Weight Loss Is NOT A Goal

You DON’T want to lose weight. I promise you that. You've been misled about making this your annual aspiration.

Weight loss is not a goal. Goals should be ambitious and inspiring. Is weight loss? Or let me ask you another way – are you looking forward to being punished? Because that’s how most clients feel about losing weight – restrictive food, no freedom and a double dose of pain for frequent, high-intensity workouts.

Firstly, if you plan to ‘lose weight’, how much do you actually care about the goal? How do you feel when you tell yourself that you should lose weight in 2018? Be careful. There is shame, failure, and disappointment attached to ‘should’ based goals.

There is a better way to get results long-term and help you set up sustainable, sensible and healthy habits. A simple reframe can remake your goal into something worthy that is more desirable and therefore, much more likely to be realised. You can absolutely change the way you look and feel about your body.

Look at the emotional driver behind your goal. How does it make you feel when you think about achieving the outcome?

Recognising your good feelings will transition you from a shameful should to a passionate want, thereby creating a much higher likelihood of achieving your meaningful goals. After all, positive emotion drives action far, far more effectively than does negative emotion.

The key here is to pay attention to your physical response to your goal. Does your heart seem to lift? Do you get butterflies in your stomach? Do you feel a sense of excitement? These are the things we are looking for. If you don’t experience at least one positive sensation then you haven’t dug deep enough for your positive emotional connector.

What if you don’t want to lose weight at all? What if you want to be able to create a regular habit, maintain your current lifestyle and work with some simple adjustments to your current plan? What if you want to improve your strength? What if you want to be a yogi or a long distance runner? Or join the police force or army? Explore the possibilities and get excited. 

1. Find a Real Challenge

Make your goal compelling and achievable–yet challenging. Brilliant minds need a challenge; otherwise, boredom will set in and your plan will fall by the wayside. State your goal in writing or print off something you can use to remind yourself. Make it real.

For example:

Do you want to run a marathon this year? Try working on achievable goals like improving distance by 10% each week. Sign up to run coaching. Or join a group that runs. Be realistic – when will you run? Who with? What do you need to organise?

Instead of working out to lose weight, what if you trained to do your first unassisted pull-up? That’s a massive undertaking for anyone. It creates a reason to train and improve your strength. It’s exciting because it removes barriers we may have placed in front of ourselves in terms of what we are capable of. And along the way, you get to create a healthy habit. Again, do your planning, work out your commitment.

Don’t plan to exercise every day at a high intensity. Plan to train 2-3 times a week in the beginning and increase your daily activity. Activities like a 20-minute walk at lunchtime can burn 700 additional calories per week, will reduce food cravings and improve your afternoon energy levels. This is also sustainable and allows time for your body to recover from training.

Weight loss is a horrible term with negative connotations. Look for a challenge that is engaging and exciting. Lose weight or strong enough to do pushups on your toes. Lose weight or run in the City to Surf half marathon?

2. Stick to Positive Emotional Connectors

Make a list of the positive things that will result from achieving this goal. Stay away from subtly negative statements like “I will worry less.” Dig for things that excite you. Your outcome must be something that you look forward to with great anticipation and enthusiasm.

If you can run a marathon, could you then travel to another one in Paris, or New York or somewhere else?

If you train to do a pull-up, does that mean you’re then free to do more outdoor activities and explore the planet? How would realising your true strength help you?

3. Create a Visual Representation

Find compelling images that represent your outcome. Thank goodness it’s 2018. So if your goal is to be a firefighter, you can search and find images of women who are currently working in this field online. Find images that not only show someone physically representing what you want to do but also how getting to your goal makes you feel too.

4. Do Not Feel You Need To Share

Bringing others into your vision by sharing your goal with family, friends and others will create a scenario that fools your brain into believing you have already achieved what you wanted to do. Research shows that people who keep their goals to themselves are more likely to reach them as their brain works with them to change their current reality to match their goal visualisation.

5. Have Patience

Now it’s time to allow the process to do its magic. Trust your body to do what it needs to do. Follow qualified, sensible advice that is sustainable and don’t allow yourself to get sucked in by weight loss advertising. No, it doesn’t work the way they sell it. Educate yourself with credible information shared by qualified sources. Make time to look at your goals and feel the rewards associated with achievement. Do this daily. The more passionate you feel about your outcome the more driven you will become.

I have a few tools to help you get started and clarify your priorities. Try our FITNESS GPS program - over 60+ pages workbook to help you clarify what you want, how to prioritise and get started on the road to success...