I hear so many coaches and mentors these days, insisting that accomplishing your goals is hard work. And, although it may be true that it has been hard in the past, it doesn’t have to be.

Esther and Jerry Hicks are my favorite teachers. When I follow the Abraham-Hicks method for accomplishing my goals, it is easy and fun. Inspiration is such a great way to prepare to take action!

It’s easy (and all too common) to go from feeling desperate and discouraged to thinking about what we should DO. But there is an important missing step when we take action out of desperation.

The way to make the action EASY is to prepare yourself to receive. By this I mean the following:
When you realize you have a situation you don’t want ( feeling lethargic from lack of exercise, for example), the first thing to do is to acknowledge this place you are in. Then, ask yourself how that feels. With that knowledge, you can go on to the important missing step (for most of us). Ask yourself what you want AND why you want it, as well as how you will feel when you get it. Then, allow yourself to feel that, as if it were already accomplished.

With this vital step in place, inspiration will come as to what actions to take.

I feel lazy and tired. (don’t want)
I am unhappy and discouraged with this familiar old place. (feeling)
What I want is to fit exercise into my day, to have it be just a part of who I am and what I do. I want to remember how good it feels to move and to feel excited about all kinds of ways to get my body moving every day. (do want)
I want that because I know that it keeps my head clear and allows me to feel happy and productive. (why )
I can already feel some of that delicious feeling now as I imagine myself clearing the cobwebs away and I feel happy thinking about other times when I have done this. I know I can do this and I am enjoying thinking about how I will increase my energy and stamina. (evolving feelings)
I think I will take a little walk right now. Its raining and it will be fun to feel the drizzle on my face and to watch the clouds changing. (inspiration)

Watch how the inspiration and action flow when you prepare yourself to allow in the changes you are asking for.

At age 23, Jacqueline was involved in a horrible auto accident and burned so badly that even after 40 surgeries, she is disfigured beyond recognition. Most of us would not find her very attractive.

Do you spend time looking at the flaws in your face and figure and thinking you would be happier if you could make certain improvements? Did you make New Year’s resolutions to diet, go to the gym or ride your bike? Are you checking out the new lines on your face with increasing discouragement as we enter a year when you will celebrate being one year older?

It doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to change how you look in order to be and feel beautiful. When Oprah showed the clip of her meeting with Jacqueline, every one of her guests agreed that Jacqueline is beautiful. You could see her beauty, beauty that shone through from her inner light. When she smiled, a smile with little resemblance to a mouth, we all smiled with her!

Of course, we don’t benefit from comparing ourselves to folks who are disfigured and I am not suggesting that you should be happy with yourself because you don’t look like Jacqueline! It is important to remember that the same inner light shines out from you, too. Your  beauty  shines from within. That beauty is enhanced when you learn to see it in yourself and to love yourself. Then you shine, you glow and you attract! (attract is the root word of “attractive”) As an added benefit, you attract more beauty, more vitality and more good.

Do you think you can get a better job, a better lover, better clothes, better opportunities or more of something if you are just a little prettier, thinner, younger, bustier and so on? Most of us want to look more beautiful because of what we think it will get us.

We’ve got it all backwards.

What if you could change your perspective and feel really great about how you look, right now? Lots of women respond to this with fear. “If I love myself as I am”, they say,” I am afraid I would never be motivated to change and I really want to change!”

Lets consider motivation for a moment. One way of looking at motivation is that our motivation to do things often comes from the desire to avoid an outcome or experience. Sometimes we are motivated to achieve recognition or rewards. In school and in our culture we are accustomed to this kind of motivation.

I know from experience that change can come from inspiration rather than motivation. This inspiration arises out of the experience of love, appreciation and joy. Have you ever known two people in a mutually loving relationship or been in one yourself? People who are in love feel so good about themselves because the other person sees their beauty. This helps to remind them of their beauty and they act from that place.They act from inspiration.

Another example of this is the glowing bride. A happy bride glows with beauty. She is the object of love and adoration. It isn’t just the dress, the hairdo and the makeup that make her glow. The special feelings about herself are amplified and they show up to everyone observing.

Do you notice how inspiration is so much more effortless?

It is self love that naturally moves you toward the fulfillment of your desires! Try this out yourself. To begin adoring yourself like a love struck admirer, find something positive to focus on about yourself and write it down in a little notebook. Keep adding to the positives. It’s OK to repeat the same ones over, too. When you look in the mirror, remind yourself about these great things. You can even say some of them aloud. It may seem corny but, I am doing it along with you. Give it a try. Its fun and easy and it works!

