No Excuses November
We are all liars. As much as we like to think we are good and honest people (and most of us are), we lie to ourselves and often to others every single day in the form of excuses:
“…I only have a few pounds to lose.”
“I generally eat pretty healthy.”
“I just don’t have time.”
“My knee hurts.”
We create these reasons because we feel we must justify our illogical actions. It makes no sense that we choose to stay fat and unhealthy when there are so many healthy foods available to us. It is ridiculous to be so fearful of a treadmill or a gym. There are reasons for your illogical actions and we will explore this more later. The sad thing is that after a while we start to believe our own garbage.
We lie about what we want:
Lie: “I want to get healthy and lower my cholesterol and blood pressure”
Truth: “I want to look sexy on the beach.”
We lie about the situation:
Lie: “I just need to lose a few pounds and tone up.”
Truth: “I am 30 pounds overweight.”
We lie by making victims of ourselves:
Lie: “I really try and I just can’t. I gain weight just by smelling food.”
Truth: “I really haven't fully committed to change."
We lie by not keeping commitments:
Lie: “My New Year’s resolution is to run every morning.”
Truth: Resolution broken by January 4.
The problem with lying to yourself is that after many years of repeating these delusions, they become a part of you. When we first tell ourselves something that our brain knows is not true, the brain knows it’s a lie. When we repeat these excuses like mantras (negative affirmations), the brain will look for reasons to validate what we are saying to ourselves. We believe with all our heart and soul that we are incapacitated in some way or other. This can work for us when we want to make a huge change, however, most often in enables us to stay in an unproductive comfort zone.
Being aware that you are lying is the first step in reaching your goals. Don’t let yourself validate poor decisions. This will make you comfortable with where you are and you won’t take action to get to where you want to be. Make those stupid choices painful so that you don’t ever go there again. Fear the pain of those bad decisions so much that there’s no decision to make next time.
One word of caution, however, make the BAD CHOICES the painful part. Don’t beat YOURSELF up. This leads to lowered self-esteem and creates a vicious cycle. Low self-esteem leads to emotional eating which leads to beating yourself up which leads to lower self-esteem…Get the picture?
No more excuses. No more lying to yourself about why you can't. Let's get committed and build some momentum so we have the strength and energy to make 2018 our best year yet. You CAN do this!
