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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.

Came across this video the other day while traversing digital glaciers on YouTube.  What struck me in particular was what she says toward the end of the video: finding her value as a person and that was the thing that ultimately made the difference for her to lose the weight.

The trick, of course, is how do you get the lesson without having to go to the dark place she wound up?  In any event, I think she nails it in her remarks at the end.

This is part 2 in my series on self-sabotage in the weight loss process.  You can find part one HERE.  Part 2 picks up with the 3rd most common reason I see people sabotaging their weight loss effort.  Enjoy.

3.    You Don’t Believe You Deserve It

It’s also possible that you continue to sabotage your own success, because at some deeper level you still don’t believe that you really deserve the body and happiness you desire.  In a strange way, carrying the extra weight may be much more inside your comfort zone than being thin. As unhappy as you may be, you already know what to expect in life- things are familiar and predictable.

If this sounds familiar, then what I want you to understand first and foremost is that these are beliefs you either learned from others or created for yourself- nothing more.

You don’t have to carry them any further with you ‘in your suitcase’ than you already have.  Sure, changing these beliefs requires some deep reflection and earnest effort, but any negative belief you may have about yourself, your body or your worthiness as a person can be changed.

The solution?  As you bump into these old beliefs start reflecting on where they came from.  Who encouraged you to think and feel this way about yourself?

• Your family?
• Friends?
• An old boyfriend?
• Or maybe you just created it all by yourself.

Regardless, the first step is recognizing these old limiting beliefs and being willing to ‘exchange them’ for new beliefs that help you get where you want to be rather than blocking the way.

The truth is this:

You deserve all the health, happiness, positive relationships and fit, sexy body you desire.  You need to own that truth.  You need to fully believe this yourself and get out of your own way.

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A very common question I get asked by people looking to lose weight is:

“How can I stop my self-sabotage?”

They typically have a lot of frustration with themselves for not following through with their weight loss plan and they often feel hopeless that their situation will never change.

So if you feel like you keep sabotaging yourself for one reason or another, then what can you do to get un-stuck and on track? The first thing you want to do is identify why you keep doing this.

If you don’t have a clear idea, then it’s hard to come up with the right solution.

In order to understand your self-sabotage pattern, I’m going to ask you what might seem like a strange question (if you ask the people I hang out with, they’d tell you that I have a tendency to do this- but bear with me, please, because there’s a method to my madness). If you take a few moments to sit with this and really understand the question, you will find that it’s very powerful and it can actually help you in many areas of your life .

What has to be true in your life in order for you to sabotage your weight loss efforts?

Read that a second time if you have to. It’s actually a basic logic equation.

In order for a behavior like self-sabotage to be true in your life (and if you’ve read this far, then I’m assuming it is), then what belief MUST you be carrying that allows that self-sabotaging behavior to exist?

If you sabotage yourself, then something else MUST be true in your life that allows that to happen.

I assure you this is not as complex as it sounds, and I really encourage you to take a moment to digest it. If you understand what that thing is, you will understand your self-sabotage, and you can then start taking the steps to reverse it.

Now let’s take it further. Below are the 4 most common patterns I have observed (the things that MUST be true in people’s lives) that allow the self-sabotage to exist.  Please read through them and see what most resonates.  If you come up with something I didn’t quite address, please reach out to me and let me know: joshua@joshuawayne.com.

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