This Determines Success or Failure

Motivation 100% of the time determines if you will be able to make a long term lifestyle change. If you have negative motivations 99.9999% of the time you with fail, however if you have positive motivations 99.9999% of the time you WILL succeed.

Good Motivation sounds like “I have decided to start eating more vegetables with my meals because I never feel hangry afterwards. I enjoy myself more and the others around me when I am feeding my body what it likes.”

Negative Motivation sound like “I am deciding to eat more vegetables because they are fewer in calories and I need to lose weight. I can’t stand to look at myself or get on the scale and I just need to get this weight off as soon as possible.”

What makes the first motivator so powerful is that you are recognizing your value. You have agreed with yourself that you feel better when you eat healthier and you want to make the change so that you feel better, nothing is based on looks!

What is so harmful about the second motivator is that it has created an idea of war between your mind/actions and your body. Your body is bad and you need it to change for you to be happy. By thinking this way you have stripped yourself of value and created negative self talk.

Living in the modern world I would venture to say most people find themselves using negative motivators. Look at this weight watchers add praising a woman who used disliking the way she looked in the mirror as a motivator.

We are told every day through advertisements and media that our motivators should be based on physical attributes. Images like the one below use minimal wording they sell products subliminally saying, “If you buy these workout clothes you will look like this model, if you eat this food you will be satisfied like this person, or if you try this diet you will find happiness just look at them.”

Think of your body as a child. If you were trying to get a child to clean up their dishes what method do you think would be more effective? Yelling at them every day telling them they are a filthy slob? Or telling them how much you value them cleaning up the dishes and truly appreciate their help? The second hands down. Why? Because the child would feel valued for their efforts.

Take this analogy a step further, how would you want to see your child be spoken too? In a nasty aggressive tone? No, I don’t think so. So why do you talk to yourself like that? Unlike your child you are with yourself 24/7 and determine your own happiness.

So let’s all be really honest any lifestyle change is hard. You are asking yourself to go against what feels comfortable and safe to try something, that in your eyes, may not be worth the effort.

Research shows that this period of forming a new concrete habit has increased from the traditional 21 days to on average 66 days. Requiring more time and effort to work through this uncomfortable period.

I don’t know about you, but 66 days is a long time to work on something with the perception that you are at war with yourself. This is why many peoples’ attempts at making a lifestyle change fail.

So all my ladies out there, if your motivations for fat loss are because you hate yourself or the way your look, YOU WILL NOT SUCCEED. You can not punish yourself into becoming something different. More importantly you are not at war with your body, there is no need to look like airbrushed women in advertisements.

Hating the way you look is not a strong enough motivation to achieve any goal, but especially fat loss.

If what you read resonates with you, schedule a free 15 minute consultation with me so that we can work together to find out what is motivating you. Let’s work together to turn negative motivators into positive ones so that you can finally achieve lasting health.