Perspective…
I was recently in an Instagram Live and I mentioned in that interview that before we can make any lasting decisions we must remove the connections in our brain that pull us out of alignment of who we are wanting to be.
Change is relatively easy, we can begin exercising, monitoring food, learning a skill, studying a complex topic, or whatever takes your fancy, but the consistency to continue doing it lies in how you perceive your progress. Do you ever meet those types of people that just start something new, work their ass off and finish it even if it takes years? Are you envious of those people? I fuckin am!
Those people most likely learned this from their parents at an early age. They learned how to stick with something until it is done. Conversely I learned from mine the Homer J. Simpson method of learning “Trying is the first step to failure, the lesson is never try!” I wasn’t verbally taught this, I saw my parent constantly fail and I grew up believing that was normal.
I performed poorly in my degree whereas the majority of my classmates did well, even excelled, why is this? I recall asking one of them why our course is so easy for them, his reply was epic:
“Pete, I don’t find it easy at all, on the contrary some of the subjects are tough, but my folks taught me to just stick shit out until it’s finished. Dude, also I have a goal in mind so this is the way to get to it.” His goal was to become an Art Director which he did.
I always thought it seemed so effortless to him and other students but what I failed to see was all the work they did behind the scenes, they were working hard and the results were clear when they’d submit assessments or have class presentations. I never thought how much work they were doing because it wasn’t something I was aware of or looking for, sounds weird right? Well when you grow up seeing no effort living you think that that’s how everyone else lives as well.
Can you see where my perspective was skewed? If you can’t (and that’s ok) my perspective was not based in actual reality where hard is required to achieve anything. Now, shift the focus to fitness and diet and the perspective that this takes some effort, but also an acknowledgement that perfection is not the goal even though the socials prefer you think it is. People fail into this particular trap due to a bombarding comparison of unrealistic standards.
In relation to food, perspective can be the difference between a healthy relationship with food, or a toxic one. Food itself is never the issue, ever, but your emotional connection to it is. Food is to be enjoyed and eaten, not a catalyst for an emotional rollercoaster that leads to a full blow out of thousands of calories. But, more importantly it will happen again and again until you do three things:
1. Assess yourself and your identity. Who we believe we are will predetermine our actions, so we must decide who we want to become, but we must know who we are now to do be able to work on changing that.
2. Understand your mental processes when food is around and be honest with yourself. If you have a problem, admit it, there’s no shame in it. Accepting it gives you back some power to make a better choice next time. You must go deep on this one, don’t just accept it at a surface level really dig deep for what might be fueling it!
3. Understand what and who you are! Here’s what you’re not:
“I’m fat!” You have fat, but you are NOT fat
“I’m lazy!” No, you’re not lazy, you’re either indecisive or slow to action
“I’m a failure!” No! Again, you’ve made mistakes, but you are NOT a collection of them! You’re not focusing on what you learned from them.
“I have no willpower!” Your willpower is not the issue, “won’t-power” is the issue!
“I don’t know how to resist!” Good, resistance makes you want something more, learn to walk away! I have to do this every time I shop at Costco and see the 1kg bag of Doritos.
My good friend and coach Matthew Headden always reminds me that no matter what our identity is we will always align our actions to it, hence be intentional about who you want to become and move towards that!
Talk soon