I often think about the thousands of diets being marketed to us, and why we continue to buy into them. There are other options.
Given all the benefits of a holistic lifestyle, why do we choose to spend so much time, energy, and hard-earned money on diets that are no more than quick fixes? Programs that sell people on superficial results but are built on deprivation and drastic habit change, making lasting results unrealistic.
This is something that every one of us, in one way or another, has wrestled with. Because when it comes to changing our bodies, feeling less stressed, making more money, improving our relationships, and having a better relationship with ourselves, we’ve been trained to look to someone else for all the answers. To consult the experts, to search the web, to attend a class or buy a program.
Why Do We Endlessly Search?
It helps to understand how the human brain works.
I'm going to focus on just two parts of the brain that control behavior and emotion. Both are important, but one speaks more loudly than the other.
When faced with a problem, the mind immediately goes to work to solve for it. Your brain’s wired for efficiency, so it will try to solve matters quickly, while expending as little energy as possible.
One part of the brain is considered higher-thinking. It's more evolved and is responsible for setting goals, making future plans, logical thinking, managing emotions, and strategy.
There is also a lesser-evolved, "louder" part of the brain that is associated with stronger emotions and responding to urges. It also assigns emotional meaning to everything you do, making sense of things.
It’s your job to manage these two parts.
Without proper management, you will naturally default to quick fixes. Quick fixes usually feel like a solution but in reality they aren’t. They are responses to urges and do not involve a lot of planning.
The less-evolved brain will make decisions that meet these criteria:
…it takes as little time as possible.
…it feels good all the time (And when it doesn’t, this mean that something’s gone horribly wrong, and you need to change course)
…your success happens in a linear fashion, with no sidetracking, bends or turns.
When any one of these criteria are not met, you think these are good reasons to give up and find the next best solution.
And the cycle continues.
These are the innate reasons that humans search and struggle to accomplish meaningful goals.
This cycle is really normal, and will likely be your continued pattern unless you challenge yourself to think and act differently.
How Do You Challenge the Way You’ve Always Thought?
You become the expert on you.
You decide to break the cycle of searching somewhere out there for the latest trends to solve your problems.
This is about getting more comfortable with asking yourself for answers first, before seeking solutions elsewhere. It’s about asking what you already know and what you can implement right now.
It’s about identifying what you’re struggling with and knowing what resources you have already.
This isn’t a quick fix. Your lesser-evolved brain will not favor this route. Because it doesn't have that one time cross-it-off-the-list kind of satisfaction. This solution isn’t as easy as the click of a BUY NOW button.
Because the truth is (and this is not what most programs won’t tell you) that those actions are just the beginning.
Meaningful change starts with being intentional. It's about listening to your body, and using it as a guide for building habits that feel like a natural extension of who you are. Those are the habits that help you lose weight, gain muscle, heal from or prevent chronic disease, make more money, and improve relationships.
Intentional habit creation feels good because:
- While you’re applying intentionality to one area of your life, your mind is implementing these same tools in every area of your life. You start seeing amazing, unexpected results along side the ones you've been focusing on.
- While change isn’t always easy, when you become the expert on your life, you start creating impressive new results with greater ease, and with a lot less mind drama than you’re used to.
- Your progress won’t be linear, and you learn to be okay with that. Results lead you to new growth. Even when there are setbacks, what you learn propels you forward. You see healthy changes in your body, you relate differently to experimentation with healthy habits, and you having fun while doing it.
I teach people a back-to-basics approach to their body- and health-related goals. I teach people to have a better relationship with themselves, so the whole process feels good. When you become an expert on you, you won’t have to search for what to do next. You spend less time thinking about food, counting calories and worrying about whether you're doing it right.
Your body is not a problem to be fixed.
The sooner you give up the search, the happier you’ll be.
This does not mean that you are stuck and cannot change. It just means that change can be a natural extension of who you already are.
If you want that and don’t know where to start, book a consultation. This is a mini-coaching session with no obligation to buy a thing. In fact, I won’t even mention what I offer unless you want to hear about it. 😊
It’s 45 minutes for you to come away knowing yourself a little better, and have a clearer idea of the patterns that are working for you, and which ones are not. This is your invitation.