Train your mindset

Since my Reebok Express Your Strong video has been released I have had an overwhelming response from friends, family and strangers, the question that has come up over and over again has been – “how did you stay so positive?” 

The way I remember thinking about my situation at the time was based on a couple of different scenarios.  One was that I believed in the power of the brain and positivity, that if I kept my self in a state of positive and focussed my mental thoughts on good and not bad, that it would help free my body of negative free radicals and hopefully help my cells heal and not continue to mass divide into cancerous cells.  Whether this belief had or has any scientific backing I don’t know, but hey it’s my answer to the question. 

The second scenario was that I believed that if I was being forced to live through this experience then I was better off to be optimistically naïve rather than pessimistically unsure.  What I mean by that is and I remember distinctly thinking, if I am going to die and I may only have a short time left on this planet, then I’d rather have that time being happy and positive then sad and miserable.

We have 2 choices when facing difficult times in our lives, and that is to remain positive and accept the challenge or have a pity party and dwell in negativity.  I don’t know about you, but the latter does not sound fun at all and as hard as it is to see the good in things, you have to force yourself to try. 

Yes, I was a lucky one, I did survive a 20% survival rate, and I will never know if it was my positivity and all the life changes that I made, i.e. fitness and nutrition that led to my “luck”, but at least I know that I did everything I could in my power to help achieve my outcome. 

If you ask me and many people have, a positive mind set is the first step in anything that we do.  The second step is having a plan of action, tackle your problem or situation with preparedness and readiness, so that regardless of the outcome, you know that you did everything you could and gave it your all.  Losses and defeat are far easier to accept in life when you know that you gave everything you had.  In my opinion there is no greater regret in life than having regret.