One thing that people who are looking to lose weight often tell us is how much effort they find the things that they need to do to lose weight.
A paradigm-shift that we often try and take with people like this is to look at these changes as not being more effort, just different effort.
Generally speaking, the things they need to do are no more effort then what they’ve been doing already, it is just applying and directing this effort in different directions.
An easy way to make this mental shift is to imagine you’d always done the things that you’re needing to do to make these changes, and that instead, you’re required to make the changes to the old life-style you’ve been living, the one you’re looking to leave behind.
So, if the changes require you having breakfast imagine you’d always had breakfast and now the change is to not have breakfast.
For some who’d always eaten breakfast not having breakfast would be more of an effort, because they would have to go hungry and low in energy and to go and source a (probably unhealthy) snack mid-morning.
If having healthy food in the house needs more of an effort, consider yourself someone who’s always had healthy food in the house and now you have to get unhealthy food in.
You have to make a special trip to the shop to get some unhealthy food. You have to go down the aisles of the supermarket that you wouldn’t normally go down and you have to spend money in getting this unhealthy food in.
If going to the gym is something you consider as an effort, again consider what you’ve been doing with this time already. Imagine yourself to be someone who’d always went to the gym straight from work, but instead you decided that you need to become someone who goes straight home and watches an extra hour of TV. That would be not more but different effort.
Drinking more water is the same. Imagine you’re someone who’d always drank a lot of water and for some reason you have to drink a lot less. That would seem like more effort: you’d have to go through being thirsty more.
I think I’ve generally made the point here. The things you need to do to help you get your health, fitness, and weight-loss goals are not necessarily more effort, just different effort.
Next time you catch yourself thinking that these things are more effort, imagine you’d always done them and you’re now, for some reason, you’re making the opposite change.
