Tips from the Harvard Medical School

Want to improve your health? Start by focusing on things that bring you happiness. There is scientific evidence that positive emotions can help you live longer and healthier.

But to produce good health, positive emotions need to be long term. In other words, thinking positive thoughts for a month when you already have heart disease won't cure the disease. But lowering your stress levels over a period of years with a positive outlook and relaxation techniques could reduce your risk of heart problems.

Pathways to Happiness

In their research on the health-happiness connection, University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman and Christopher Peterson of the University of Michigan tested hundreds of volunteers, and they found three pathways which contribute to life satisfaction:

1. Feeling Good
Seeking pleasurable emotions and sensations, which focus on reaching happiness by maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain.

2. Doing Good
Searching for meaning outside yourself by knowing your talents and sharing them with others.

3. Engaging Fully
Pursuing activities that engage you fully. People report the greatest satisfaction when they are totally immersed in what they are doing. Researchers call this state of intense absorption "flow."

How Do You Know if You're in "Flow?"

You Lose Awareness of Time
You aren't watching the clock, and hours can pass like minutes. As filmmaker George Lucas said, talent is "a combination of something you love a great deal and something you can lose yourself in--something you can start at 9:00 in the morning, then look up from your work and it's 10:00 at night."

You Aren't Thinking About Yourself
You aren't focused on your comfort, and you aren't wondering how you look or how your actions will be perceived by others. Your awareness of yourself is only in relation to the activity itself, such as your fingers on a piano keyboard, or the way you position a knife to cut vegetables, or the balance of your body parts as you ski or surf.

You Aren't Interrupted by Extraneous Thoughts
You aren't thinking about such mundane matters as your shopping list or what to wear tomorrow.

You are Active
Activities which produce a feeling of "flow" require an active involvement, and you have some control over what you are doing.

You Work Effortlessly
"Flow" activities require effort, but you feel everything is "clicking" and feels almost effortless.

Can you complete a marathon just by imagining it? Is it possible to lose weight by thinking about it? If you dream of recovering from a sports injury, can it really come true?

Goals like these may seem beyond your reach. But you have the power to make them happen! A technique called creative visualization uses your imagination to help make dreams a reality.

Thoughts shape our life by influencing the choices we make. In creative visualization, you imagine your goal as if you already accomplished it. Once you imagine what it feels like to achieve your goal, it sets in motion the actions needed to create that reality.

Creative visualization was made popular by author Shakti Gawain. In her book (pictured above), she describes several mental strategies to help you achieve your goals.

How to Use Creative Visualization

To do a simple exercise in creative visualization, sit quietly and comfortably with your eyes closed. Start by stating your goal to yourself a few times so that it's clear in your thoughts. Then, imagine that you've already achieved that goal, and visualize every detail about it. What does it feel like? Where are you? What are people saying to you? What do you look like in a mirror?

Visualization in Sports

Successful athletes harness the power of visualization. Winners have an edge over their competition because they are mentally prepared to win.

Basketball legend Jerry West, whose silhouette is used in the NBA logo, had such a penchant for hitting buzzer-beaters, he was nicknamed 'Mr. Clutch.' When asked about his ability hit the big shot, West revealed that he had already made those shots time after time in his mind.

To prepare for a game or competition, athletes mentally rehearse what it takes to produce a desired outcome. Amazingly, research has revealed that visualization can enhance performance to nearly the same extent as physical practice.

When we achieve our goals, the sense of accomplishment is one of the most fulfilling experiences we can have. But success isn't possible without first having a winning attitude. Whatever your fitness goal--losing fat, improving sports performance, or just getting healthy--you need to think like a winner.

As a personal trainer, I help motivate my clients to achieve their goals by identifying the steps to getting results. Clients who navigate that path effectively have a winning attitude. I'd like to share some common traits from people who have found success.

What Makes a Winner?

Winners make it look easy. They've discovered how to take the most direct route from a dream to victory. Winners aren't easily distracted. It's as if they barely see obstacles in their path. For example, successful people who have an injury are able to switch gears to another activity to keep on track.

A few years ago, I saw a winner in action while at a friend's birthday party. One of the guests excused himself to the kitchen to heat up a plate of grilled chicken and broccoli. He said he didn't want the junk food at the party to sabotage his fat-loss goal, so he brought his own healthy food.

Winners feel they deserve to win. They don't listen to negative thoughts. Instead, they focus on their strengths and exploit them. For instance, when I've won sports competitions, I believed I was the best, and knew I'd win even before the event began.

Winning Strategies to Achieve Your Goal

To achieve your fitness goal, adopt these strategies that winners use:

• Think about the possibilities in the future, not the regrets of the past
• Believe you deserve to achieve your goal
• Visualize your goal and imagine every detail of how it feels to achieve it
• Plan your route with baby steps and keep moving forward
• Surround yourself with positive people who support your fitness goal
• Find a coach or mentor and get the resources you need
• Don't be thrown off course by small setbacks
• Take pride in being different--and better--than everyone else
• Spend more time taking action and less time thinking about taking action
• Don't hold back--give everything you have to give
• Don't settle with mediocrity
• Exploit your strengths
• Make sure your actions support your goal instead of sabotaging it
• Find joy in success