You will never score a goal in a basketball game by wandering aimlessly. Your opponents will easily grab the ball from you. To be a great basketball player, you have to go through a regimen of training. It is not an easy task. There are many obstacles and trials to overcome. But it is your resolve to be successful in basketball.

You cannot overcome compulsive behavior without a plan and being determined to reach that goal. Just like scoring any goal on the basketball court, you have to get pumped up, determined, and focused. Set realistic goals… pace yourself.

Here is a list that will help you overcome compulsion:

Resolve to be stubborn
It is not your opponents that will weaken your resolve to overcome compulsion. You must be determined in the face of temptation. Be resolved to stay focused. Do not allow thoughts to drift into your subconscious, gab your resolve and chase them out, they will weaken your decisions. In the face of temptation, be firm. Be on the alert that you are being tempted, accept it but refuse to give in. Be stubborn, even when friends are tempting you, refuse to eat junk food with that same power of conviction. Give yourself encouragement when you succeed..success is infectious, spread it around.

It’s a stronger conviction to refuse to do something than it is to – try to do something. Which statement is more positive, “I will try to eat better” or “I refuse to eat junk food.” Stubbornly refusing to do something has power. It is absolute refusal that makes decisions resolute.

Resolve to be intent
Being intent is to be fixed on something. Be like an athlete preparing for the challenge. Be fixed on what you intend to achieve. Do not be distracted. Just as an archer aims for his target, he is intent to hit the target. Once he has fired his arrow, he relaxes and gets ready to become intent again. The focus is exhausting. It requires 100% attention. You can be like that. Set the goal and become totally fixed on it everyday, especially just before you eat or face temptation. Once it is over, you can relax till the next target comes up. The mind can be very determind also, and you will often find that you have failed with out being aware until  it’s too late…don’t be put-off. This happens to us all. It can give you a boost of resolve to be more vigilant. Look at how it happened, and how you were hood-winked, and see if you can “catch” yourself next time.

Resolve to end mental war
Resolute decisions end mental wars. Weak decisions are useless. There will be times you will compromise and feel like a failure. Make your decisions resolute. If you have made the decision to eat one bowl full of food per meal, resolve to feel hungry before eating. You have made a decision! “I am not getting pushed around any more. I refuse to be controlled by food. Cravings do your worst. I will not budge. I am standing firm. My decision is unchangeable. I will not give in.” These ends the mental war.
Resolve to succeed
You have made a resolve to succeed. Every day you have to go over the reasons as to why you have made these decisions. As soon as you weaken in your decision, the battle starts. Fortify these decisions because you know you will succeed.

Compulsion is a vicious cycle. Pain comes in, emotions stir to a storm: fear, insecurity, anxiety, feeling empty and deprived. These feelings will not exist if your decision is resolute. They come because you are allowing yourself to consider breaking your decision. Even if you do not break, those feelings will have weakened your decision and you will need to rebuild it. If you do not, you will fail.

Quit living in the past. We all have our pasts to deal with. We cannot fix it but we can let it go and decide to move on. Pick up yourself from the vicious cycle of the past and live your life to the fullest. Do not justify the past by blaming others. Accept past mistakes but do not wallow in them. Surrender everything to God. Allow Him to work in you, resting in the thought that He will completely erase the past. Loosen up. Have fun. Allow yourself to be like a child all over again. Never allow the past to ruin your future.

Being Motivated

Bear in mind that your thoughts determine how you feel. Captivate your thoughts and filter them into positive tools to become an overcomer. Refrain from criticizing yourself, instead find an opportunity to reaffirm yourself that you made the right choice. Do not blame or make excuses for your behavior, but rather firmly resolve that the change you desire emanates from the very core of your being. Take responsibility, accept and love yourself. Feel good about your accomplishments.

Do not go back to the vicious cycle of worrying especially during eating. This is disrespect to our God. If you have problems you must have to deal with, write them down on paper and leave it behind for awhile. Do not ever attempt to tackle problems before eating. Once you have decided, stop the worrying and do something positive. If things cannot be changed, leave it all to God. Nothing can be hidden from the Lord. He knows your heart, your desires and wants. He also knows your strengths and weaknesses. Always ask for wisdom for you to be able to accept your situation.

Look at the future from a new perspective. You are a new you. Your brain is no longer filled with the negative thoughts, but rather, it is replaced with fresh and new affirmative thoughts that you are a new creation. Create a new list of your priorities and goals. Make a list of positive statements to say to yourself for encouragement. Joy and peace will no longer be easily snatched away from you because it is in your heart. It is your choice to be joyful and at peace.

