It isn’t just all about the girls around here. Engaging Women also features advice from trusted experts like Dean Casamento.

Dean has been working in women’s health and fitness and corporate health for the past fifteen years. He is a performance coach; a master trainer who uses seriously high-tech methods to get the best out of his clients.

He has personally transformed the attitudes of too many people to mention on this site.

MH: Dean you a strong believer that each of us possess what it takes to reach our fitness potential, how are you so sure?

DC: Simply, I’ve seen it. Working with thousands of individuals across 15 years, you begin to notice strategies.

Strategies that enable those individuals to reach their fitness potential, and pitfalls that continue to move them away from what they want.

Everything we do in life is a strategy, whether it’s posting a letter, making a phone call, or taking a shower. Behind everything that we do is a strategy.

The key is to identify when a strategy isn’t working and what we can change to move ourselves towards our true fitness potential.

For some, a coach may be needed to quickly and easily eliminate old strategies from the past.

However I’ve always found it to be true, that when we focus on what we want, we will always, always get it.

So, the rule of thumb is: say it as you WANT it and you will always reach your fitness potential.

MH: What have you found to be the greatest mental hurdle your clients have to overcome?

DC: Dealing with change!

By way of change I’m referring to the physical, mental and emotional reordering of things that individuals go through as they work towards achieving their outcomes.

Clients often come to me knowing what it is that they want; however they are often overwhelmed and simply not sure of where to start.

The “problem” if you like is simply too big, so in the past they either resist change or continue on with the cycle of starting things and never finishing anything.

I’ve had clients in the past that have set weight-loss goals for example with a target of losing 10 kilograms, they lose the first four, then revert back to old patterns of “doing” and “thinking” because they haven’t committed to the change.

Here are the steps that you will go through in not only creating change, but sustaining change for life.

Step 1: Unconscious Incompetence

It simply refers to not knowing what you don’t know. In other words, you are not aware of wanting to change.

Step 2: Conscious Incompetence

Now this is the step when we begin to realise what changes we want, however we don’t know how to or what to change. You can imagine how frustrating this stage is.

Step 3: Conscious Competence

By now you have made the change. This stage of change still requires conscious thought however, to maintain it.

Step 4: Unconscious Competence

Ahh this is it, the stage of change where everything runs on autopilot without any conscious thought and wasted energy.

To move through this cycle requires well thought through goals: focus, perseverance and the ability to accept that there is no such thing as failure – it is just feedback.

Underlying the resistance to deal with change and the mental hurdles associated with it, are the negative emotions or limiting beliefs we have about ourselves.

So how do we rid ourselves of these negative states and the limiting ways in which we think of ourselves?

By establishing the root cause of the negative emotion or limiting belief, and then learning from that experience.

This releases the “hook” if you like, that hangs onto that negative emotion and acts as a blockage.

You can find out more about Dean www.melbournecorporatehealth.com.au