Coach Cason explains the importance of Mindset, the 1st of 4 pillars of Functional Health Coaching.

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What if your Mindset was so rock solid that you could overcome any health, financial, relationship or overall life challenge with very little difficulty?

Why is mindset critical in my functional coaching program? To overcome any obstacle in life we must have a proper mindset.

Let’s break it down. 

The definition of Mindset is an established set of attitudes held by a person. In other words, mindset is attitude.

To break mindset down further we get crystal clear on 3 critically important pieces of our attitude: 

1. Self Awareness 

2. Emotional Intelligence

3. Spiritual Connection

1) Self Awareness

What does it mean to be aware of ourselves? This is a big question. But to pin this ever so elusive task down let’s look at its definition. Self awareness means to be aware of one’s own personality or individuality. This involves being aware of different aspects of ourselves such as our traits, behaviors and feelings.

When it comes to our mindset, and if we consider our mindset is our attitude, then we have to be self aware enough to know what our attitude is on a moment to moment basis. Everybody knows that if we have a poor attitude, the chances of our success in any avenue of life is going to be slim. 

So before we take on any health challenge we must be aware of our moment to moment day to day mindset. This is very logical, if we are going to change our attitude we have to know the attitude that we don't want. To do this we must be aware of our thoughts, feelings and behavior. We must be aware of ourselves.

When we work together, this is one of the first orders of business. I will make sure you have a clear understanding of what the problem is that you want to fix. You would be surprised at how many people avoid the problem at hand, just to sweep it under the rug. We must face this, sometimes tough pill to swallow and look it right in the eye.

After we have this addressed then we can move on to fixing the problem. Again this takes self awareness because we have to know where we want to steer our proverbial ship. Our attitude is the rudder that sets our ship's direction and our self awareness is the map to get us there.

2) Emotional Intelligence

Now that we are practicing awareness of self, we have to sharpen our blade and become more aware of our emotional state. This is what is called emotional intelligence. Knowing how we are feeling and then being able to regulate the state that we are in is a super power. The more emotionally intelligent you are, the better outcome you will get in our work together and therefore in your life. 

To clarify, this does not mean just merely positive thinking. I love thinking positive, but the truth of it is we are human and we are going to face struggles. That is probably why you are wanting a coach in the first place. So we must also be emotionally intelligent when we have a lower, negative emotion, so that we know how to regulate our self back to balance and peace.

Emotional intelligence does not just stop with us. By learning to regulate and master our own emotions we now have a much better ability to recognize and feel compassion towards another person's emotional state. This again, is a super power because we can navigate our relationships with much more clarity and grace by practicing self awareness and emotional intelligence.

3) Spiritual Connection

As we combine the practice of self awareness and emotional intelligence we naturally begin to feel a connection to spirit. We begin to see things from a greater perspective and realize there is more to this world than just us. A spiritual connection gives us a peaceful, calm and trusting mindset. And this mindset is crucial for creating a healthy and abundant life.

When we connect to spirit we begin to surrender to a higher power. By doing this we are letting go of trying to control, predict and manipulate the outcomes in our life. Don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with goals and having plans but in today’s world we are over stimulated with instant gratification. 

As we connect to this higher intelligence that is the creation of all of life within our body and all around us we begin to trust in something more than just ourselves. This trust allows our body to feel safe. When our body feels safe our brain is less scattered or sporadic. The brain no longer has to work as hard to try and figure out what we are going to do next. The neurons in our brain start to organize and synchronize and our heart rate slows down. We begin to breathe at a slower and deeper rate allowing our lungs to fully oxygenate. The organs, tissues and cells of our body now have a chance to work optimally because we are not rushing around. 

This is the essence of our parasympathetic nervous system working like it should and this creates a beautiful mindset for us to co-create with spirit anything we want in our life. 

Spiritual connection positively affects our mindset because when we connect to a higher power we trust in everything working in our favor and happening in perfect timing. This allows us to relax and let go of having to know all the answers. We have faith that it all is good and whatever the circumstance may be in our life that we are safe.

Bringing It All Together

To recap, mindset is our attitude. It is absolutely critical in anything we do in life, especially if we are facing a health struggle or life challenge.

In my functional coaching sessions we improve our mindset by breaking down and learning 3 skills. Self awareness, emotional intelligence and spiritual connection. 

To be self aware means that we are more conscious of our moment to moment thoughts, feelings and actions. We have to do this to heal ourselves and change our lives. 

Emotional intelligence is the ability to be self aware enough to catch our emotional state and then be the regulator of it. Not only this but the emotional state of others so that we can have compassion and understanding for the people in our lives. 

Finally, our spiritual connection will create an essence of safety within our mind, body and soul. This allows us to let go of control and have faith that everything in our life and body is happening for us, not to us. Our mindset gets an automatic upgrade from this because our neurons in our brain become more synchronized and orderly. 

With all three of these aspects of attitude, you will have a better understanding and more control over your traits, behaviors, feelings, attitudes, and spirit. This will allow you to change and heal all aspects of your mind, body and soul.