Tag Archives: motivation

7 questions to ask if you’re struggling with your weight

September 20, 2016 By in Get motivated Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Q1. What would weight loss make more possible?

It might be body satisfaction, better health or more happiness. It is different for everyone, so list whatever it would truly make possible for you.

Q2. What would achieving these things make more possible?

It might be more confidence, more energy, or even being a better parent. Again, list whatever it would make possible for you.

Q3. What would achieving these things make more possible?

And keep on asking this same question until it no longer makes sense, you can’t answer it after considered thought, or you start repeating what you’ve already said. The purpose here is to thoroughly explore the energy that is sitting behind your weight loss goal.

Q4. Now, of all the things you’ve written (body satisfaction, more energy, being a better parent, etc, etc.) which is the deal-breaker or deal-breakers?

Which one or ones pull on your heart, and make you feel that you cannot live without? Be selective here. Which is truly most important to you?

Q5. For this chosen item or items, brainstorm: how else could you achieve this, if weight loss wasn’t an option?

What are all the other ways you can improve your body satisfaction, get more energy or be a better parent, for example, if you couldn’t lose weight?

Q6. Out of all of these new strategies, which one jumps out at you?

What new strategy excites you and really helps you to achieve what you selected?

Q7. What action steps are required to achieve this newly chosen strategy?

Be specific here, and put a timeline in place stating when you will complete it.

Then start.

When you have the willingness to turn your struggles upside down, you’ll likely discover a greater sense of purpose, motivation and hope. 

As all of a sudden, you see more clearly what it is that you are actually struggling with.

[PS. i) Yes, you can still have a weight loss goal, if it is helpful, as part of this new bigger picture. ii) You can also try asking these 7 questions for just about any other goal you’ve been struggling with. Their usefulness certainly exceed weight loss.]

Doing what you love (again and again)

July 12, 2016 By in Get motivated Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

One year ago, I published my first ever blog post. As I wrote then, this blog is a deep passion of mine.

Today, I’ve published over 15 000 words, or about half a non-fiction book.

I’ll be honest. It’s been hard.

Hard to start writing when there is so much else that could be done. Hard to persist with writing when I debate what to write about. And hard to come back to writing when I feel what I’ve written could have been done better.

What’s kept me going is an intense energy and feeling inside of me. An energy that comes from doing what I’m passionate about, and a feeling that it would be even harder to give up doing what I love.

It’s important to understand willpower isn’t something that is ever out of your reach.

Instead, it’s something that grows inside of you when you find the courage, and make the commitment, to do what truly excites you.

Why eating healthy isn’t as hard as you think

January 5, 2016 By in Quit the dieting Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

First, consider these 3 dinners:

  1. Cheese pizza, soft drink and chocolate.
  2. Beef lasagne.
  3. Vegetable and lentil salad with quinoa, kale and freshly grown herbs.

Next, notice these 2 observations:

1. There are some nutritional benefits to eating the beef lasagne. It contains protein, B vitamins, iron and zinc, and is more nutritious than option 1.

2. We don’t need to eat a meal like the vegetable and lentil salad every single night. Healthy eating is compatible with a wide range of foods, because one unhealthy food in small amounts doesn’t make a diet unhealthy.

This all means that good nutrition is far from black and white.

Thinking about food in terms of all or nothing only creates a cycle of aspiring to eat perfectly (unnecessarily), and beating ourselves up when we don’t.

Instead, good nutrition is best viewed as a scale, and best achieved like this:

Step. By step. By step. By step.

The goal is actually not to eat like someone very different to you.

The goal is to eat better than you did yesterday.

How to create a healthy habit

December 1, 2015 By in Change your behaviour Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

Step 1: Decide on a health goal that you would like to achieve.

Step 2: Choose 1 small and simple behaviour that will get you towards your goal. Make sure it is something that you are confident you can do on a daily basis.

Step 3: Plan when and where you will do this action. Be specific and choose both a time and a place that you will come across every day of the week.

Step 4: Each day you encounter that time and place, do the action. If it helps, keep a daily record you can mark off whilst you are forming the new habit.

Step 5: Continue until you are doing this new behaviour without even having to think about it. Research suggests that for most us of, it will be no more than 10 weeks.

The important thing to note is that getting healthier doesn’t require huge amounts of time, attention or motivation.

But it does require a desire to change, and a plan to actually make it happen.

Just because…

November 26, 2015 By in Change your thinking Tags: , , , , 3 Comments

Just because someone failed to see the value in what you create, doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable.

Just because someone said you didn’t measure up to some standard of achievement, doesn’t mean that they are right, or that standard of achievement actually matters.

Just because someone said it can’t be done, doesn’t mean that you can never do it.

Just because someone got angry at or judged you, doesn’t mean that you are wrong.

Just because someone believes you are not good enough, doesn’t mean that you are not enough already.

Just because someone said you can’t make a difference here, doesn’t mean you do not possess unique gifts and talents that only you can contribute elsewhere.

Just because someone couldn’t see the beauty within you, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Just because someone doesn’t want you in their life, doesn’t mean that your presence is not the most amazing gift for another.

Just because someone isn’t willing or able to love you, doesn’t mean that you are not lovable.

