After perusing the shelves of the major bookstore chains, Mary Barley realized that there were hundreds of books that could tell you what kinds of exercises to do and how to do them. What she couldn’t find was a motivational book that told you how to get started with a program and stick with your commitment once you did! So she analyzed what she had observed over her 18 years in the fitness industry, that people did who were successful in staying with their programs. She saw 7 steps that people had to go through to make changes in their health and fitness. As she was writing, she could see that these same 7 steps could be applied to making improvements in any area of ones life.
Mary weaves her personal experiences and client observations with emotional and spiritual lessons from well-known teachers including Chopra, Dyer, Walsh, Myss, and Ruiz, among others. Her goal is to connect the mind and spirit with the body, to help you to make positive changes in your life and create optimal health...that state of well being that is not just physical, but emotional and spiritual as well.
Mary Barley’s twenty-year career in the fitness industry has included the ownership in a family fitness center and partnership in a group of professionals who offered specialized health programs to businesses and governmental agencies. She has held bodybuilding titles, including Ms. Southern USA, Ms. Tallahassee, and Ms. Daytona Classic. She was a dancer for 5 years on the nationally televised show Body Electric and a former co-host of the Florida statewide talk show, Let’s Do Lunch. She is the author and producer of an audiotape Getting Fit from the InsideOut.
Mary is presently working as a fitness consultant, public speaker and educator. During the last few years, she has seen the need to integrate the mind and the spirit, along with the body in trying to achieve optimal health. She is tapping into the fitness market to introduce more people to the latest research on how emotional fitness and spirituality impact health.
The Fifth Step: Self-Discipline
Yuck! Just the word conjures up negative images...being forced to do one thing when you would rather be doing another. But you know what? Every time I have exercised self-discipline, and been successful at accomplishing something, or reaching a goal, it has been worth anything I sacrificed to make it happen. In fact, I’m convinced you can’t build self-esteem without it.
Carloine Myss, Ph.D. a pioneer in human consciousness and energy anatomy, says that one of the reasons people struggle so much with issues of self esteem and self worth is that they don’t honor their commitments to themselves. How many times have we said we were going to begin to improve an area of our lives...such as exercising more, eating better, or drinking less, ...only to find ourselves right back to the same behavior in just a few days, weeks, or months? She says if we can’t trust ourselves to do what we say we are going to do, how can we believe that anyone else will trust us? It is critical that we develop and live with a personal honor code that includes a sense of integrity and a sense of dignity, so that you know if you give your word to someone...especially yourself--that you will keep it. Self-discipline, created by making more choices that empower us, instead of choices, which drain power from us, will help develop that honor code.
Everyone is going to "get off track" from time to time, but when you do it, you use self-discipline to get back on track. I read once that when our scientists send a rocket to the moon, it is off track about 95% of the time. But it reaches it’s destination, by constantly being adjusted, and pulled back on it’s course. We have to do the same thing.
Another way we sabotage our goals is by playing the "shame game". When we "mess up", instead of just accepting that if we fall, we get back up and try again, we often start berating ourselves, convincing ourselves that we are failures, and can never do anything right. And there is the negative self-talk again...how foolish were we to think we were actually making progress? If we can refuse to give in to this negativity, and use self-discipline to get us going again, and again, and again, our falls will become stumbles...and we will rise back up, stronger than ever!
One of the best definitions I have heard of discipline or self-discipline is "the ability to mobilize yourself and your talents to achieve what you want to achieve, no matter how long it takes or how difficult it is to accomplish." Self-discipline will enable you to develop the determination, drive, and inner strength to achieve whatever you desire. Certainly, in achieving a healthy, fit mind and body, self-discipline is essential.
About 15 years ago, I purchased a series of tapes from Sybervision called Neuropsychology of Self-Discipline. Neuropsychology is the science that combines the disciplines of neurology and psychology to gain a deeper understanding of how the brain and mind combine to create human behavior. The tapes show how the desire that burns deep within self-disciplined high achievers can be captured through an understanding of how the brain works and how its powers can be harnessed.
The most important things I learned from these tapes, which I have applied and seen applied in improving health and fitness, are the seven keys to self-discipline. Let me introduce you to them:
Defined Purpose. Sybervision determined that purpose is the cornerstone of self-discipline. To me, desire and purpose are interchangeable. With purpose or deep burning desire, you have a specific direction in which to focus your energy.
