You might say…
“I’ll look hot & awesome, and feel amazing!”
“I’ll have the energy and confidence to achieve anything I want.”
“I’ll feel comfortable in the bedroom…with the lights on!”
And those are all true!
But you know what? Sometimes you’ll feel sad, angry, unsure of yourself…any number of negative emotions. Losing weight does not make those go away.
Life is better when you’re at your ideal weight, but problems (outside of those related to your weight) remain. It’s like if you were to come into a lot of money. You can pay off debt and have a hefty bank account, but life is still life.
In order to lose weight and keep it off, you must learn how to respond to life in a way that helps you get what you want. And as you learn how to respond in positive, empowering ways, you’ll still encounter problems. Life will still suck some of the time. That’s normal.
But you know what? The good in life will be that much better!
When you stop avoiding, or distracting from, uncomfortable emotions by over-eating, watching TV or constantly checking your phone, and you actually experience a negative emotion, you can quickly move through it on to something so much better than a sleeve of Thin Mints!
In the book High Performance Habits, Brendon Burchard distinguishes between an emotion as something that comes upon us and is generally instinctive, and a feeling being how we interpret the emotion. How we choose to feel in reaction to our emotions determines our performance. In his research he notes that “high performers are generating the feelings they want more often than taking the emotions that land on them.”
Let’s say you are giving a presentation tomorrow and the emotion of anxiousness comes over you. You anticipate how the audience might receive what you have to say, whether you will be fully prepared or if you’ll deliver it the way you want to. If you choose to ruminate on anxiousness, it may turn into the feeling of fear. That fear may cause you to procrastinate by eating or checking Facebook to relieve the pressure, even for just a moment, or two, or three…
Now, let’s say that anxiousness comes up and you decide to turn it into excitement. You consider how much people will learn from your presentation and be grateful for what you’re sharing with them. You picture yourself delivering the best presentation you’ve ever given. That excitement propels you to finish preparing, to take the necessary action to get the result you want.
Notice how in both scenarios, anxiousness was present. In both you got to feel good and bad. But in the first example, the “bad” was worse because you ruminated and didn’t focus on what was most important, and the “good” (eating or checking Facebook) was actually mediocre – a false, temporary pleasure. But in the second, the “bad” emotion was momentary and the “good” feeling lasted and motivated you to get a better result.
I want you to be pumped about what life will be like when you lose weight. But I want you to be pumped now, too. Life is awesome. Life sucks. How do you want to approach it? What result do you want?
If you’re struggling to lose weight and keep it off, I can help. Let’s talk!
Very timely Heather! I was just thinking about how some of the pressures are getting me down, and I was uplifted by your comments. Thanks!!
It’s amazing how something will come to our attention at just the moment we need it most. Love it, Sue – thanks for sharing! 😉