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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.

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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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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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.

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The Basics About Weight Loss Motivation

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.

So, why are you looking to lose weight?

• To feel more confident to start dating again?
• To get into your favorite pair of jeans?
• To feel sexy for your husband or wife?
• To look good at your upcoming high school reunion?
• Because the doctor told you you’re pre-diabetic but that there is still a chance to turn it around?
• Because you’re sick and tired of feeling sick and tired?

You have to become crystal clear on your “Why”.  This is the first step in establishing a goal.
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What Do You Want?

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:

• To feel more comfortable dating or to feel sexier in the relationship you’re in?
• To be healthy and active with your children?
• Because you’ve been diagnosed with an illness and you want your health back?
• To look better and have more self-confidence when you interview for a job?
• To look better at a high school or family reunion?
• To really love yourself and feel good about your body.

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.

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