Are Your Feelings About Your Body Stopping You From Changing It?

Guest post by Sean Flanagan

Often when people such as myself talk about incremental, step-by-step lifestyle changes, we'll encounter a particular type of knee jerk reaction. For the fun of it, you should picture my paraphrasing response as Carlton Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air:

'Whoa, hold on mister! This small change stuff may be all well and good for people that need to lose 2 lbs, but I need a big change. That means I need to overhaul everything!'

There's a few things going on here'

The main thing is paying TOO MUCH to your feelings of dissatisfaction.
To a certain extent, dissatisfaction is needed to provoke some change. That doesn't mean, however, that you need to be wallowing in pain and intense frustration ' it could be simply the dissatisfaction of potential being unmet. This shouldn't be a self-loathing type of thing' just a 'I know I can do more' type of a thin, like if you can do 10 kettlebell swings with 36 lbs but want to do 12. 10 isn't bad'you just want 12.

The problem is taking the feelings of dissatisfaction and letting them control the show. Rather than simply being the catalyst to provoke change, you let these feelings dictate your plan of attack. This creates an all or nothing type of approach that sets you up for failure.

It doesn't matter HOW dissatisfied you are ' it matters that you have a goal and then incrementally approach it. Let your emotions guide your goal, but then cast them aside and be strategic in the execution of how you approach your goals.

The other logical hole in the knee jerk reaction response for overhauling everything is the assumption that a dramatic overhaul is the key to faster success. This is like assuming that if driving 30mph will get you through 2 miles of winding back roads in 4 minutes then SURELY 120 miles per hour will get you there if 1 minute. Makes sense on paper ' but you're probably going to crash into a tree, getting nowhere fast.

That's the reality of the situation. Your ability to get somewhere fast is governed by your ability to control the journey and to respond to changes in the landscape.

That means only taking on new habits and changes to the degree that you can control them. Otherwise, you're setting yourself up for failure.

One final nail in the coffin. If an all-or-nothing approach has brought you to your current level of dissatisfaction, what is the likelihood that it is going to fix it? Not very high'

Conclusion:

Goal setting involves an emotional component, but a logical incremental approach must be taken to achieve significant goals. In the face on emotion-driven impulsivity for radical change, pursue step-by-step change. Make a list of any change you consider worthwhile ' ten of them to start. And then over the course of the next few months, check them off one step at a time.

Sean Flanagan is a Health, Fitness, & Nutrition Coach specializing in helping women worldwide break from the traps of dietary dogma and to develop the habits, knowledge, and skills required for long term health-first body composition management.

You can follow Sean over at his Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/SeanFlanaganHealth) and you can download his free Ebook 'The No B.S. Guide to Health-First Fat Loss' here at http://fitwomanblueprint.com/special-report/

 

3 thoughts on “Are Your Feelings About Your Body Stopping You From Changing It?

  1. “If an all-or-nothing approach has brought you to your current level of dissatisfaction, what is the likelihood that it is going to fix it? Not very high'”

    FANTASTIC post Sean. Really loved the above quote.

    What do they say about the definition of insanity…? doing the same thing over & over again, expecting a different result…? bingo. Great read, thank you!

  2. Loved the fast driving analogy…. Well spoken. “That's the reality of the situation. Your ability to get somewhere fast is governed by your ability to control the journey and to respond to changes in the landscape.” This is gold, bruh!!

  3. Pingback: Anxiety, depression, laziness...Can the nameless wonder change? - Page 558 | Mark's Daily Apple Health and Fitness Forum page 558

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