Sample Content Preview

Chapter 1. Introduction

Everyone is looking for a ‘silver bullet’ these days. They’re looking for that ‘one simple trick’ that can change their lives and make everything better – that will make them feel more energetic, more attractive and more successful.

Because let’s ace it: life can be something of a slog for most of us. We wake up in the morning feeling tired and not wanting to haul ourselves out of bed. Then we drag ourselves to work through busy, stressful commutes and then we force our way through a long hard day.

When we get home, we usually feel too tired and depressed after our working week to do anything worthwhile, and so we just crash out in front of the couch.

Many people struggle with feelings of low self-esteem, of depression and of loneliness on top of this. We’re constantly connected but many of us feel that we struggle to make real, worthwhile connections.

Is there really one simple trick that can turn that all around? That can give you a new lease of life and help you feel like a million bucks?

Well, I’m here to tell you that there is. And it’s perfectly obvious when you think about it. The simplest way to turn your life around and to feel the best you’ve ever felt is to get rid of that belly fat. If you’re currently living with a mushroom top, ‘Dad bod’ or just a spare tire around your waist, then it is dragging you down more than you could possibly know.

How Belly Fat Makes Everything Worse

Of course we all know that belly fat can ruin your confidence. Having a gut is simply not attractive whether you’re a male or female and it’s something that is going to make you feel a whole lot worse about yourself as a result.

Having a gut doesn’t just get rid of any chance you might have stood of having a six pack, it also ensures that you look like a stuffed potato whatever clothes you wear.

It’s immensely hard to put on a great shirt or dress and to leave the house feeling like a million bucks when you have a massive gut hanging out.

More than that though, a gut signals generally poor health. This suggests that you are less active and what normally goes along with that is a general lack of tone and definition that can be seen everywhere from your arms to your face.

Women: do you remember when you used to feel light, petit and strong? Like a toned and honed Amazonian ready for business and enjoying all the stares coming your way?
Guys: do you remember what it felt to have a dominating presence in the room? To look slightly like an athlete in your clothes and to have the look of a predator? To be an alpha male and to look fantastic in nearly every outfit you wore?

Having a gut changes your posture too. It forces you into a more forward position that slumps your shoulders forward and closes off your chest. This is a submissive stance that sends a loud signal to others that you aren’t confident and that you don’t need to be taken seriously! Women meanwhile can expect to look frumpy and tired.
Having a gut transforms you from the bottom up and brings you screaming into middle age. It suggests that you’ve stopped trying and affects your very body language – which of course has a deep psychological impact.

Then there are the direct results of getting into better shape. Of course your sex life will improve and I’m not just talking about for single people. Obviously picking up women/men becomes much easier when you look healthy and sexy but you’ll also find your relationship improves.

How would you feel about your partner if they become more toned and sexy? Or if they gained lots of weight quickly conversely?

And then there’s the way that a belly can impact on your libido – or lack thereof. If you’re not having sex, then losing the gut might be the answer. And guess what?

Getting into lean shape can improve your salary too. Studies show that employers are more likely to employ or promote people who are in better physical shape! On average men and women who are more toned earn hire salaries!

And that’s before we have even touched on the direct psychological consequences of carrying a belly around. Because as soon as you grow that gut, you’re going to start producing significantly more stress hormones such as cortisol which will increase depression and rob you of energy.

Of course, that gut drastically increases your likelihood of developing a number of different conditions as well. This also creates something of a vicious circle – the increase in cortisol and in stress increases your likelihood of gaining more weight and encourages stress eating. Not only that, but it also makes you significantly less energetic and makes it harder for you to engage in healthy activities such as exercise. In other words, having a belly makes it much harder to get rid of a belly. And that’s before you take into account the fact that you’re now moving around with a large tub of lard attached to your gut. Let’s face it – you are not in your prime and athletic activities probably aren’t your strong suit right now. But imagine if they were...

And that’s what we’re going to start fixing in this book. I haven’t even touched on all the ways that belly fat can lead to depression, further weight gain, low self-esteem and even serious health conditions. If none of these other reasons is going to provide enough motivation then simply consider that a belly will increase your likelihood of cancer, diabetes, stroke, heart disease and more.

Sample Content Preview

The Power Of Mindfulness

Your Free Mindfulness Report

Despite appearances, most of us are not truly in control of our own minds. We think we are because we basically have the ability to decide what we want to think about and how we want to act, but this only happens when we consciously make the decision to do that. It only happens when we’re mindful of our thoughts and of our emotions.
The rest of the time however, we are simply free-wheeling and reacting. We don’t give much thought to how we’re thinking or what we’re focussed on and as such, our minds have a way of running away with us. For instance, you might be walking through a beautiful, scenic location with friends and really you should be in a very happy mood and enjoying yourself.

