mind Chi Meme in mind.

Step 7: PLAN – What opportunities does the next 24 hours hold for you to work towards your perfect weight? Look at both where you can restrict, as well as work off what you put in! Experience yourself at a multi-sensory level, ‘as though’ you are looking super in that new outfit.

Step 8: BE GRATEFUL – Your joy filled last step is to be filled with gratitude for all that you have done, and will do, to become your perfect size.

• You might want to give yourself a score (on a scale of 0–10) for how you felt that you did and mark that on your Mind Chi tracker calendar.

Day 2

1. Having worked out the way you will shape your Mind Chi Applied to ‘Achieving your Perfect Size’, you need to decide when and where you will do it each day, and then DO it!
2. What is your realistic goal and size? You may want to start to map your overall actions and steps on Day 2. Over the next 27 days how are you going to help yourself to become that perfect size?
3. Tell your closest associates your goal so they can become your coaching team to success, the they won’t inadvertently derail you with ‘Oh I bought YOUR favourite donuts in today!’
4. Make sure that you are taking some action steps towards your desired goal every day. Remind yourself of the negative of the Current Reality, and keep yourself inspired with the multi-sensory rapture of the attained goal.

Day 3

1. Perform your Mind Chi Applied and give yourself a rating on your tracker.
2. Put away your dinner plate and choose to eat from a smaller one.  Prepare a bag of celery or carrot sticks to take into work. Park further away from any door you need to go through and walk.
3. Notice any areas that were a problem yesterday and consider what ‘coping strategies’ you can put in place.
4. Do some extra activity, even if it is at a low level. Start some good new habits.

Figure 2: A Mind Map of the actions you will take towards achieving your perfect size (find out more about Mind Mapping training here)

Day 4

1. Perform your Mind Chi Applied and give yourself a rating on your tracker, how are you doing?
2. What physical activities can you do? Sign up for a salsa class, or join a walking group; something that you will enjoy so it is not a chore.
3. Realise that if you don’t buy it, you can’t eat it! Make sure there is NO ice cream in the freezer; NO bags of crisps sitting about; NO cakes and biscuits or chocolates as easy nibble food.

Day 5

1. Keep repeating the appropriate steps. As long as your goal remains the same, then you decide on an Action, Do it, Observe what happened, Consider if it took you closer to your goal (or not), Tweak as necessary and select the next Action that you need to Do; this is where the ADOCTA is so helpful.
2. Refer to your research, remind yourself of what else you could do to make it as easy for yourself as possible; a quick glance over the map keeps all aspects in your mind.
3. Keep performing your Mind Chi Applied routine and note your result for this day on the tracker.

Day 6

1. Catch and tweak a ‘food trigger’ today. What activity automatically makes you want to eat (when you don’t really need to)?  Plan a buffer – a way to distract yourself, or delay your response for 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, and build up until the trigger has lost its power.
2. Perform your Mind Chi Applied and repeat your Mind Chi Meme as many times as you can throughout the day.

Day 7

1. One week has passed! Allow yourself a look at your weight on the scales. Note it on your tracker after you have completed your routine. Just observe. (Remember: muscle is heavier than fat.)
2. Allow yourself a non-food treat (if you have been good for the week).
3. Visit the shop with your desired outfit and admire it. Speak to the attendant about your goal, feel the material, catch the new aroma and imagine yourself in it.

Day 8

1. Tune in with extra care to the messages from your body. Are the ‘hunger’ signals real? Is there another hunger that might be under the physical one? Sit quietly and consider (or map) what that might be.
2. Complete your Mind Chi Applied routine and note progress on a scale of 0–10 on the tracker. There is seldom a straight road to success, the important thing is to just keep going. Whatever the obstacles, find a way round them. If you forget for a couple of days, just continue the next day; if you have a weak moment and eat some ‘rubbish’, go for a brisk walk that evening; if you are under stress and just sit in front of the TV all evening – be extra energetic the next evening.

Day 9

1. Thank your ‘Chi’ for all the assistance you have received so far and consider what you might do to help further. Have a ‘conversation’ with your ‘Chi’, maybe as a letter – ‘Dear ‘Chi’, how can I assist you to help me with this strategy of achieving my perfect size?’ Then start to write a reply from ‘Chi’ (we know you are making it all up and you might be happily surprised with what you create)!
2. What is the next stage of refinement in what you put IN and how you burn it up? Now your ‘perfect size’ volition is working, you can step up one notch.
3. Complete your Mind Chi Applied routine and record your progress on your tracker.

Days 10–24 (or whenever you experience the following)

1. Let’s say that when you come to the Consider step of ADOCTA, you realise that you are 95 per cent of the way towards achieving your goal. Whoopee! But beware!! Sometimes that last push to complete the final 5% can be where you can quit – ‘Oh I am nearly there, that’s good enough!’ What actions do you need to take to complete it? Give yourself the satisfaction of the wonder of completion.
2. Take those closing steps.
3. Keep performing your Mind Chi Applied routine.

Days 25–6 (or whenever the goal post is right there!)

1. What finalising steps might you need to take? Plan them into your day.
2. Perform your Mind Chi Applied with extra emphasis on Step 8 – being grateful for all you have achieved.

Days 27 and 28

1. This will be a habit that you will want to review to make permanent.
2. You are changing your whole lifestyle and many traps wait to pull you back. You may wish to do another 28 days or certainly to hit the ‘spaced repetition’ reminders.
3. If you have achieved your goal of your perfect size, then have a celebration, take a good friend and go to purchase your new outfit.
4. ‘Achieving your Perfect Size’ is one of the more difficult of the strategies. You may have been on a diet ‘rollercoaster’ for years. The difference with Mind Chi is that it provides you with brain-friendly tools to succeed. You logically understand that what you put in must be burned off, and you have the mental constructs (with the aid of your ‘Chi’) to shift your thinking and way of being. Be gentle with yourself, but as long as the goal remains the same, keep working and you WILL achieve.
5. When (notice the use of ‘when’ not ‘if’) you have achieved this strategy, you will know that you have the volition to succeed and that you can achieve any goal you wish. This is one of the best feelings you can experience.

You now have the opportunity to become a Mind Chi Mentor. Contact us to find out more.

You can also learn how to Mind Map® with us through online, classroom and face to face workshops. Find out more about us and our Mind Mapping opportunities at http://www.illumine.co.uk/assimilate/mind-mapping-training.html.

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Thanks to Vanda North and Richard Israel for the reproduction and use of this article.
Mind Map® and Mind Maps® are registered trademarks of the Buzan Organisation.

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Tags: forming habits, mind mapping

This entry was posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 11:47 am and is filed under 5. Engagement & Personal Balance, Engagement and Motivation, Stress Management, Well-being. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.