Diets are always in style. Every time you turn around, someone is coming out with a new and improved diet. The latest craves are the Atkins Diet, the South Beach Diet, and Dr. Phil even has a diet he's promoting. Everyone is on a diet.

That's how I came up with the idea of a "mental" diet.

I thought it would be interesting if we put our mentality on a diet.

What I mean by this is let's, for the next month or two, go on a mental diet. Let's watch what we are feeding into our subconscious mind. What I mean by this is let's pay close attention to the stuff that we feed into our conscious mind and make sure that we are only feeding POSITIVE thoughts into our mind.

Let's pretend that negative thoughts are the new carbs. And every time you feed negative thoughts into your mind, it's like eating an entire cheesecake-with strawberries on the top.

Take time to stop and pay attention to the thoughts that penetrate your subconscious mind for the next month or two; you might be surprise by the amount of negative images that are fed into your conscious mind every day and even every second of the day.

Just to prove this thought, let's do an experiment. Today or tomorrow, when you are at work, go somewhere that a lot of employees congregate. It could be the coffee maker, the water cooler, the smoking section or the cafeteria-and eavesdrop on the conversations.

If you do this, you will realize that most people are negative. I'm sure they are not even aware of the negative thoughts or the negative energy they are putting out all day every day. If you just listen to the conversations you will most likely hear nothing but complaining. They will be complaining about their work load; about their supervisor; about their spouse; about their children; about their day-complain, complain, complain, on just about anything and everything.

On a mental diet, it is your job to stop all the negative thoughts and images that come into your mind. If you find yourself engaging in negative conversation, remember, you are on a mental diet. You cannot feed negative thoughts into your mind for the next couple of months.

Watching the news and certain television shows is out of the question--too much negativity. Now, I know that some of you are news junkies and that you may have news withdrawal. But don't worry. If there is anything that happens that is really news worthy, you will know. Someone will feel compelled to tell you-trust me.

In order to change your life, you must change the way you think. There's no other way around it.

To become more aware of HOW you think, you have to become aware of your thoughts and your habits. Everything that you do is out of habit-the way you walk, talk, work, dress, and behave is out of your conditioning.

Your conditioning comes from years of doing things a certain way. The way you do things is due to the fact that you have programmed your subconscious mind to work in a certain way. If you want to change your life, you have to change your programming. In order to change your programming, you must first become aware of the negative thoughts that are penetrating your subconscious mind.

People who are successful are those who have learned to eliminate their negative thoughts-they are on mental diets. They only allow positive thoughts to penetrate their subconscious mind. All negative thoughts are rejected.

Discovering your life's purpose is the easy part. LIVING your life's purpose is the hardest part because of your previous subconscious programming. In order to make changes you must go on a mental diet and change your negative thoughts such as "Who would ever pay me to do that?" "I can't do anything other than what I have been doing, even if I hate the job that I presently have." "I have no talents and no abilities."

These are the negative thoughts that we MUST eliminate in order to move forward with our lives.

ACTION POINT: DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT allow any negative thoughts to enter your mind for the next few weeks. If you find yourself having a negative thought, participating in a negative conversation, or viewing negative images-STOP. Replace the negative thought with a positive thought. If you are engaging in a negative conversation-STOP, and walk away, or better yet, tell the person you are conversing with that you are on a mental diet and refuse to participate in any negative chitchat.

If you seriously go on a mental diet, you will start seeing the results in your life. Positive attracts positive. Negative attracts negative. Like attracts like. It's the law of attraction. It works all the time. Change your thoughts and you can change your life.

Dawn Fields is a motivational speaker, author and spiritual life coach who teaches about discovering and living your life's purpose. Visit the web site at http://www.dawnfields.com and be sure to tune into her radio show, Your Life's Purpose Interactive Internet Radio Show each Thursday at 9 p.m. EST at http://www.dawnfields.com/radioshow.htm. Be sure to sign up for Your Life's Purpose weekly newsletter by sending a blank email to dawn@dawnfields.com

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