How You Talk to Yourself WILL Determine Your Success!
What if I told you that the way you talk to yourself will determine whether you’re successful or not — Not just on your weight loss journey, but in any endeavor in your life?
It’s a cool, drizzly day here on Long Island, and it’s a ‘light’ one for me on the appointment side. After my appointments are over at around 3:30, it’s time for a quick trip to the grocery store, ANOTHER podcast interview at 4:15, and then a couple of hours of cleaning before I decompress by watching the Mets get back on track tonight. Knock my Mets, and we’ll have some issues that will most likely be met with punishment by way of burpee!
If you’re not familiar with what a burpee is, then here’s what I’m talking about: https://youtu.be/7CAYnShead8
Yeah, didn’t think you’d say something… Now, let’s get to it!
I’m in the process of reading a fascinating book on mindset by Carol Dweck called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. While I just started it a couple of days ago and have a ways to go before I finish, it’s helped to further illustrate that folks have two different types of mindsets: A fixed mindset, and a growth mindset.
A person with a fixed mindset believes that the world, and life, in general, is just the way it is. There’s nothing that can be done about anything, life happens TO THEM, and their gifts (or lack thereof) will determine how far they get in every aspect of their lives.
People with the growth mindset don’t get dissuaded by temporary defeat, and instead look at a setback or lack of success as a way to grow. They’re up for the challenge, they make the necessary adjustments based upon what they learned from their initial shortcoming(s), and in time, they have no doubt that they’ll become successful at whatever they set their minds to.
A lot of us are terrified of failure. That’s why we don’t make the jump towards a goal that’s not easy to reach. For many, it’s going all in on their weight loss journey. Success doesn’t come in a straight line, and many folks have trouble dealing with the ups, downs, zigs and zags that are associated with a journey of this magnitude.
Fixed mindsetters are often people pleasers, and have a sort of Martyr Syndrome, where everyone and everything in their lives comes before themselves. They’re an underdog of sorts, in that there are low (or no) expectations of them, and that if they don’t succeed, it’s not a big deal. If they do, the pressure of maintaining or even improving upon that success becomes too great, and they kind of pull the reigns back on moving forward.
I used to have a fixed mindset. Straight up. In fact, my 100 lb. weight loss journey was a direct result of the fixed mindset I held for much of my life.
After an annual visit to my pediatrician in my early teens woke me up to the fact that I had a current weight and impending health issue, I had a very simple line of thinking that jump-started my weight loss during this period: ‘What are the kids who are in shape doing that I’m not? They’re exercising by playing sports, so, I should start exercising by playing sports.’
Coupling physical activity with my teenage metabolism and my impending growth spurt, I maintained the same weight for the next three years, grew into it, and began putting on muscle when my parents hired a personal trainer to work with me outside of my sports games and practices midway through high school. Unfortunately, I learned NOTHING about nutrition during this period, and did absolutely nothing to alter my diet. I just thought that in order to continue eating all the garbage I wanted, I’d just have to exercise a lot.
Entering college, I was a slightly chubby but relatively muscular 6'0", 215 lbs. When my Sophomore 70 came on the first three months of my second year, I realized that my teenage metabolism had left me, and that in order to lose the weight I’d gained, I’d have to improve my nutritional habits.
Upon my return home during my Thanksgiving break, my friends and family who hadn’t seen me since summer kept asking me, ‘What happened? You were in pretty good shape just three months ago!’ Once I returned to school, my friends up there realized how much weight I’d put on, and started ragging on me about it. My self-talk during this academic year was very negative, constantly asking myself things like, ‘How did you do this to yourself?’ I was also telling myself things like ‘You’re a fat piece of shit. Look at what you did to yourself. Unbelievable! No wonder you’re fucking up.’
Over the remainder of that school year, my grades suffered for the first time EVER, my romantic life went from thriving to nonexistent, and virtually nothing I said to myself was either constructive or positive.
I’m sure there have been, or there currently are, situations in your life that have prompted you to look down on yourself. Imagine, though, that you could change your view on life. That instead of allowing life to happen TO YOU, you started making your life happen FOR YOU!
Fast-forward to today, and while I have a whole different series of stressors, I look at every event in my life as an opportunity. Regardless of whether a challenging situation was brought on by personal negligence, naivety, or just wanting to learn something new, I never let a setback or a lack of short-term progress stop me.
Life is a journey, and success does NOT happen in a straight line! The way that I talk to myself today is drastically different from how I talked to myself when I gained my Sophomore 70.
Instead of telling myself things like, ‘You suck!’ or ‘You’re stupid for letting this happen…,’ I’ll instead tell myself something like ‘Ok, best not do that again! How can we solve the problem at hand and make things better?’ I’ll use this line of thinking and my subsequent actions as a means of practice, and then, getting better at whatever challenge has been presented.
Before you talk down to yourself about a letdown or a setback, instead of looking at both what transpired and at yourself as a failure, tell yourself that whatever’s going on is just an opportunity to get better. Whether it’s your health and weight loss journey, a relationship, something at work, whatever — This line of thinking is much more constructive, and as hippy-dippy as it may sound, it works!
Do me a favor, and try this exercise out next time you’re down about yourself or a situation in your life: First, accept that whatever has been presented is a challenge. Instead of beating yourself up over it, and instead of letting some circumstances beyond your control frustrate you to no end, view the challenge as an opportunity to grow. Tell yourself that you’re smart, you’re strong and you’re just plain GOOD ENOUGH to figure things out, get through it and come out better on the other side.
Sounds dumb, but it works! If you can, apply it to something eating you up today, and let me know how you feel by simply changing the way you approach both the situation and yourself :-)
Until tomorrow!
Sincerely,
Pete Weintraub
pete@weightlossbypete.com
P.S. If you’re READY to make both the mental and physical shifts necessary to lose weight FOR GOOD, then you’re definitely going to want to download my FREE report!
This report details the 5 strategies I personally used to lose 100 lbs., keep it off and now teach others.
If you’re tired of yo-yoing, or if you’re stuck in a plateau on your weight loss journey, then please don’t wait! You can download the report by going to www.weightlossbypete.com/5strategies.
