Yikes! I got an email about a post I did not that long ago from someone who really was upset. It’s okay. The person who wrote it was very polite, but boy they were fuming.
In a recent post “An Important Truth About Mindset“ I said that your mindset touches everything. I also gave some examples including the one that upset my reader which was your mindset matters big time in losing weight. It seems it touched a nerve with this particular reader. I wonder if it was the same for others?
The last sentence of the email was “Care to explain yourself?” and my answer is YES! Of course I’d love to go further into what this means. In fact, the same idea applies to many different topics and I’m thrilled that the questions were asked. Seriously!
First, let’s understand that your thoughts shape your world. What and how you think causes how you ‘see’ events in the world and react to them. This is the old glass half-full or half-empty story. How does this apply to losing weight? It’s simple, how you view the activities associated with losing weight can make a difference in how successful and committed you are. How you view yourself when you succeed or slip can massively affect your self worth.
Let me explain a bit more. Consider this question; what are your reasons for losing weight?
Can I be honest? When I have worked with clients around mindset and weight the first things we discover is the negativity surrounding it. The struggle is the focus, the numbers on the scale decree the success and when the goal weight is reached we will celebrate and be done.
What?? Ugh..there is so much wrong with that sort of mindset I hardly know where to start. Firstly, let’s face it. Losing weight is hard. You better have a good “why” for doing it. This is the reason so many of us end up yo-yo-ing back and forth until something drastic happens to scare us into finally putting a serious effort into it. And your ‘why’ needs to be put in a positive way.
My shocking question of the day? Do you want to lose weight for your scale or your Health?
Losing the weight that is making you unhappy and sick is a good thing; but then why not work towards the goal of increasing your health, rather than a number on a scale?
Let’s face it you can starve yourself on a silly diet and have reduced those numbers but are you living healthier? Nope, so it’s easy to fall off from that goal, get frustrated and angry with yourself and struggle even harder. When you shift your mindset to one where you want to be an overall healthier person and take care of yourself, you will begin to do things FOR yourself like eat better, go for a walk out of love rather than feeling like you are punishing yourself because you have not lost enough arbitrary numbers.
Looking at weight loss from the point of view of something you need to fight with; with a sense of losing out on all the good stuff in your life or with a negative mindset will become a form of self sabotage.
Good news! You can choose how you view the idea of weight loss (and pretty much everything else in your life as well).
Many of us do much of our living out of fear. We fear
- judgment
- losing someone because we aren’t good enough
- loss of status
- getting old
- lack of beauty
- sickness
- embarrassment
- loss of love
And the list can go on and on.
Now here’s the thing. With a little effort, practice and support you can change this outlook. You really can! When you decide to look at yourself with compassion and love, rather than judgement you find that it is easier to do things for yourself like choose healthier eating options. To go exercise your body and your mind. To say ‘no’ to attitudes and activities that aren’t good for you.
We find it easier to forgive ourselves when we slip and that helps us get back on track with minimal fuss rather than a full on binge to punish ourselves.
The truth is we can either let life happen to us and meekly accept it as the way it has to be…or we can change it by changing how we think about what is happening.
I’m here to help you with mindset mentoring. In fact, I have helped a number of women with exactly this in live one-to-one workshops which I LOVE doing. SO much great energy is released in these workshops. Contact me if you are interested in having me come create this shift for you as well.
The best news I have to share with you today is that I have found a way to move all that ‘stuff’ I do in the workshop online! So even if you are not able to be at a live event you can still learn all about your mindset and how to change it. Right now we are in a beta version…meaning I’m testing the program. You can get in on this! But only for a very limited time. After that however you’ll have the complete and fabulous version with all the bells and whistles put in place.
Meanwhile, you have to begin to listen to what your mind is telling you. Too much of our thinking is negative and there is no need for it to be that way.
When you heal your thoughts, you heal so very much more.
