2 – Find Your Why

Have you ever set the goal of losing weight only to find yourself mowing down on crisps or biccies after a long stressful day at work? 

Your goal of losing weight and eating healthy took a back seat to the chewy gooey sugariness or the crispy salty crunch.

“FFS here I go again”, you think.   

You consciously want to lose weight but you keep sabotaging your efforts after these stressful days.

In that moment, your need for comfort and distraction through food is stronger than the need to drop a few pounds.

Often, we don’t always act in a way we “think” we want to act.  We think we want to eat healthily, but each night we are elbow deep in the freezer looking for ice cream.  

Sometimes it feels like our body has two different minds.  What we want to do and what we actually do.  

This brings us to the topic of change.

Why do people change?

Most would jump to logic.  We change because it makes sense to make a change.  To stop doing destructive behaviours because they are well…destructive to our well-being.

Each of our behaviours serves a purpose.  

Pause on that for a second. 

Each of our behaviours serves a purpose.
 

Your job is to figure out what purpose those behaviours are serving.  (Hint: Our subconscious is always trying to steer us in the direction of happiness, I’ll explain more in a bit)

Eating copious amounts of vegetables and fruits is pretty good for us.  Doing so helps us be healthier, live longer, and most importantly live longer disease-free lives.  

Then the question arises,  why do people refuse to eat them? The science and research is pretty strong.  The knowledge is there, the logic is there.  The evidence is very clear and compelling.  Eating more vegetables might be the one universal truth that 99% of the health world agrees on. 

Then, why don’t more people do it?  It’s very logical.   

If people changed on logic alone, no one would smoke, drink and drive, or sleep less than 4 hours a night.  Logically, all those things increase our risk of living a crappy life.  

Logic has its role, albeit small for most people, so most need something deeper, something with emotion.  

People need an emotionally charged reason to change! Something that is deeper than the surface level “I want to lose 10 pounds.”

Why do you want to lose 10 pounds?  What is your emotional, compelling reason to lose the weight or whatever else you want to accomplish that is hard?  Maybe, (for example) it’s to get rid of those love handles.  

Why?

So that you can fit into that outfit you used to wear! 

Why? 

So you can feel confident again!

Why? 

So you take your life back and stop hiding!

Now, we are getting somewhere.  This isn’t just about losing weight but about being confident in your skin and losing weight is a piece of that puzzle.  If we kept digging we could probably find even deeper reasons. 

This is where real change starts to occur.  

So, stop for a second and see if you can find an emotionally compelling reason for your personal change

Pause and Reflect

Try the 5 Whys?

Answer this question:  Why did you sign up for this programme? What pain are you trying to solve?

Then ask yourself why 5 times and see if you can get to the core.  

You don’t need to share this with anybody but put that reason at the front of your brain and call on it when you start to feel like all this work isn’t worth it… trust me, there will be a time when you WILL need to look back on your “Why”.

Find clarity on your  Why!

See You Tomorrow,

SJ