Happy Happy Fun Time

Old Thought Process: Exercise is painful, uncomfortable and boring. Most people drag their rears through it with griping and frustration.

My 27 year old niece has lived with us for a few years now. When she started working out she would call her exercise time "Happy Happy Fun Time".

The other day I was walking on the treadmill and my head started to make a left turn to "OMG I Hate This Time". I instantly recognized the negative monster creeping up on me and decided to thwart its efforts. I started to think about "Happy Happy Fun Time".

My father was a very social man. Whenever we would run into someone he knew, they, of course, would ask how he was doing. Without fail my Dad always answered with grandiose responses, "I am fantastic!" or "I am awesome!" It always put a smile on the other person's face and they had an inquisitive look of wonder on what he was doing to be so super!

As I got older, I finally asked him why every single time someone asks him how he is doing he says "awesome" "fantastic" "super duper" - I challenged, he can't always feel like way. He told me that it was his self-fulfilling prophecy. He had started doing it about 15 years before. At the time he started it was rare if he really felt fantastic or awesome, but after a few years - even he started to believe it. Now he was convinced that is how he felt every time someone asked him how he was.

He had re-trained his brain to believe something so simple, but has a huge impact in the long run. It made so much sense to me that I would carry on his legacy starting in 1995 by responding the same way he did when someone asks me how I am doing. I'm not sure when it happened, but I definitely believe it today.

New Thought Process: Anything that has a habit of being negative in your head can be re-examined, re-defined, and even renamed to produce a different outcome, feeling and effect than previously had before.

Thanks awesome niece and my Dad! =)