Getting Past What Holds You Back with Baby Boomer Weight Loss Expert Scott 'Q' Marcus
I was just walking Jack, my dog, and found this sign on the side of the road. In actuality, it’s about the size of a business card and I doubt if very many people even notice it. I did (obviously). It was a nice moment in the middle of our walk (which I would not have had if Jack didn’t need to do his business).
You k
now I’m talking to you. Yes, you — no, not the guy behind you. I’m speaking to YOU. Look at me; quit pretending you think I’m referring to someone else.
Now, just stop; it’s for your own good. We both know it.
Yes, I know you’re busy. You have so many responsibilities and commitments. But that’s not going to fly this time. We’re all busy. We’re all overloaded. It’s a matter of priorities, plain and simple. This time, make it work, OK?
Oh, more excuses? Well, welcome to Excuse Central pal; know ‘em all. Got ‘em all right here. “Just a little bit won’t hurt.” “I deserve it; it’s been a tough week.” How about this one: “When things settle down, I’ll do it.” I don’t mean to be rude or crude, but the only time things will totally settle down is when six friends are carrying you away in a box.
Of course, there’s always my favorite: “I can stop whenever I want.” Yeah, right. If you can stop anytime, why did you let it get so out of control?
Do you enjoy unending aches and pains? Isn’t it just oodles of amusement avoiding the dark side of the closet because you’re afraid those unused clothes “shrunk” since you last wore them? Are we having fun now?
And finally, the ultimate kick in the pants: that undisguised glance in someone’s eyes when she can’t cloak how surprised she is by how large you’ve become since she last saw you. Just makes you feel warm all over doesn’t it? Sure, sure, she covers it quickly; after all, she’s not trying to be rude. But for that moment — that one, brief, instantaneous, short-lived, horrifyingly candid, flash — your sole desire is to drop through a hole in the floor. Honestly, do you really want to deal with that again? How many times will you avoid friends to prevent that from happening?
What’s that? You DON’T like those feelings? Oh, good, we’re making progress. But you don’t have the energy to change?
I hear you! But, how much energy does it take for the 24-hour discomfort in your own skin? Or missing out on your kid’s lives because you’re too tired to play? How much of your precious life-force do you waste feeling bad about yourself every thinking moment of each and every day? Makes the effort more worthwhile, doesn’t it?
Ready to stop now? Good. I’m pleased for you.
Step one is stop talking to this mirror; get out there, and take a walk.
In the drama section you discover a film depicting an incident from your childhood that was very embarrassing at the time it occurred. On the cover of the DVD is an old picture of your family. You can practically hear the mocking taunts of your siblings and feel the sting of Dad’s scolding. It happened so long ago, though, that you’ve learned to look back and laugh. That DVD can go back on the shelf, filed more accurately in the classic comedy section, because you’ve changed your belief about the meaning of that experience.
Beliefs are not inherently true – they’re just thoughts we think a lot. Over time, we’ve all revised some belief or other. Here are some common examples:
Your brain is organized similarly to the movie store filing system, with your senses (what you see, hear, feel, smell and taste) determining how you store and access the information. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is the study of how the brain codes these sensory experiences to create a map of your personal and unique perception of reality. Adjusting the map rewires neural pathways, often quickly resulting in profound shifts in feeling and behavior, as well as beliefs about what is true or possible.
NLP is commonly used for rapid relief from phobias, trauma, anxiety, addiction and other issues where behavior or bodily performance is contrary to conscious desire or intention. And because NLP is based on the idea of modeling (if one person can learn to do something, then anyone can learn to do it), it is also effective for accelerating learning, improving memory, and cultivating excellence in any field.
Belief change underlies the process of quickly updating one’s mental filing system. Sometimes beliefs don’t evolve so easily or automatically, creating a sense of stuckness. That’s where a trained NLP practitioner can be useful to facilitate a variety of belief change techniques that may reframe the meaning of an experience, anchor more empowering feelings to familiar thoughts, or change the nature of the thoughts that are triggered under recurring circumstances.
Practice Exercise #1: Imagine sitting in the fourth row of an empty movie theater. On the screen you are watching yourself handle a difficult situation. Allow your consciousness to float out of your body and up to the projector booth. From there you can both observe yourself as you sit watching the film, and you can make edits to the movie being shown. Revise the film until you are watching yourself handle the situation in the most desirable way. Float out of the booth and into the scene so you can both be in the experience of handling it perfectly and see what that looks like on the screen. When it looks and feels just right, allow the version of you seated in the fourth row to merge with the on screen version and run through the scene from beginning to end a few more times. Exit the theater and notice what is different when you think of dealing with the situation for real.
Striving to be perfect is at best a barrier to actually getting “better,” and — in many cases — an excuse or a justification to avoid having to change one’s bad habits.
A bold or unusual view? Maybe; but, as an example, let’s take a common scenario. Suppose you decided to do something about those “few extra pounds” you’ve been carrying around lately. With fierce determination, you emphatically announce that you’re giving up anything sweet, fried, gooey, crispy, brown, sugary, or with even a hint of alcohol. Furthermore, you will start writing down everything you eat, cook with only organic ingredients, read all labels, consume unprocessed nutrients only, count all calories — and, on top of all that, start a daily 5AM walking program.
