Stinkin' Thinkin'

I was thrilled this week that my walking last week seemed to pay off. I lost about 4 lbs. last week. But I woke up this morning with a cold and started to feel sorry for myself. My underlying internal voice was saying, "See? This is what always happens. You start cardio and get sick. Now you can't work out this week and you'll lose your momentum. This is what happens when you push yourself." This has been my mantra for the past 18 years with chronic fatigue. I would start a new work out plan and then get sick and lose my drive and it would take me about 2 months to re-start and the cycle would start again. But at least today I identified the thoughts right away and could logic myself out of it - "No, you weren't pushing yourself when you got sick. You were living with 3 people that were fighting viruses - this is what happens in winter. In fact, it's been MONTHS since you were sick. AND you lost 4 lbs this week which shows how much benefit the walking did." I totally understand if we don't pay attention to that darn internal voice, it can really affect our actions without even knowing it. So many of us think it doesn't really matter what our internal voice says but our brain controls our actions, so how could it not matter? We act on our beliefs so if we don't challenge those stinkin' thinkin' beliefs, how will we act any differently?