“I forgot to set my alarm”.
“I overslept my alarm”.
All these are unfortunately all too common responses to my question of why clients have missed sessions. There is a lot of emphasis and responsibility on the alarm here, but I often wonder to myself, would you have overslept your alarm if you had to get up to the airport on time for your holiday. Or similarly, would you have forgotten to set your alarm if you had a really important job interview. I am thinking probably not.
Why?
Missing a session may not actually be that big of a deal to them because they are not that committed to wanting to make a change and achieve the goals they want.
Commitment to your goals is the often forgotten part of losing weight. It is extremely hard to go that extra mile and remain consistent with anything without real commitment and real reasons to be committed.
What is it that keeps you eating well or exercising regularly?
Does achieving your goals mean that much to you?
Why not just stay as you are?
What would be the price you would pay if you stopped living a healthy lifestyle?
These are just a few questions that it would be useful to ask yourself, as it can help determine whether you really want it and are willing to what you need to, to achieve your goals.
If you know the exact answers to these questions, great. This gives you that motivational ammo that can keep you focussed to not oversleep those alarms or forget to set your alarm, because it is just all too important to for you to miss an opportunity to get that little bit closer to achieving your goals.
However, for a lot of people taking every opportunity they have to achieve the goals they want is not as important as:
- Drinking to excess on a weekend with your friends
• Drinking every night of the week in front of the idiot box
• Staying in bed an extra 10 minutes and having cereal, rather than get up and cook a decent breakfast.
• Learning how to cook, because a microwave meal is easier to heat up.
• Persevering because they didn’t see success within 4 weeks, even though the mess they’re in happened over 4 years or more and would likely take nearer that amount of time to undo.
• Eating toast at breakfast and a sandwich for lunch, because it challenges their fucked up belief system.
• Making sacrifices and changes to get them out of a habitual rut that is making them unhappy.
Most likely, they don’t care about how many calories are in a glass of wine because the satisfaction you get from drinking it means more to them than the potential benefits of not drinking it.
I’m not saying you need to become a monk. I’m saying that your current habits need to become exceptions and your current exceptions need to become habits.
You can still enjoy a good night out. But how about a little less than twice a week?
You can still indulge in cake and biscuits at a special occasion, but how about not every single day?
You just need to want it enough.
Deep down you need to care enough about wanting to change. Or does being average suit your lifestyle, suit your friends, suit your job and just make life easier.
Is making a change really that high on your priority list?
If not that’s fine, I have no problem with that. It’s not for everybody and that’s cool. I know that not everyone has the desire to achieve that or the desire to change their habits / lifestyle.
I will never ever judge someone for the choices they make because you have to do what is right for you.
Just don’t waste everyone’s time pretending that it’s the most important thing to you. Don’t pretend that you know what you are doing and that you’ve got it all figured out and that losing weight is just around the corner.
People will still read this and say “yeah but it’s not that simple” but when you actually think about it.
It really is
Just take responsibility for the situation you find yourself in. Then either commit to change 100% for at least a year. Or stop moaning about it.
It’s that simple.