“I’m going to be perfect on my program,” you boast, with chest proudly swelled, to anyone who will listen.
And you are – until the end of the first day.
By nightfall, the constant drone of annoying phone calls, interruptions, cranky constituents, unmet deadlines, and various other unexpected events has you drained. You drag your tired soul into the house, drop your purse on the table, collapse on the couch, exhausted, and tell yourself, “One beer won’t hurt. Besides, after a day like today, I deserve it.”
That’s true. Those 20 pounds weren’t caused by “one beer.” The extra weight was actually caused by the thought that follows.
As you lick the last remnants of golden foam from the glass, you are reminded of the promise you made yourself. The thought immediately explodes into the forefront of your mind: “Oh-oh, I blew my diet!” There is a pause while you consider your next step. But before you can tell yourself it’s only a minor slippage and get back on track, the next spark that scampers across your tired gray cells is, “Well, as long as I blew it, I might as well REALLY blow it. I can always start again tomorrow.”
Once the dam has broken loose, the remainder of the evening consists of “one last night” of scavenging the kitchen, finishing off the ice cream, tearing into the bar of chips, eating the peanut butter from the jar, swallowing a pound of cheese slices, and — oh yes — making sure the six pack of beer will be gone before you go to bed. You do all these (or at least you tell yourself), “so you won’t be tempted tomorrow. If I can get it all out of the house, I’ll be OK.”
It sounds good in the moment. And when the alarm buzzes the next morning at 5AM, reminding you to do your walking program, you think, “Oy, it’s so early. I’ll start that on Monday.”
You head to work, face the same day you faced yesterday. (After all, aren’t most days pretty similar?) And, at days end, you come home, collapse on the couch — and repeat the process.
The problem lies not in drinking a beer or having some ice cream, but in the thoughts that lead to the actions; as well as those that follow.
For example, if instead of perfection, the goal had been to be “better about my health,” the diet would have been off to a great start on day one. Yet, since the measure of success was all or nothing – perfection or failure – day one fell within the loss column. In a world made only of blacks and whites, a near miss is as bad as big miss. There is no difference. Since we can never be perfect, we will always be falling short. Since we’re falling short, we’re a failure. Since we’re a failure, why even bother to change?
When we “fail”, we seek comfort. Although “bad” behaviors might not be healthy, they are comforting. That’s why we do them; for emotional support. It’s ironic, but focusing on our failures therefore actually increases the odds of engaging in those very “failing” behaviors.
On the other side of the coin, if we can focus on successes — no matter how small they seem — we are inspired, which sharpens the senses, allowing new feelings and, therefore new ideas to move to the forefront of our thoughts. As a result, new patterns are generated; negative behaviors are reduced. There is as much truth to the statement that “success breeds success” as there is to the truism I share in my seminars and keynote speeches, “If guilt and shame were motivational, we’d all be happier, healthier, and more successful.”
That’s just plain stupid. However, to change the results we get, we first have to change our view; because the reality is we cannot change anything but that and our own behaviors. Our co-workers, family members, constituents, council members, might — and I say might — make minor changes to accommodate us, sure; but the bottom line is we will still have to adjust what we do. It is imperative, especially in the challenging times in which we now find ourselves, that we must find ways to congratulate ourselves whenever possible and be less hard on our ourselves when we mess up.
Success only comes in small steps. That’s frustrating, sure; however, failure arrives in a great big clanging, bang, and all at once. The choice of what we call the results of our actions can make all the difference in how well we do what we do.
Strive for Imperfection: Don’t try and do it all, just do one thing more than you did before, congratulate yourself for that. Repeat as necessary.
This post gives an overview to one of Scott’s most popular presentations. You can find out more about it – and you can hire Scott to do it – at scottqmarcus.com/TopicTitles/StriveForImperfection.html
Most people do not seem to realize just how important having a Positive Mental Attitude is in everything that we do. For example if you were to attend an interview for a job and you had both the qualifications and the experience for the job and still did not get the job, then you were either dressed inappropriately or came across as negative. Even if we don’t speak negatively but our body language is negative, other people will notice. Never keep your arms folded when speaking to someone especially if you are attending an interview and always make eye contact when speaking to the interviewer. It shows the interviewer that you are positive and shows integrity.
This is only one thing that having a positive mental attitude will help you with. There are many more such as getting a girlfriend/boyfriend because you are more likely to say the right words at the beginning if you are positive. So how do you gain a positive mental attitude if you have conditioned yourself into being negative. Well that’s an easy one word answer, PRACTICE. Remember the famous saying, Practice makes… PERFECT. I want you to remember that but with a difference because no one can become perfect, we all make mistakes from time to time after all we are only human. In fact change the word perfect to permanent because if we practice something long enough then it will stick in our brains and then it will become a habit. That’s what we ultimately want to achieve here we want to be positive not by force but rather by habit.
A habit is caused by doing the same thing over and over again. To get rid of a bad habit in this case thinking negatively we must 1st replace it with another habit, that is why people tend to fail when they try to give up smoking. They fail to replace the habit (smoking) with another habit I should know I used to be a smoker I tried and failed until I got the right formula for me. So what can we replace thinking negatively with? Quite simply start thinking Positively and make positivity become your habit instead.