Something weird happened this week. I shared my personal story in a blog…
And it totally BLEW UP*
Within 24 hours I’d received hundreds of emails, Direct Messages to My Instagram Account, and Inboxes on my Facebook Page. I was overwhelmed by support and am hand-on-my-heart grateful to everyone who reached out. The purpose opening up about my personal struggles was to highlight that:
Mindset work can help anyone with any problem.
Now I have to be really honest with you. While your empathy with my experience was truly touching, I got more pleasure hearing your feelings of relief upon realizing I’m just as imperfect as you are (I think this is a powerfully therapeutic message)! But I have also been concerned about your responses…90% of them were focused on me, when I really wrote the blog for you. It’s often the case that it’s easier for us to focus on someone else’s pain than our own, and it dawned on me that maybe:
“My clients are better at supporting me than they are themselves”
This impression fits with what many of my clients tell me – that they place their family, their work, even their pets, above themselves. Now I’m all for sharing a good story, and I like to make you feel good, but I’m not doing my job unless I actually help you improve yourself! So I want to share some simple mindset strategies for transforming your eating, physical activity, weight, and body-image, as this is what you’re really here for (and plus it’s my favourite thing to talk about!).
This time last year I was supporting The Biggest Loser: Transformed contestants to transform their mindsets. In the first session, I asked the group of 16 contestants “As a percentage from 0 – 100%, how important is it for you to be in the right mindset?” Instantly, one contestant replied “100%” and almost immediately the whole group began nodding in consensus – to these guys, mindset was everything! Part of my agreement with the TBL:T team** was that I could support the contestants outside the show, and it was a highlight for me to have each of them complete the upcoming Mindset for Transformation Program after they left the house; It’s one of the reasons they are still doing well and I believe will continue to do better than any previous Biggest Loser group.
So how do YOU get into the right mindset? Well, for a second I want you to think of something you’re good at. It can be a particular skill or ability, an activity you like to do, something big or small – anything at all…
Now reflect on how you got good at it…
Chances are your answer was something like:
“I just did it a lot”,
“Trial & error”, or
“I learned how to do it”
All of these responses are some variation of “practicing”. And that’s what I want you to know about improving your mindset – it’s just practice! The other thing I want you to know is, while it is work, it doesn’t have to be hard – in fact it can be easy! Let me show you some super-simple ways you can apply mindset training to develop the 7 Key Mindsets that I find are most important for lasting success with my weight management clients.
Now something interesting may be happening here (if it hasn’t happened already)…it’s often easy listening to other people’s stories, and inspiring hearing new ideas, but becomes a bit tougher to apply those ideas to our own story (you may be feeling a bit bored, resistant, or otherwise uncomfortable which is completely normal – in fact these are the feelings we go through when we change!). I encourage you to allow any feelings you are experiencing and read on about developing the mindsets!
Mindsets for Transformation
& Ways to
Develop Them
1. Mindfulness
Turn the TV off while you eat dinner to create mindfulness around eating or put your walking shoes near the door so you stay mindful to walk.
2. Motivation
Create a Vision Board to fan the flames of your desire or set a SMART Goal to begin turning your dreams into reality.
3. Perspective
Develop an affirmation to train your mind into a more helpful way of thinking about anything you’d like (a good place to start is to notice where your thinking is unhelpful and try to turn it around!)
4. Balance
Read my blog Lower the Pendulum and do the related activity.
5. Patience
Read my blog Stills and Alreadys and start an Already’s List.
6. Resilience
Reflect on your latest setback. Ask yourself “what you can I learn from this?” write down your answer and put in place some steps to ensure you don’t miss the lesson.
7. Confidence
Do a Relapse Proofing Plan so you can feel confident in continuing your progress not only now, but forever!
If you give these strategies a go, you will realise the “special sauce” of mindset training…it’s self-reinforcing. This means when you do it you will instantly feel better*** – the reward you get makes you want to do it more. When you do it more, you get better at it, making you feel even better. The cycle continues on, creating a positive upward spiral away from your problems and towards your dreams!
But mindset work is not about changing everything at once – it’s best done in small steps. So I want you to choose just one of the above mindsets that will help you on your journey. Muster up any determination, grittiness, or bravery you need, try one of the mental skills and see what happens…
I’m going to share more really soon about how we can support you to develop the 7 Key Mindsets for lasting weight management success in a more structured and supported way, but for now, I just want you to see that transforming your mindset is possible and, even if only in a small way…
Experience the benefits for YOURSELF 😀
I created this blog for people just like you.
If you found it valuable, please help me share it with them!
*It’s definitely the most talked about article I’ve ever written, and if you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to have a read!
**My requirements for the on-screen sessions we did were that they had to:
(a) Authentically deliver evidence-based messages
(b) Focus on holistic health and wellbeing (not weight loss)
(c) Treat the contestants with compassion and respect at all times
***Nine times out of ten!
