Everest

Interesting things happened today. Interesting for me anyway. Along with changing jobs (thanks for the encouragement Stef) I started or re-started a journey towards well being. In my opinion you might as well start a bunch of things all at the same time, that way at least one will succeed - actually all my projects succeed, just some of them don't turn out the way I had envisaged.

A spot of digression - a few months ago I went to a dinner where Mark Inglis was the keynote speaker and he was really good. The best thing I took away from his presentation was when he talked about his achieving his goal of being the first amputee to climb Mt Everest, least that's what we thought his goal was. Here's the learning moment - in reality the peak of Everest was a milestone not the goal at all. The goal was to return home or base camp (above, photo by Mathias Scharin) one piece. Mark lost a bit of his fingers so he wasn't entirely in one piece but close enough. We hear all the time that it's the journey not the destination and that is true but more importantly it's the milestones on the journey. I've found often the goal I had in mind isn't where I end up or even want to end up and I've achieved a far richer experience than I could have imagined. Bonuses everywhere, all the time.

Back to today. This morning I went to my hypnotist, Annette. I say "my" in that this is my third visit to Annette. I went because I have a horrible secret - I am a sugar addict. Last year I gave up coke (as in cola) using hypnotism - it worked, haven't touched the stuff. Then I went to be more motivated to go to the gym - worked, I completed a 12 week programme, 6 days a week lost 8 kgs, added 8 kgs of muscle and leg press 95kgs and really enjoy going to the gym and working out - as we all know the hardest part is actually getting through the door. Not because you are fat that is.

Let me explain hypnotism as I understand it. Imagine your brain or inner self as a filing cabinet. Basically you prioritise the files, problem is we don't always choose the best files to prioritise. When you get hypnotised it's just reordering the files. So now you know.

It doesn't work immediately. You gotta work at it for about a week then what ever the file you replace the not-so-good file with will kick in. You can only get hypnotised if you want to. But boy do you relax. I'm really looking forward to be a non sugared person but that's a milestone not the goal, the goal is positive well being (just to be all new age about it). It's going well so far all 12 hours of it. Might not have been the best thing to start just as you make a huge change in your life but I won't be stress munching!