But instead, you’re actually just stressed and angry because you can’t top thinking about work. As a result, you don’t enjoy your experience and actually it’s pretty bad for your health. But you don’t think about the role your own mind has in this – instead you blame your job. You act like a passive victim with no ability to decide what they will focus on.

Likewise, we will sometimes come home and feel tired and completely devoid of motivation when really we should be focussed and engaged – so we can work out, work on side projects, tidy our homes or do any of the other things that we’re constantly telling ourselves (and other people!) that we’re going to do.

Sometimes we will have difficulty getting to sleep because we can’t stop thinking about the tasks that lie ahead.

We don’t approach people in bars or we fail exams because we lack confidence and feel nervous.

So the question in all these scenarios becomes: how do you go about getting back in charge of your thoughts? How can you decide to stop letting emotions run away with you?

The Power of Controlling Your Thoughts and Emotions

The first step to gaining control of your emotions then is to use mindfulness – to simply be more aware of your thoughts at any given time.

When you’re wondering through that beautiful scenery, you need to be able to open your eyes and make the conscious decision that you’re going to forget work and instead look at the flowers and the plants, that you’re going to laugh with your friends and that you’re going to be mindful of the feeling of the sun on your face and just how lucky you are to be alive on such a glorious day.

This alone is enough to completely transform your experience of being there. You’ll have more fun, you’ll be more refreshed and the people you are with are going to have a better time being with you. They’re going to want to be with you more often!

Now imagine if you could decide to engage full motivation whenever you wanted to.

Take a look at the most successful people in the world and you will find that they all have one thing in common: drive and determination. Will Smith says the secret to success is simply being willing to run longer than anyone else on the treadmill of life. Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson regularly updates his Instagram followers with photos of his phone alarm going off at 4am in the morning, ready for a workout. And Arnold Schwarzenegger said he always kept in mind his goal of being a successful bodybuilder.

These people never have a day where they get out of bed and they can’t be bothered. You can practically feel the motivation and the energy coming off of them and in fact it’s even magnetic.

Imagine what you could tap in if you were like that. You could be you but in better shape, with more money and with more exciting life experiences…

We can do that with mindfulness but first let’s look at how the brain actually works to regulate our emotions and thoughts in this way…

A Quick Guide to Basic Neuroscience

Sample Content Preview

Introduction: The Goals That Never Happen

How many incomplete goals do you currently have on your agenda? If you’re anything like the vast majority of us, then chances are that you have hundreds of projects that you started and never completed, countless goals that you told your friends but never saw through and all kinds of dreams that seem to be getting less and less likely to come to fruition.

And it’s for this reason, that you may find people roll their eyes when you tell them your ‘next big project’. When you start a new training program to lose weight and everyone – including you – knows that you’re likely to have lost interest by month two.

Or when you talk about the app you intend to make, the website, or the business project.

Or when you talk about that dream trip to Japan…

This is the way of things for many of us. We work incredibly hard at things we don’t feel passionately about just to put food on the table but when it comes to fulfilling our dreams, we are remarkably ineffective.

It’s time to change all that and to start making those goals happen. But how can you turn it all around?

How We’re Going to Fix Your Goal Setting and Help You to Start Living the Life of Your Dreams

Accomplishing goals is about strategy, it is about making a cognitive shift to change the way you’re thinking and it’s about being smart about how you approach each goal. It’s also about knowing how to choose your goals and even how to phrase them.

This book is going to show you how to make those changes then. You’ll learn how to choose and write goals effectively, how to write effective action plans and how to make sure you stick with your goals and never give up.

But this book is going to be a little different than most goal-setting tomes, too. After we’ve given you the broad tools you need to start setting and accomplishing your goals, we’re then going to take a look at how you can begin to put them into practice.

Because while a goal can be pretty much anything, for many of us they are going to fall into one of a few different categories. Most of us have goals for our relationships, goals for our fitness, goals for our careers and goals for travel. We’re going to provide not only the abstract strategies you need to start making effective goals then, but also the step-to-step processes that will let you apply these strategies in each of these areas. By the end of this book, you’ll be adept at setting and accomplishing any goal. And at the same time, you’ll have powerful strategies for improving your relationships, your fitness, your career and more.

Ready to change your life?

Chapter 1: The Most Powerful Skill You Can Learn: Goal Setting

Learning how toset goals properly is arguably the most powerful skill that you can possibly learn. Why? Because it will allow you to then accomplish a huge range of other goals. When you know how to set goals, it allows you to effectively work toward anything. This is the key to unlocking pretty much everything you could want from life.

So ironically, the first goal you should focus on is the goal of setting goals!

And until now, you’ve probably been doing it all wrong…

The Problem With Your Current Goals

How can a goal be wrong?

Sure, any objective is a worthwhile one, but the way that you phrase your goals and structure them, is going to massively change your likelihood of finding success.

Let’s take weight loss as an example because it’s one of the more straightforward goals that is easiest to implement.