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I’m just throwing this idea out there.  It’s part of a longer post I’m working on that will be coming soon.

Consider this: the real reason you’re not losing weight is because it isn’t your priority yet.  You can think about it all you want.  You want read all the books you want, join all the online forums you want, but at the end of the day, the only reason you aren’t living comfortably and happily at your ideal weight is because it is not your priority.

You don’t lose weight because the chocolate mousse that was served at your sister’s dinner party over the weekend was more important to you than losing weight.

Eating the great pizza, chips, dips and Margaritas your neighbors served while you were watching the World Series together was more important than to you than losing weight.

You don’t lose the weight because nibbling on all the cookies and candy in the office kitchen is more important to you than losing the weight.

This is a matter of priorities.  It’s about DECIDING that to carry this extra weight is no longer an option in your life.  (The suffix of the word decide – CIDE – means to kill off.  Think suicide, homicide, etc.)  When you truly decide, you are deciding that carrying the extra weight is no longer tolerable.  It’s no longer an option.  That’s when your priorities shift.

But until that happens, be very honest with yourself about where your priorities lie.  Our actions always have more meaning that our thoughts, words and intentions.  It’s important to be grounded in the reality of our choices.  That may not always be pleasant, but until we really fess up to our priorities, there is little we can do to change them.

Like I said, this is part of a longer article I’m working on, just not there with it yet.  I’d like to be posting here more, but unfortunately, as much as I would like this to be one of my priorities, clearly it isn’t.  My actions always speak louder than my words or intentions.

This is Part 2 of this post…you can find Part 1 here.

Picking up where I left off…

So you want to be asking yourself: “How well am I making that choice?” Because the quality of that choice defines who you are becoming.  

Example 1:

You’re driving down the road on your way to work.  You’re running about 10 minutes late.  Your boss doesn’t make a big deal out of it, but it still makes you a bit uncomfortable because it seems to be happening more often of late because your son is slow getting himself together in the morning.  All of a sudden, somebody comes and cuts you off…didn’t even have the nerve to use their turn signal.

Do you:

A)    Yell “F#$% YOU!” at the top of your lungs, and roll down the window and show him what an elegant, well-groomed middle finger you have?
B)    Keep your mouth shut, but ruminate on how the drivers in your town are certainly the worst in the state (if not the region), that people are inherently stupid, and then head straight to the kitchen at work to get a coffee and a couple donuts that Sheila in accounting brought in (there’s ALWAYS something there to nibble on)?
C)    Take a deep breath, slow down a little bit, roll your eyes (it was a pretty clueless move by the other guy after all), and then become more mindful about how you’re driving?  Life is precious, and you need to stay awake and alert sometimes.  You reflect on the good things in your life for the rest of your drive

Example 2:

Your husband comes in the house grouchy after a bad day (boss is a jerk, traffic sucked, didn’t close the account he’s been working on for a month) and starts complaining about the laundry not being folded in the living room and dinner not even started yet.

Do you:

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Who are You Becoming?

Think about this question for a second.  It’s possibly one of the most powerful questions you’ll even consider- and as you’ll see in part 2 of the post tomorrow, it has a lot to do with your success in losing the weight you want- and keeping it off.

Really asking this question deeply, and reflecting on it causes you to consider what you really want in life because here is a fact:

You are becoming something.  You can’t help this.  It’s a fact.

The past is gone…and all we have is the unfolding of present moments.  So this is a very good place to put your attention.

The decisions you make right now directly shape:

• How you think…
• What habits you oblige…
• What food choices you make…
• How you relate to yourself, your body and others…
• How you handle stress…
• How you react to and talk to your children…

All these decisions shape who you are becoming.  These choices create the causes and conditions for what happens next.

So the question becomes:

Since you’re becoming something (the energy and thinking and behavior that is you is unfolding into something), will you become that thing by design or by default?

I know that comes off pretty wordy, but I recommend you read it again so it sinks in.

Put another way, will you become that thing by habit or by choice?

You have a choice right now, on a moment-to-moment basis about what the quality of your life is going to be.

So you want to be asking yourself: “How well am I making that choice?”

Because the quality of that choice defines who you are becoming.

In part 2 of this post, I’m going to unpack this by going into some specific examples of how this fits into our lives, and how it also affects our waistline.

Often I hear people talking about how much they “need to lose 30 pounds”, or how they really “want to drop 20 pounds”.

The thing is, it doesn’t really matter how much you want it or need it.  Those things don’t make the difference.  You can want it for years and be at the same starting point.

What ultimately makes the difference is “readiness”.

What do I mean by readiness?  To me, readiness is:

• The decision that this time will be different.
• The willingness to experience some discomfort to get to your goal.
• Acknowledging that what you’ve always done has gotten you where you are now.
• To confront your emotional habits that want to pull you back to your heavy weight.
• The commitment to be the person you really want to be.
• Chopping wood and carrying water- everyday.
• The willingness to do whatever it takes.
• To decide that being overweight is no longer an option (notice that the suffix of ‘decide’ is ‘cide’ or “to kill off”- when you decide, you are killing off other options).
• The willingness to work with your cravings and realizing that they too will pass.
• That you’ll push through the resistance to build new habits…even if it isn’t always fun.
• The willingness to become a different person of sorts.

What do you come up with?  Email me: joshua@joshuawayne.com or comment below and let me know what Readiness means to you.

So in Motivation Tip #1, I talked about determining your innate motivational strategy when it comes to weight loss.  Specifically, I helped you determine if you are more naturally motivated Towards Pleasure or  Away From Pain.

So now I want to focus on how you effectively apply this valuable little nugget of information.

In the simplest of terms, your motivational strategy tells you how you have to think about your weight loss goals in order to consistently take action.

Let me repeat that in a slightly different way: in order to consistently take positive, forward-moving action to lose weight, you need to think about it in the right language and with the right pictures in your mind.

What To Do If You’re More Motivated Towards Pleasure

If you’re Motivated Towards Pleasure, then really spend some time thinking about what you want in rich and colorful detail. Find pictures (of yourself or from a magazine) that inspire you and make a vision board (this can be as simple as a few pictures in your journal or a complex mural on your bedroom wall- whatever works best for you).

What To Do If You’re Motivated Away From Pain

What I have found is that most people who are struggling with their weight are more motivated away from pain when it comes to their health.

(Side note: I’m not going into this much here, but it is possible to be have a different strategy in different areas of your life; for example ‘away from’ with your weight and ‘towards’ with your career.  Obviously here we’re just focusing on the weight issue.)

As a result, you need a slightly more sophisticated motivational strategy because somebody trying to inspire you by how great you will feel when you lose 30 pounds is going to fall on deaf ears.

However, thinking about how you’re going to feel 5 years from now if you don’t make a change is likely to make your ears perk up.

They key is to go in your mind to the place where the consequences lie  so you don’t have to go there in reality.

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