It's New Years Eve - Do You Know Where You're Going?

Strange question I know.

A lot of people will be waking up today and will for the first time be thinking about New Year resolutions. Some will take a look at themselves in the mirror and decided they need to go on a diet. That will be the extent of their planning. They'll find a diet and come up with a number of some description about what they want to weigh or how much they want to lose.

I predict they are likely to fail over the longer term. That's quite sad becuase everyone who wants to lose weight for the right reasons should succeed. But they need to know how to succeed and having a plan is vital.

If you've woken up on New Years eve and given a diet some thought, my advice is not to go on the diet straight away if you've not planned your journey out. If you're thinking I've lost the plot, please just hear me out for a moment.

Would you rather start your diet on January 1st, pursue it relentlessly for a month or so and then fall off the wagon at the end? Or would you rather take a slightly slower start, plan exactly where you're going and keep succeeding while those around you are struggling and keep asking you what your secret is?

Now to me, the second one makes more sense.

What I'm suggesting is that you need to know what success looks like to you. You need to have a very clear picture in your head about what success in your diet will do for you, what it will mean for you and so on. The reason being is that you're going to take yourself, your body and your life in a very different direction to where it's been going over the last few years.

One of the things you therefore need to have is a clear picture of your new destination. This will help you to keep on track. It's not the only thing but it's a great start.

As I've suggested, dieting is a big change to your life. The food is one part of it. The tools and techniques to maintain it over the longer haul are the other key part but which too often get overlooked. They need working on to develop them. It's these things that help you when you're struggling. By learning them and developing them they'll help you over the long haul because they'll keep your head in the right place.

The diet industry is just beginning to acknowledge this fact. Get in on the new trend in dieting now. Keep coming back to this site because it's dedicated to your long term success by giving you what you need to get your head in the right place.

Better still sign up so I can keep you updated.

Here's to your long term weight loss success

You Are Always Making Choices

Here's something that so many people don't seem to realise but has a massive effect on our lives. If you're dieting or just trying to lose weight through other means you absolutely need to be aware of this thing.

YOU ARE ALWAYS MAKING CHOICES!

Everything you do is a choice. Your alarm goes off in the morning - do you get up or stay lying still? Do you go to work or stay at home? You do go to the fridge for food or not? Do you go for a walk / run or not?

Now some of you might be saying that you don't have a choice to go to work -you simply have to go otherwise you'll get fired. Well Yes and No. Of course if you don't go, you may well get fired. Especially if you just ring your boss and tell them you've decided not to come come in today because you don't want to.

But if you get right down to, there is a choice. You can simply not walk out the door. True there are consequences that may work against you as a result of that decision. But ultimately that decision comes from choosing. You choose to go.

It's another one of those almost invisible things. Some choices we take a long time to make. Others happen so fast that we don't see them as a choice. But there is point, no matter how quick or small that our brain receives a message and it asks itself a question:

"Do I do this or do I not do this"

Why am I telling you this?

Because once you're aware of what your brain is doing almost unconsciously you become aware that you have more control over your brain and therefore your life. You're not as helpless as you believe.

So many people have failed at diets that they start either in the New Year or at any point because they blindly go to the fridge to grab more food or beer or because they ask for that extra side of fries. What they haven't realised is that they have made a choice. It's not a good choice, but its one they made.

Once you're aware of your mind making these choices, you start to notice them in action and they're not as invisible as you might have first thought. It's like buying a red Ford Mustang and noticing red Ford Mustangs seemingly everywhere. It's just that your mind has tuned into them.

I'm going to talk about this kind of thing more in future posts, but for right now have a think about how your mind makes choices. Think about things you do and what the other options could be. Don't censor them by saying "I couldn't possibly do that". Just acknowledge that there are other choices you could follow. Right now I just want you to become aware of this process in everything you do.

The Constant Chit Chat in Your Mind

Here's something we know is there but we don't acknowledge it.

There is a constant stream of chit chat going on in your mind. It's incessant. It's always there. It's ongoing and its virtually never ending.

Whether you like it or not, it's there and it will keep on going. Basically you can't turn it off. At the end of the day it's you talking to - well you!

The trouble is, we often just let it drone on. This voice is so much a part of our lives that we almost forget that it's there. Sometimes we acknowledge it but do so almost with a shrug of our shoulders and the thought that there's nothing we can do about it.

The real problem is we don't often think about what it is and what it's saying. Because we believe we're so helpless in stopping it we don't clue in to what this voice really is.

As a result: We fail to realize that we do have some control over it

We often think that the voice is us talking to ourselves. That's only part of the story. It's actually our assumptions and habits talking to us. It's also the messages that our friends and families have drilled into us over the years. Every time they talk to us we take it in and eventually it gets added to the language of this tape machine playing constantly in our mind.

I guess your question (quite rightly) is "so what?" and also "what's this got to do with me being successful at losing weight this time"

The voice controls how you think either about everything or about certain things. It could be saying "You don't really need that extra piece of Pizza - have some water instead. It's okay you can refuse it" It could be saying "oh here we go. You know you don't want the pizza, but you're going to grab it aren't you? Jeez have you no self control? It's no wonder to can't stick to a diet".

What it says dictates (and I mean dictates) how you feel about yourself. And how you feel about yourself controls your level of success or failure, especially when you're changing your behavior in areas like diet.

So firstly I want you to acknowledge that the voice is there. Secondly I want you to listen to what it's got to say. Listen to the words it's using. Is it telling you you're fantastic or is it picking holes in everything you do? Is it using different words depending on what you're doing and how does it talk to you when you're thinking about your diet or setting New Year resolutions.

Don't worry I'm going to go over this some more so you can learn to change the voice in your head to help you.