When I am teaching about Wellness I often use analogies to try and get my point across. Baking a cake is one of those analogies.

While studying to understand how to improve my own self awareness and life I came to realise that there is alot of information out there regarding what to do with yourself to improve your well being and wellness.

Positive affirmations will work they say
Meditation will work
Mindfulness will work
Creating Self Esteem will work
Visualisation will work
Planning and goal setting will work and so on and so forth.

My understanding now is that all those things are just ingredients and they all play a singular role which when joined together empowers me to become the person I desire to be. Each of these ingredients has a part to play regarding the management of my Wellness.

Just as if I was going to bake a cake. I need to decide first what kind of cake I want to bake. So for the purposes of this story I have decided to bake a chocolate cake and these are the ingredients.

Flour
Baking powder
Sugar
Milk
Cocoa
Eggs
Baking Soda
Vanilla Essence

And now we must measure each ingredient out proportionally so that in the end the cake turns out how we want it to. I cant just mix all the ingredients together willy nilly and hope that everything turns out ok.
I must also create the right temperature and cook it for the right amount of time if I want it to turn out perfect.

So that is the analogy and my opinion is that mindfulness just by itself is about as useful as the flour in the cake. It is useful but only when coupled with the other ingredients and in the correct proportion.

And the same rules apply to the rest of the ingredients/strategies to Wellness.

Self awareness is always an evolving pathway. We are either moving forward and improving by learning more about ourselves or we are not.

I believe that we need to understand what works for us and what does not work for us. Meditation may work for some people but for others it does not. My point is that just because something works for me does not mean it will be a full proof pathway for someone else.

So individually our own level of self awareness dictates what ingredients/strategies we should use. Its an individual, personal choice as to what works for you. So trial and error go hand in hand and making mistakes is all part of the process. Just like when you bake a cake, you dont always get it right but practicing making it makes you eventually better at it.

Based on the analogy of the cake this is how I put the ingredients together to create a powerful way to activate my immediate future.

First I write down a positive affirmation e.g –

I am wealthy

I am loved

I am grateful

Ok so that is what is called an affirmation and affirmations need to be in the right language so that my subconscious mind understands, remembering that my subconscious mind is one million times stronger than my conscious mind, so its my subconscious mind I need to have that correct conversation with. E.g

I dont want to word the affirmation like this –

I am going to be wealthy

I am going to be loved

I am going to be grateful

Because all that does is tell my subconscious mind that it will happen tomorrow, in the future. The reality is tomorrow never comes, its always today. So worded that way its probably never going to happen.

Anyway the affirmation is the first ingredient. The next part of the process is I have to attach an emotion to it, remembering that e- motion is energy in motion.

So what does it feel like to be wealthy, what does it feel like to be loved, what does it feel like to be grateful and feel that feeling as intensely as you can. This is the key you need to imagine what it is like to be the thing you desire, when you do this you activate the brain and it focuses in on helping you acheive your goal, the ability to set focus is what makes things happen and helps you make good decisions. That is the second part of the process.

The third ingredient and next part of the process is – Vision of the future, you have to create the vision with your imagination. What does it look like when you are wealthy, what does it look like when you are loved, what does it look like when you are grateful. See it with your minds eye.

So that is the right conversation to have with your subconscious mind and now it knows what you want and so it will use its Reticular Activating System to help you look for the opportunities in your future that will make your vision/affirmation happen.

My opinion is that once you know what ingredients you need for your “success in life cake” and know how to measure and cook it to perfection. You can use that same recipe for the rest of your life.

So good luck creating and baking your cake of life. Remember to bake it so that your subconscious mind knows what you want. Give it the right ingredients / conversation and it will do its best to help you create that life.

Kind Regards

Graeme Noone

Training and Development Facilitator