As in, “I’m trying to eat more healthy”, or I’m trying to shift some weight”?
I want you to take note of the word ‘try.’
You see, ‘try’ is a deceptive, tricky, insidious word.
When we use the word ‘try,’ we feel all virtuous and warm inside because well we’re on the way to achieving the thing we’re ‘trying’ to do.
But ….
….the message our unconscious mind receives is —” yeah, I’m kinda interested, but when push comes to shove, I’m probably not that serious.”
The word try provides us with an out. Or an excuse for when we don’t do the thing we said we were going to do.
“Well… at least I tried!!!”
Think about it.
If you’re talking to a tradesperson, you need something done at your house, and you know instinctively whether their van will be in your driveway at the agreed time—just by listening to their language.
If they say, “Yeah, sure, I’ll try and be there on Thursday afternoon,” good luck, because it’s unlikely they’ll arrive.
When you chase them on Friday to find out what’s going on, there’ll be some litany of excuses and rationalisations or some such or another.
“I tried to be there but well…….”
Their integrity is intact.
Because, after all, they tried, didn’t they?!
However, if the tradesperson says, “I’ll be at your place Thursday 3pm,” you know, without a shadow of a doubt, intuitively— THEY WILL be at yours Thursday 3pm.
Hear the commitment in their language?
THEY WILL BE THERE!
It’s a subtle but powerful distinction.
So, start to listen out for when you use the word ‘try’—whether it’s speaking to yourself, or with your partner, or your child.
Hands up if physical exercise is something you tend to have a love-hate relationship with?
I remember when I was a child, my PE teacher told me,
“If you don’t keep your heart rate elevated for at least 30 minutes, then it doesn’t count as exercise.”
How depressing I thought at the time : (
Good news though because today, I have some wonderful news.
It turns out that old way of thinking is not true.
According to research even short bouts of low-intensity physical activity has substantial health benefits.
YAY!
We’re talking about things like walking your kids to school, hanging out the washing instead of using the dryer, cooking from scratch instead of ordering in take-aways.
Basically, it’s living your life like our grandparents did before all the technological advancements, and we became very sedentary.
If you’re thinking
“hmmmm, can activities like gardening or cooking have a measurable impact on health?’. After all, those things aren’t ‘exercise’, right?”
Fortunately, turns out that our bodies don’t care whether those things are ‘exercise’ or not.
Our bodies just love to move.
And anything that reduces us being sedentary is positive.
So, here’s a couple of ways you can add more activity and movement into your day without exercising:
Use a basket at the supermarket instead of the trolley.
Hang your washing on the line instead of using the dryer.
Walk your kids to school.
Take the stairs! How often do you take the elevator up or down a single floor? Cut it out! The elevator and robs you of movement and it doesn’t save time.
If you work on the 20th floor, leave the elevator on the 18th and walk the last two floors.
This sounds weird, but my personal strategy is to drink a lot of green tea. When you’re continually sipping fluids, you’ll need to pee. Often. That’s a five-minute stroll every hour, right there.
It’s so easy to forget to go for a stroll or take a short break every hour, but it’s impossible to forget to go pee. So you might want to try that one on.
You can see that none of these activities is big in isolation.
But start doing them.
Use the old fashioned method – instead of technological advances…. because these do add up over time.
Now if you’re a perfectionist – listen up – because THIS IS FOR YOU!
Having guided hundreds of women to become their happy shape and size, I can let you in on a secret.
‘Perfectionism’ works NOT at all as a weight management tool.
In our heavily photoshopped and diet-driven world, we’ve been tricked into believing that it’s possible to become our happy shape and size by “being perfect.”
But the problem with perfectionism is that it conveniently forgets something fundamental—that we’re human, life happens, and we live in the real world.
Trying to lose weight perfectly is overrated, and it’s exhausting, and it’s the quickest way to self-sabotage.
I know you’ve been there.
Perhaps you’ve decided to go sugar-free for the month, but somehow a chocolate biscuit finds it’s way into your mouth. Instead of enjoying the chocolatey treat, savouring it, you immediately shame yourself and beat yourself up…
“Oh crap, I’ve eaten the chocolate, there’s lots of sugar in there—that’s naughty—I might as well eat the whole box of biscuits and eat them out of the way because “I’ve really ruined it!”
Hello guilt, shame and making yourself wrong.
Sure you promise you’ll go sugar-free Monday (next month, at New Years)……… But in the interim we eat everything in the pantry……in imitation of a bear hibernating for winter.
So many of the women who come to see me have been doing this on high repetition.
So what I encourage you to do is put down the beating-up-stick called perfectionism and I give you permission to focus on…
Progress NOT perfection
We all stumble when we learn something new. When you focus on progress over perfection, you permit yourself to be human.
It allows you to stumble, to dust yourself off and keep on keeping on without the heaviness of guilt or shame or making yourself wrong.
Whenever we do that – the shame, the guilt, the making ourselves wrong – we break our own heart.
I get that progress, not perfection feels counter intuitive at first.
We’re so used telling ourselves to harden up as we shame ourselves every time we reach for the chocolate.
But if beating yourself up was going to work, it would’ve worked by now.
So give yourself the gift of progress, not perfection.
Every time you stumble treat yourself with kindness, remind yourself that you’re human and keep on keeping on step by step.
Because you are rewriting, you are re-wiring years and years of old conditioning and learned behaviour.
Here’s how you can apply #progressNOTperfection to your weight loss journey.
For example, if you’re halfway through your dinner, and you realise that you’re scoffing it down—just remember to remember to eat slowly. In that moment just remember to slow down.
Simply start eating slowly, even if it’s mid-chew…….just remember to remember.
No drama, no, “OMG, I fail at everything!!” “OMG this proves that I’m never going to shift this weight!!!!”
You’re just being human!
Allow yourself that gift and just keep on keeping on.
By focusing on progress not perfection, you recalibrate your mind.
You replace that All or Nothing judgmental thinking…that Black and White comparison-i-tis thinking we’ve learned from the diet industry (which keeps us stuck!)
Be compassionate, be kind, allow yourself to mess the journey up. Have a bit of fun!
And before you know it you’ll well on the way to becoming your happy shape and size, imperfectly, step by step by step.
