Motivation, Inspiration and Other Ideas for a Healthy Body and Happy Life
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.
Early this year, Jackie Wicks (the co-founder of PEERtrainer.com) and I created a 12 week coaching program called “The Point of No Return”. We did it live with an initial group, and recorded everything so we could share it with others. We shared some really innovative ideas about losing weight (and ending emotional eating). The results were excellent.
The title came from an observation we had of people who really get over the hump in their effort to lose weight. Obviously it often takes some time to get there, but we see people finally get to a place where the struggle with food- and as a result, of course, their weight- is not so constant and not so diffcult.
We call it “The Point of No Return” because once you get there, there’s really no going back. This is a crucial part of the concept. You fundamentally change your relationship to food and yourself, and you don’t go back to old habits. You may slip up here and there, but you get yourself back on track much sooner than later.
It’s actually a place that anybody can get to, and we built our 12 week program as a “roadmap” if you will to get there. When you get to “The Point Of No Return”:
I am a big fan of action movies and Superheroes- always have been. I used to get up religiously on Saturday mornings to watch the Justice League of America cartoon- I think it was on at 7am. I love Rocky movies (yes, all of them) because I feel like I share his victory when he finally prevails and wins the Heavyweight title. I also love it when Bruce Wayne (no relation, unfortunately) puts on his Batman suit and saves the day.
That’s the hallmark of a great ‘hero’ film- when you identify so much with the character that you “feel” their victory in the end as well.
While these great movies always revolve around the challenges the main characters have to face, they are also symbolic of something else…something more important. They are symbolic of the everyday struggles of normal people like you and me.
No matter how many times they are kicked to the ground, they pick themselves up over and over again- no matter what the setback or what the cost.
One of my favorite examples of this is from the movie “Batman Begins”. When young Bruce Wayne falls down the well, breaks his arm and gets traumatized by the bats, his loving, compassionate father asks him “Why do we fall down, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up again”.
And that’s the weight loss attitude you need to adapt. If you fall of the wagon, get back on it. No setback (even devouring 2,000 calories in a sitting) is reason enough to give up on your goal.
So, maybe you’re already doing well with your weight loss or your weight management. Sure, you know you could lose those last 10 pounds to get to your pre-child or college years weight, but you keep asking yourself, is it really worth the trouble? I mean, your husband isn’t complaining. He thinks you look great. And most of your friends would probably give their left arm or leg to have your figure.
But then it happens. Out of nowhere, a girlfriend from your single days ‘tags’ you in a picture on Facebook- and there it is. That picture of you on the beach in a bikini when you were 20 (we’ll ignore those crazy bangs you were sportin’ and the drink you’re holding with the little umbrella in it- for now). You know the picture I’m talking about it. It’s the one that shows you at EXACTLY your ideal weight. Now it’s imprinted on your brain and you can’t quite let go of it. You really want to get back there, but you also know it means losing those same 10 pounds you’ve been mulling over for a couple years now.
Okay, you finally decide after thinking about it non-stop for 3 days, I’m gonna do it! I’m going after those last 10 pounds…once and for all…this is the time!
If this sounds like you, then good for you. Before you get your game plan together, though, here are 5 important things you should think about first.
I get emails from people everyday sharing their frustrations and challenges with weight loss. About 60% of them say they lack the motivation to stick with their weight loss program. They report that they do well for awhile and lose some weight, but inevitably fall off track- whether due to a loss of focus or some other kind of self-sabotage.
As a Personal Development Coach specializing in weight loss, and who was originally trained as a psychotherapist, it’s very easy for me to give them advice, but as I sat down to write this article, I thought it might be nice to really start at the most basic, fundamental level of understanding motivation, and to then work up from there.
So armed with my trusty Mozilla Firefox I did a quick Google search for a basic definition of the word. Here is the first thing that Google gave me to consider (it came from an online dictionary associated with Princeton University):
“the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and the condition of being motivated.”
So let’s pull some key words from that definition and see if we can come up with a useful way to apply the concept to weight loss.