6 myths we are told every time we watch The Biggest Loser

November 16, 2015 By in Love your body Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
  1. If I am overweight, there is something wrong and shameful about my body.
  2. If I am overweight, I need to lose weight to find confidence, happiness and self-worth.
  3. Weight loss is easy. If I can’t lose weight, there is something wrong with me.
  4. Extreme dieting and overtraining, even though they increase my risk of nutritional deficiencies and injury, are necessary practices because they result in weight loss.
  5. Weight loss is the most important outcome of exercise and eating.
  6. I am defined by the number I see on the scales.

Each of these assumptions are incorrect, ineffective and dangerous.

They do not just undermine why, and how, we should be striving to eat better and exercise more.

They also, very worryingly, reinforce the idea that changing who we are is a requirement for us to be self-accepting, confident and happy.

If you really think about it, why should this ever be true?

We now know that:

The Biggest Loser is now well over a decade behind the scientific world, which suggests that a better and healthier way to manage your weight in the long-term is, ironically, to stop making it all about your weight.

The desire to be the biggest loser undermines our ability to feel like, and be, a winner.

One of the easiest ways to get you to exercise more

November 9, 2015 By in Get motivated Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Is to stop saying “I will” and start asking “will I?”

“I will” implies requirement. You end up doing it only because you should do.

“Will I?” implies choice. You end up doing it only because you want to.

Research shows that simply asking ourselves “Will I go the gym?” is significantly more motivating than saying to ourselves “I will go to the gym”.

“Will I go to the gym?” engages the part of us that is motivated to go from within.

“I will go to gym” shuts the door on that very part from coming through.

If you want to change long-term, step 1 is to find the part inside of you that wants it.

Step 2, however, is all about giving it a choice to keep on coming back.

The 12 steps to setting (and achieving) your New Year’s resolutions

August 29, 2015 By in Change your behaviour Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Step 1. Brainstorm your dream list. Write a list of everything you may possibly want to achieve this year. Think big, without limits.

Step 2: Link each goal to your core life values. For each goal, ask yourself: Why is this important to me? What is it (exactly) that will make the sacrifice, discomfort and effort that’s required to achieve this goal truly worthwhile? If you don’t have a good answer, cross it off your list.

Step 3. Re-frame your remaining goals to capture your motivation. For example, the goals “Go to the gym” or “Lose weight” might become “A strategy to improve my fitness in an enjoyable and sustainable manner, which will be evidenced by having more energy and being able to enjoy playing with the kids when I get home from work.”

Step 4: Decide on what’s most important to you. You can’t be an Olympic marathon runner and our Prime Minister at the same time. Of the goals you have left, decide which are most important. I suggest choosing your top 4, that you truly believe can be achieved together over the course of 1 year.

Step 5: Ensure there is a balance. If all 4 goals are about climbing the corporate ladder, is that really how you want to spend your year? Research shows our well-being is highest when we find a balance between relationships, religion/spirituality, work and generosity/focusing beyond ourselves.

Step 6: Re-check before you commit. Ask yourself: are these goals really, truly how I want to invest much of my time this year? (Hint: If you’re not screaming out yes, the answer is probably no.)

Step 7: For each goal, write a (very) specific action plan to get you there. Decide on the small and simple behaviours you will commit to regularly that will get you to your goal. They should be things to do (go to the cycle class on Saturday mornings) as opposed to things not to do (stop eating chocolate). Consider also any extra skills, knowledge and support you’ll need, as well as the potential barriers that may come up.

Step 8: Create a clear timeline for your action plan. Divide your behaviours into steps you can do on a daily (or at least weekly) basis.

[Important: if you’re not extremely confident that you can do the action plan, read this post, or change it so that you are.]

Step 9: Plan exactly when and where you will do the actions. Choose both a time and a place that you will come across every day (or week).

Step 10: Each day (or week) you encounter that time and place, do the action. I highly recommend creating a chart that you can mark off every night before bed so that you can see your progress.

Step 11: Put a monthly reminder in your calendar to review your progress. Don’t wait until the end of the year to realise that what you have been doing hasn’t worked. If you find that at the end of the month you are not making consistent progress towards your yearly goal, revise your action plan (and double check that it’s truly an achievable goal).

If the problem is that you are not doing your action plan, either i) make the action plan easier, ii) understand and question your thoughts that are holding you back, or iii) make changes to your environment to better support your desired behaviour. (Note: Don’t beat yourself up here. It’s normal to fail – the trick is to learn from it and change accordingly.)

Step 12. Celebrate! Decades of research shows that when you do this process, it works.

That is, if you have the courage to face the possibility of failure, you also have the ability to make your dreams come true.

How to find more motivation

August 13, 2015 By in Get motivated Tags: , Leave a comment

We are motivated simply when we:
1. perceive something as important, and
2. have the confidence in ourselves that we can actually achieve it.

If you’re struggling with the motivation to move more or eat better, ask yourself: why does this matter to me? If I do this, how will my life be different in 3 months time?

Find something that is important to you. Something that truly excites and inspires. Once you’ve got it and it feels right, write it down and tell your world.

Next, honestly ask yourself: on a scale of 1 to 10, how confident am I that I can actually do this?

If confidence is lacking, how can you change that? How can you change the starting line so that you truly believe you’re capable of achieving it?

Sometimes success is not about finishing. It’s about starting. And you’ll be surprised what you’re capable of once you find yourself there.

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