Procrastination-by-Inquiry

This is a phrase I just read on Christine Kane's blog this morning and I LIKE IT!  Have you ever found yourself putting off the actual doing of something so you could wonder about it?  Doing it in your head so you could think out the pitfalls of the project...and then calling a friend to see what their take on the idea is...and then doing a quick Google search to see if there is relevant information out there about the project...and then guess what???  By the time you do all that, you have lost interesting in the actually doing...or you have just talked yourself out of it.  Bummer!!

Weight management and cultivating mindfulness are both prone to Procrastination-by-Inquiry.  You do the research and read the blog but you never quite make it happen.

I am a firm believer in visualization.  One of the exercises I ask clients to do is figure out how their life would be different if they lost the weight -- and then create a mental image around that difference. Visualizing that life is a good exercise but not at the expense of living the behavior change IN REAL TIME.

Practice makes perfect.  You are going to screw up with anything new you try.  If you aren't screwing up, you are only doing what you're already good at -- not developing new skills and pushing yourself.

There is NO substitute for the Doing!  Don't put mindfulness off for another minute just because you are trying to align the planets for your perfect success -- it won't happen.  Push up your sleeves and get to work!

Yesterday, I posed the questions:

What if you only had 10 pounds to lose?

Would that change how you felt about losing weight?

Over the weekend, I have been reading Switch. The whole book is about change -- how to create it in ourselves or others, how to get it to stick...

One of the points the authors make over and over again is that changes must be small or people get overwhelmed. They like concrete starting points and a vision for how things are going to end up. But the steps in the middle (the actual change) must be small and incremental.

So what did you come up with? What if you had 10 pounds to lose and that was it. Would you be more confident in your abilities to complete this task in a timely manner?

Would you be less stressed about tackling the prospect?

If you have more than 10 pounds to lose, here is something to think about:

Clients that have a lot of weight to lose (whatever "a lots" is because it varies from person to person) have all lost 10 pounds in the past. They know, from experience, they can do that much. What if I renamed Mindful Eating to be the "The 10 Pound Tool".

To lose 10 pounds, you would use The Tool (reducing how much to eat by 9 bites per day). You would do this until you had lost the 10 pounds.

If you have 30 or 60 or 100 pounds to lose, you would use The Tool 3 or 6 or 10 times. Instead of tackling the whole amount, the weight loss is broken down into a series of smaller, do-able, attainable-in-the-short-term victories. Keep racking up the victories until you get where you want to go.

This has you completing your goal (10 pounds) pretty quickly. Clients feel successful after using The 10 Pound Tool the first time and they want to use it again. Once you've used The Tool once or twice, others might start noticing and commenting on how healthy you are looking. It provides positive feedback for your use of The Tool and next time The Tool is even easier to use.

You get to where are want to go by stringing a series of 10 Pound Tool successes together. How simple is that?

A Vision for your Life

You have heard me talk about goals. It is really important to have goals -- a destination -- little steps you can achieve and tick off the list as you go. Yesterday, I told you it was my goal to get the E-course ready for the offering by the first of the year. That is a goal. Goals give you a sense of accomplishment -- a sense of making progress.

But what about your vision for your life? Do you have one? A vision for your life is deeper than just a goal or even a series of goals. If you could create any kind of life you would like, what would it be?

Finishing a marathon is a goal. You would probably have a goal time you want to finish under.

Moving to a big city, where you could walk to work, run along the linear trails, meet up with your runner friends for a coffee at your favorite coffee house after your training run would be the start of a vision.

Goals are good -- If I choose not to uproot my family and move them to a big city to fulfill my vision right now, goals will help me get started creating parts of the vision that are currently available to me.

If I can picture what I want my life to look like in my mind's eye, I have a greater likelihood of creating that vision.

If your vision for your life is to no longer worry about what you should eat. To eat, enjoy and then move on with no guilt about that piece of cheesecake or bowl of pasta alfredo made with real, full-fat cream. To feel comfortable with who you are and what size you are because your size fits your lifestyle to a T. How would that change the other parts of your life?

Where are you going? It is important to know that before you decide how you are going to get there.