Diets don’t work because they are based on the idea that we are bad, morally bad, because of the food we eat. With this underlying belief, we then go about trying to ignore our bodies’ signals of hunger in order to follow someone else’s guidelines about what we should eat.

Aside from the fact that these guidelines are often contradictory, they are also always changing. Think about the innocent egg, a villain one year, then good, but in limited quantity, then “the perfect protein package”.

Meanwhile we have learned to completely cut off our connection with our own body’s signals to us. Food becomes a preoccupation and an enemy.

Another thing about diets is that there is a pull to eat, when we anticipate future deprivation. So, when we make moral judgments about our food being “bad”, then judge ourselves as “bad”, we make plans to be “good” and do “better” and start planning this restricted or deprived future.

As human beings we are designed in such a way that, when a famine is approaching, we begin to store up. If you have dieted repeatedly, you know what I am talking about. In my family, I was invited to help finish up the Girl Scout cookies the night before we all went on a diet! For years, I blamed my parents for this crazy behavior. Now, I know that it was an instinctual drive to prepare for famine. They had been on diets before and they knew what was coming!

I recently read some interesting descriptions of the physiological effects of dieting behavior. Have you ever restricted your eating successfully over a period of time, and then found yourself standing in front of the fridge, hunting for food? Or making a late night trip to the grocery store in search of something to satisfy? Here’s what I learned about that.

Think back to cave days. You have stored up your food for the winter and survived almost until spring. You are a bit weak, tired and still pretty cold and the last thing you want to do is go out hunting for more food. But, your supplies are almost gone. The brilliant design of your body is such that your hypothalamus kicks in with a very strong urge to hunt for food. This urge has to be powerful enough to get your weak and sleepy body out of the warm cave. If you don’t, you could starve.

OK, now translate that same experience of famine to modern day. Only this time, you have been creating famine by putting yourself on starvation diets, restricting calories, restricting fats- whatever is your diet du jour. The hypothalamus still kicks in- “MUST FIND FOOD”- and there you are munching out of the fridge or wandering the aisles of Safeway.

Maybe we aren’t so crazy after all! And definitely not “bad”. So, what can we do about this? The short answer is to stop creating famine and give your body and mind a chance to catch up with the idea that there is no need to prepare for starvation.

But the first step is to stop making moral judgments about yourself, based on what you eat and how you look. Start listening to your body more. Learn to feel what hunger and satiation feel like. Your body may be confused at first. Be patient with it. Make a commitment to love yourself. To find healthy, to find strong and to give yourself back the time and energy that diets have been stealing from you.

As a result, women make choices about what to wear, what to eat, what to love and what to hate about themselves all based on what they will look like. You don’t see many men squeezing themselves into tight undergarments to make themselves look smaller and smoother. And women reject and criticize the very parts of themselves that support them in being strong and capable in the world. The other day, I heard two young women discussing how they had stopped hiking or using the treadmill, uphill because it made their legs look too muscular! So, what’s the decision here? Good cardio? Forget about it. I’d rather have a weak heart and thin legs.

Our culture has always had strong views about what makes a woman beautiful. The prized look changes from time to time, but it is always narrow and limiting. Women come in all shapes and sizes. Most of us can never look like the models in the clothing ads. Some of those who can, only do so by compromising their health and their enjoyment of a normal life.

What if we women staged a rebellion? What if you just decided that you are MAGNIFICENT NOW? What if you started to love and appreciate your body for all the things it does for you? Do you have strong legs that hold you up and let you walk around this beautiful world? Do you have broad hips that helped you deliver a beautiful, healthy child? What about your organs on the inside that keep your blood pumping and nutrients flowing to every cell?

This summer, I invite you to put on your swimsuit or shorts and get out and enjoy the beach, the pool,or the lake by moving your body. Feel the amazing strength and coordination as you walk or swim. Put your hands on the parts you have criticized and tell them you are sorry that you thought of them as ornaments for others to judge. Say “Thank you, legs for getting me out to all these beautiful places!”, “I appreciate you, arms, for carrying my groceries!”

You are a magnificent women, right now! Please don’t let any magazine, advertisement or well meaning person tell you otherwise. Start using all that valuable energy to appreciate yourself and do big things in the world, to build your business or love your family or make something beautiful. Take a pledge this day, to stop telling yourself you aren’t good enough. Sing yourself a little song about how lovable and perfect you are.

Got a webcam or video? Send me a youtube video of you taking the pledge to stop telling yourself you are not good enough. We will create a revolution of magnificent women.

Please let me know, by emailing me, if this article was helpful to you!