Goal Obsession has been created to show people the way to approach life, achieve goals, and time management for working from the home economy. Here is the question: why am I, as a person who speaks about those points, can’t even follow her own challenge (referring to 100day challenge )?
Let’s speak about it.
All in… all out mindset
Did you ever have a new year’s resolution? For how long did you follow it?
The best and most common example of this one is getting a better shape. There is a lot of research has been done about this specific new year’s resolution. It shows that 43% of people expect to give up their goal after just one month following their diet and exercise program. The main reason it’s very strict programs.
I have seen many examples of this behavior in me, my friends, and my family.
This is how it goes:
- We eat whatever we eat. It can be healthy or full of junk food like chips and candy.
- At some point, we get to the mirror and see that extra pounds/kilos on belly/things/love handles.
- We find a YouTube video about the “magic” diet. We decided to follow it. Most of the time, its very strict and dictates what to eat and whatnot, the number of calories you can consume + we also know that we need exercise to speed up the results, we add those.
- Two weeks in, we start to have crazy cravings, we getting lazy to do exercise… but we continue going.
- After one month of torture, on Saturday night, we forget about everything and start binge eating. If we are strong enough, we continue exercising, and on Monday, we come back to the diet, but it will continue happening every second weekend (if not more often) or so.
Three or four-month later, if we lucky/strong enoght we are going to see results. But all the journey, we had cravings, feel sluggish and low energy, every exercise will start with negativity and hatred. So, at the moment, we see in the mirror what we want, there is a 90% possibility we come back to the way we were eating before the journey and stop doing any type of exercise, reversing all the achievements to where we came from.
Fun, right?
Habit approach
Consistency is a “magic key” to success
Now let’s review different way of achieving your goals without them get reversed.
One more time, I will use the “getting in shape” example, as it’s more simple to understand (in my opinion).
Wouldn’t be nice to continue eating whatever you want and actually enjoy exercising? You probably will tell yourself it’s impossible. BUT WAIT!
Yes, you WILL NEED to make adjustments to your diet, but not all at once.
For example, if you love chips ( like me ), just limit their amount and how often you eat them. Every time you want some chips, take a handful of them, not half a pack. Every month try to eat less often. Doing just these two actions, at some point, you will lose the cravings of it altogether.
It seems unrealistic now, but when you see any type of food as evil and try to restrict yourself from eating it forcefully, your inner child will want it more. And the opposite, when you see any food as just another food that you can eat at any time you wish to, the cravings get lower.
For the last couple of years, I have been fighting this unhealthy good-evil food relationship, and finally, I am in “food heaven”. I am eating whatever I want and getting in shape. Yes, it takes more time to achieve the reflection in the mirror that I desire, but I feel happy, full of energy, and healthy, which is more important (and what I didn’t feel before, following those restrictive diets).
You WILL NEED to learn cooking for yourself, but it doesn’t need to be fancy.
I hate cooking.
Well, sometimes I do have the inspiration to cook something interesting that can take me over an hour, but it happens very NOT OFTEN. I am always looking for 10min recipes. Something speedy and straightforward. Currently, I am using the 8fit app to find those. They have a lot of fast, simple, and, most importantly, delicious recipes.
And you know what the best part of cooking our own food is?! Natural food will give you so much energy than those chips and candies.
You WILL NEED to find the exercise that you like.
If you want to enjoy exercising, you need to find an exercise that you like and will want to do every day or so. It can be yoga, it can be pilates, gym, running, spinning, or simply walking. My favorite trainer, for example, is Tracy Anderson. I love her workouts, and every day looking forward to working out with her (she has an online studio subscription and prerecorded video programs).
Of course, every exercise type you choose will define the speed of achieving the results you are looking for, the same as how often you will have a craving, but when you are happy and don’t feel restricted, you will be more consistent, and consistency is the key to success.
Conclusion
Moving from the “getting in shape” example to my goal of “getting used to content creation,” I am making sure that I am writing/creating content when I want to. This way allows me to enjoy the process of creation, and THAT leads me to WISH to create more.
When we start building a habit/consistency/discipline for something that we have never done before, it is obvious – at the beginning, it will be especially difficult, and we are going to meet a lot of inner resistance. If we are going to push ourselves too hard, we will generate hatred for it. But if we approach it from self-love, give ourselves space for mistakes and weakness, do it with enjoyment, then this action, what we want to make a habit, will only provide us with pleasure, which will lead us to consistency and consistency is a key.