Spirituality and Compulsive Behavior

The mind is a battlefield. It is a place of dread where a solitary soldier must cross a minefield of worry. But you are not alone. God is with you. Armed with a vacuum cleaner in one hand and Godly thoughts in the other, you take on Goliath with weapons of patience, faith and hope. You can be improving your thoughts on life while vacuuming, picking veggies in a grocery store or weeding the garden. You can do it while standing or sitting. Every time you change from a negative thought to a positive one, you have gained a victory.It is not easy. Self-defeating thoughts have become routed in your thinking. It takes a lot of work. There will be times when you want to give up, but never must you quit. When you win, the payoff is gigantic. Peace, hope and feeling loved all come through winning battles over negative thoughts.

Challenge your negative thinking. Refuse to give in to nagging, complaining emotions. The next time that doubt shows its ugly insecure face, say “No! I am forgiven and that is that.” Feel good about it. Thank God for being forgiven. When you are down and the world seems bleak and full of problems, think good, encouraging thoughts and you will have peace. The mind easily goes into the worry mode, mulling over all the gloomiest details.

When faced with a problem, get the facts down on paper, and then make a decision about what you are going to do about that problem. When you are tempted to worry, you can say to yourself, “No, I have made a decision. This is in God’s hands. Worrying will not help.” If you want to do something positive, pray about the situation, but pray believing that God is working it out. Visualize a good outcome to the problem and see yourself thanking God for answering your prayers. You are His child. He loves you. He has prepared a place for you. You are forgiven of your sins. He will protect you. He has promised to bless you. Get emotional, rouse up some passion, and get angry at negative thoughts. Don’t just go along for a ride. You are in charge. You have control over your thoughts and your actions.

Twenty years of propaganda has an impact. We come to believe that cravings are good for us, a part of normal life. No point fighting them. It’s time to strip away the mask and see the raw ugliness hidden below. Cravings are powerful forces leading us to death and destruction.

To overcome cravings, you need to run an anti-brainwashing program to clean out the junk from childhood. Not only was your mind filled with reading, writing and arithmetic, but mind-washing thoughts as well, skillfully placed by the mentors of negativity. Like a computer virus, they infect your life by infecting your thinking.

With cult-like force, they infiltrated the education system. Your teacher, your guidance counselor, or your school janitor may have been one of them. Even your parents may have fallen under the spell.

The only way to detect this hideous fraternity is by their common language. If you say, “it’s a beautiful day,” they respond with, “what’s good about it?” You mention singing birds. They complain about bird poop. You mention sunshine; they grimly suggest skin cancer. Every word carries the dark force of criticism, fear and complaint. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is cherished. Nothing has value.

They have stubbornly made a decision to think the worst. You can’t change that, but you can defend yourself against the onslaught of these malignant thoughts.
It is time to put the brakes on defeatist thinking and alter your mental dialogue.

Evaluate what you are thinking. Are your thoughts inspiring, uplifting and encouraging or a stewing cauldron of worry, fear and doubt? Watch your thoughts. (No converter required.) Is your brain signal positive or negative? You will quickly realize how the negative thoughts have a far greater impact than the positive thoughts. If the thoughts you are thinking are negative, it’s time to replace them with positive, uplifting, warm, fuzzy, nice thoughts.

It’s not easy. You can start out encouraging yourself and end up thinking weird and depressing thoughts. You may think a positive thought like “It’s all going to work out.” And there is this depressing response saying, “no it’s not, my life is falling apart.” It is here that the battle is fought. Stop fighting and negativity wins because you have decided to believe it. You have to fight with truth, repeating the uplifting thought until you believe.

The desire for comfort carries us on the path of least resistance. It is the easy way out. Who wants to swim upstream, when we can go with the flow? But the flow is going downhill to end in a stagnant cesspool of fear, worry and obsession. Going with the flow has a pay-off; we are doing something that is easy. And if we don’t, we have to face our fear. It is easier to be consumed with worry than to do something constructive. You need to strive against the current of negative thinking, facing its power. It may feel like a raging current but the strength will come. Success is upstream, a place of freedom, joy and hope. It is the place we want to be.

Negative thoughts are hard to fight. They are like that floating pink elephant. The more we try not to think of them, the more they barge into our thinking. The solution is to deflect obsession to become encouraging thoughts. We have to re-channel the energy of obsessive, fear-ridden thoughts toward confidence-building thoughts.