Action Toward a Desired Goal- Taking action here implies that there is a desired goal in place, so the first thing that you must be absolutely clear on is ‘what is your goal?’
The challenge here is that it’s usually not sufficient to just come up with a number. 20 pounds or 30 pounds isn’t going to cut it. You’ve known that for perhaps years, and telling yourself “I need to lose 20 pounds” over and over again hasn’t gotten the job done. Just having a number in mind is not provocative enough of a goal.
So consider: the better question to ask is, “Why do you really want to lose weight”? At first glance, this may sound like an obvious question, but if you’re struggling with your weight, you need to ask yourself this question again and again until you have a very clear answer.
You have to become crystal clear on your “Why”. This is the first step in establishing a goal.
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There is a Native American story of a wise elder who is in charge of teaching the younger members of the tribe. One day he is giving a lesson and says, “There are two dogs in my head. One is very good; he is positive, optimistic and kind. The other one is very bad; he is negative, angry and judgmental. These two dogs are always fighting.”
One of his young students asks him, “So which one wins?”
The elder replies, “Whichever one I feed the most.”
Like the wise old man of this story, many people experience a similar inner conflict with their weight loss. It is like there are two conflicting voices inside their heads.
One voice is frustrated and is on the verge of begin depressed and giving up hope. It says things like:
The other voice, in spite of the frustration and lack of results, refuses to give up hope. It says things like:
The challenge is, which voice will you listen to? Will you give in to the whispers inside that say what’s the point, what’s the use?
Or will you stay focused, optimistic and keep going until you find the right solution or support?
Deciding which voice to listen to is the crucial first step, but there is a second step that is equally important. The second step is having the right information that will help you get where you want to be.
Consider this: what you have done up until this point has gotten you to exactly where you are right now. If you’re feeling stuck and the number on the scale isn’t moving, then you need new information to shake things up. New insights and ideas come from new information.
Whatever path you choose to follow to get where you want to be, remember the choice between hope and despair is always up to you. It’s a choice you make every minute of every day. You make it by deciding which voice to listen to. You make it by deciding which dog to feed.
In Part 1 of this post, I identified that the choices you’re making on an ongoing basis are either moving you in a positive or a negative direction. Now what do we do with that? Where do we go from here?
This is a very important part of the equation, so please really take this to heart. This is where the potential lies to move from just making weight loss “simple” to actually making it “easy” over time.
A close friend was recently visiting me who is getting his PhD in Philosophy. He was telling me about a course he recently took in practical approaches to Eastern Philosophy, and he said that the whole thing could be summed up in roughly 2 sentences:
If it’s good and it’s working, follow it.
If it’s not good and it’s not working, let it go.
The point is this: you have to keep moving forward staying focused on the positives. If it’s good and it’s working, then keep moving in that positive direction- follow it.
If you make a bad food choice that brings you down in any way, then acknowledge it and then let it go. When you let go of a bad choice, you are by definition already moving forward in a positive direction. Ask yourself, “What is the next thing to do? How do I move in a positive direction from here?”
Maybe you drink a couple extra glasses of water to flush your system, maybe you go for a 10-minute walk, maybe you call a friend or write in your journal. It doesn’t matter so much what you do; what matters is that you make the choice to quickly regroup and move forward in a positive direction. Like I’ve been saying: simple, huh?
So, the “art” here is actually two fold:
There’s one final little piece I want to add that I think is really helpful (and by the way, in case you haven’t figured this out by now, these ideas can help you in many ways in your life beyond just weight loss).
When you make a choice in a positive direction, really celebrate it. It know it sounds a little cheesy, but it’s important. When you do well, you need to get psyched about it. It reinforces your positive thinking in a powerful way.
Remember, you’re building habits here. The more you feel good and proud of yourself for positive choices, the stronger you build the habit in that direction. Positive thinking leads to positive habits. It’s just the way things work. If you doubt it at all, that’s fine. But I ask that you earnestly practice what I’m talking about here for one week. Really apply these principles into your life and see how they affect you.
