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Don’t Let Your Car Stall By The Side of The Road: Get Back On The Highway!

Something I have been reminding myself of lately is to just keep moving forward.  It’s so easy to stall in our doubts, our fears, uncertainties, confusion, etc and it’s generally just a waste of our time.  It’s something we distract ourselves with.

It’s sort of like we’re driving down the highway going somewhere exciting and we get off to get gasoline, and then just get lost and distracted.  We forget to get back in the car and get back on the road and keep moving forward.

We go into thought and deliberation rather than action.  Of course we have to think things through, but most of us do it excessively.  We wonder, we fret, we get lost in fantasies about “what if”, we hope things will get better and we get afraid that they won’t.

And sometimes what is necessary is to just take the car and get back on the highway.  Don’t get lost in some small town at a random exit.  Don’t get distracted thumbing through the magazines at the truck stop.  Get back in the car and get moving.

Most of us don’t because we’re afraid we’ll go in the wrong direction, make the wrong choice.   Or we’re afraid it won’t work out – we’re afraid we might not make it to the destination so we hesitate to even try.  We want some sort of guarantee that it will work in our favor.

Again, the point of this is to just keep moving forward.  Ask yourself, “what is the next step I can take right now?”  The next, single small step?  That’s it.  That’s all you have to figure out.  What is the next single, small step you can take moving forward?

It may not feel comfortable or entirely “right” – in fact often that’s a given.  But here’s the other thing we often forget: you can handle anything that comes at you.  it may not be easy, but you will be able to handle it.  If you have to change course, you will change course.  If you keep moving forward you will figure it out.

Remember Frodo from Lord of the Rings?  He was scared sh$%less most of the time, but he just kept moving forward and he fulfilled his deeper purpose.  So think of the deeper purpose in your life that is calling your forward.  Whether it’s to be masterful in the work you do, to provide an amazing life for your children, to find your mate and have a really fulfilling relationship, or to be connected to your “higher power” in a deep meaningful way, find that deeper purpose and tie it around your neck as a reminder like Frodo did with the ring.

And then keep moving forward.

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.

Warning: I’m going to begin this post by being presumptuous and saying that above all else:

We all want happiness in life.

It really doesn’t matter where you come from…

It really doesn’t matter  how much money you have…

It really doesn’t matter what neighborhood you live in…

What you ultimately want in life is happiness.

You want to feel good about yourself, the people around you and you want to feel positive and optimistic about what life has to offer.

If you’re reading this, then it’s also likely that at some level you believe that losing weight will help you get closer to your happiness.

Happiness can be a bit of a tricky topic, though, for 2 reasons:

1.  It’s such an individual thing, and means something different to everybody.

2. Because very often the things that we think will bring up happiness in reality will not.  They might even bring us greater frustration and unhappiness.

When it comes to understanding and mastering the connection between weight loss and happiness, I have found that there are three different things you need to look at that can really make the difference.

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