Today’s blog is based again on something I read in the NLP book I mentioned before in a previous blog. I often say “I really need to try and do this…, or I really need to do that…”. For example ‘I really need to try and lose some weight’, or ‘I really need to try and write every day’, or ‘I try and eat healthy’…there are many many more examples I could give. It’s like the scene in Star Wars when the Joda asks Luke Skywalker to beam the spaceship out of the swamp by just using the power of the force and Luke says: “I try” and Yoda answers: “Do or do not there is no try”. It’s so true. Either you do it or you don’t there is no trying. 

What also plays an important part is when we tell ourselves that we have to do certain things. Like ‘I have o lose weight’, or ‘I have to write everyday’, or ‘I have to excercise every day’. We know that from our childhood when we have to clean pour rooms or have to finish our plate before we were aloud to get up from the table. Anything with the words ‘have to’ rear up negative emotions in us. Th eowrst of all is probably ‘I have o go to work’!

If we were to replace ‘have to’ with ‘I will’ the sentence all for sudden changes in motivation. ‘I will lose weight’ or ‘I will write every day’ sound a to more motivating and like a good plan that we will put into action. Of course ‘I will go to work’ is more of a statement of fact rather than a plan of action 😉 But you are getting my drift don’t you?

Another thing I read which I found very interesting is that Churchill apparently said: “Never ever give up. Always return to plan A”. What this means is that let’s say you are sticking to a new eating regime and you fall off the wagon on a certain day, it doesn’t really matter and you don’t have to beat yourself up about it but return to plan A as soon as you noticed that you deviated from it. Life often throws us curve balls and deviations. That’s not a problem, we can deal with them, swerve, and then return to pan A. That’s what Churchills words mean to me, but maybe I have misunderstood them, or they can be interpreted in a different way.