In fact, regardless of how much you “buy-in” to what I’m talking about, I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you’re doubting what I’m saying here, that’s actually great! I invite you to go test out these ideas for the next 7 days and get back to me with your results.
The ideas I am going to share with you about how to approach weight loss are about how to make it a simple process. Now I know this may sound like one of those phony sounding headlines we all read on the covers of countless magazines about “How to Lose 20 Pounds in 2 Weeks By Eating This One Vegetable” but I assure you what I’m talking about is different (yes, I shudder too when I read those empty promises).
I want to assure that my choice of words is very deliberate. I carefully chose the word “simple” as opposed to “easy”. My experience is that they are often two very different things, and it’s usually helpful to keep them separate. But what I want to share with you is an idea I had recently that can give you a simpler way to approach weight loss (and that will hopefully make it easier in the process as well).
Here’s why I think that at it’s core weight loss is really a simple process. There is only one thing you ever really need to pay attention to, and that is what you do next. That’s it.
Think about that for a second. We make it so complicated and we overwhelm ourselves with all our non-stop thoughts and worries.
Whoa! That’s a lot of thinking! But in my experience it’s what most of us do. Do you see how complicated we make it? We get so busy in our heads thinking about all the things we need to do and all the things that can go wrong, and in the process we forget the most important thing of all: the present moment, and that single, simple choice in front of us about what to do next.
Do you get how simple that is? There is only one decision you actually have to make. You don’t have to make a decision about what happens 30 minutes from now, or 10 hours from now or 10 days from now. You just have to decide what to do next.
What I want you to realize is that every decision you make is going to lead you in either a positive or a negative direction. Just two choices here (remember, we’re keeping it simple) and it’s definitely one or the other!
A client, “Marcy”, came to see me yesterday and said, “I’m always on a diet! I lose 10 pounds and gain back 5…then next time I lose 5 and gain back 10. It goes on and on like this; I just can’t maintain my focus on losing weight. What do I do?”
“Well”, I told her, “the first thing you have to figure out is what you really want.”
“I already know what I want”, she said, “I want to lose 25 pounds and go down four dress sizes!” That is what she said, but the look on her face was impatient and had “Duhhh!” written all over it.
“Look”, I said, “on the surface I understand that this is what you want. But you have to go deeper and figure out ‘the want behind the want’. That is what will keep your focus on losing weight.”
“Huh?”, she now said. She had moved from “Duhhh!” to “Huh?”, so I knew we were making progress.
“There is a reason you want to lose 25 pounds,” I said. “You believe that if you did, your life would be dramatically better in some specific ways. You need to get in touch with exactly how it would be better. That is the ‘want behind the want’.”
You see, a key aspect to lasting weight loss success is knowing why you want to lose weight at the deepest level, what I call “the want behind the want”.
So what is the want behind your want- that deeper value that losing weight will add to your life? Is it:
Whatever your deep desire is, I want you to get in touch with it specifically. Write down all the answers you come up with in as much detail as possible.
“The Want Behind The Want” Is Your True Motivator
When you know ‘the want behind the want’ you understand what truly motivates you because it stirs you emotionally and is strongly connected to your sense of happiness. If the list of deeper wants you came up with do not stir you emotionally, then you did not dig deep enough. Keep going.
You want to get to this ‘core desire’ because it gives you something to focus on that has much greater power and significance that simply focusing on a number.
So I was traveling recently and had a couple hour layover in the Charlotte, NC airport. Usually I do two things when I’m in an airport with time to spend waiting for a plane: eat some kind of Mexican food (it’s the usually the most reliably healthy option- you can’t go too wrong with black beans, salsa and fresh guacamole) and thumb through a bunch of magazines.
Sure, I’d like to say I’m the kind of a person who only reads magazines of taste and substance- but you wouldn’t likely completely buy that now, would you? For good reason- it wouldn’t be exactly true. Before I get around to the likes of “Harpers” and “The Economist”, I’ve first gotten my fill of Sports Illustrated, Maxim and Rolling Stone.
Well, I must have gotten caught up on A-Rod’s latest blood test results, the 8 must-do exercises for rock hard abs, and a review of Bob Dylan’s new album, because I found myself reading an interesting article in “Newsweek” (or was it “The Atlantic Monthly”- don’t remember) about the “glass ceiling” in American corporations. It was talking about how in spite of Barack Obama’s election to office, many minorities and women still perceive that there is a visceral glass ceiling in their companies that typically doesn’t allow them to rise above middle management positions.
It really got me thinking about the weight loss struggle that so many of us go through, and how in many ways we bump into a “glass ceiling” as well- only this one is entirely of our own creation. We usually know it too, but we still can’t figure out how to break through it. We keep bumping our heads on this imaginary ceiling.
It’s like we keep getting snagged- like when you’re walking through a doorway and your shirt or jacket pocket gets snagged on the door handle (don’t you hate that?) and you get unpleasantly jerked back. Only when it comes to weight loss, we get jerked back to the place where we began- and it leaves us feeling very frustrated and stuck.
So how can we break through that glass ceiling once and for all? How can we shatter it to tiny, miniscule, meaningless pieces- and even get to the point where we realize it was in our minds the whole time? In other words, how can we break through out own barriers to finally have the results and happiness we desire?
What I’d like you to contemplate for a moment is that the way you’re going to break through this glass ceiling is by finding the “Hero Within”. Not exactly the answer you were expecting? Let me explain.
There was a great mythologist named Joseph Campbell who studied literally thousands and thousands of myths and great stories from all over the world. Campbell said that all of these stories were always about a heroic character who was fighting for truth or justice, or to find her passion and true purpose in life.
Campbell’s greatest contribution, though, was the realization that the tales of all of these great hero’s were ultimately just metaphors- metaphors for your life and mine. He said that each of us is the hero on our own journey- a journey (and often a struggle) each of us is on to find our truth, our passion and to create what we really, really want in life.
Here’s always the catch though: in order for the hero- meaning you or I- to have the life we deeply desire, we inevitably come upon a threshold- a “glass ceiling” if you will. Campbell calls this “The Threshold of Adventure” and in order to really claim the life we want, we have to get across it.
This can be tricky, though, because in order to get across it we have to change. To at least some extent, we have to leave behind what is comfortable and familiar. Think about this a bit. What is comfortable and familiar is exactly what has gotten us to exactly where we are today. It’s not what is going to get us the new result we want.
Campbell says that when every hero gets to his or her threshold of adventure it’s always scary, because what lies on the other side is the unknown. The hero almost always experiences the desire to retreat, quit and seek comfort in what is more comfortable and familiar.
Think about this in terms of your struggle to lose weight and keep it off. How many times have you tried to make changes, but you keep bumping into that same glass ceiling over and over again? Maybe you do great for 3 or 4 weeks, but then you get stressed at work, lose your focus and go right back to your uncontrollable night snacking. Maybe you do great for a few months, lose 15 or 20 pounds, but then for some inexplicable reason you just start sabotaging your success and find yourself back at square one. You hit that darn glass ceiling again!
In many ways, I think of the weight loss struggle as a classic Hero’s Journey scenario (and it’s one of the main ideas that PEERtrainer co-founder Jackie Wicks and I built our 12 week Mind Coaching and Training program around). There is something you deeply, deeply want. I know this, because you wouldn’t be reading this article if it wasn’t true. Maybe you want your health back, or a sexy body and to start dating again; maybe you just want to feel ‘normal’ again and not constantly plagued by the fear that you’ll binge and eat all night. Maybe you want to go home for the holidays and not be anxious about what your parents and sister are thinking.
Whatever it is, you wouldn’t be reading this if there wasn’t some major change you really wanted to make in terms of your body and health. And yet, you keep bumping into that threshold.
So how does the hero finally get across this threshold? In a word: Courage. It requires the courage to change. It requires the courage to fully commit to ourselves and our highest good; to commit to breaking out of this little jail cell we created. It requires the courage to face our fears, “slay our dragons” and fight for what we want! Your issues with food are the “battle” you must fight as the hero on your own journey.
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