Intention – Conscious Decisions and Creating an Alternative Agreement to Lose Weight for Once and For All
/
Creating an alternative agreement with yourself can support your decision to lose weight.
Everything starts with a desire, then a vision and a story or belief, followed by a decision and action. Everything created in your life started this way. Maybe it wasn’t conscious. Some of us are better at dreaming, some at taking action, some with deciding. Some of us are good at wanting. I have thought I want to live by the ocean. I want to exercise every day. I want to be a better partner and mother. I haven’t reached all of these goals, yet. But if the desire wasn’t there, would it ever be possible?
LEARNING SOMETHING NEW IMPLIES YOU DON'T YET HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE TO ACHIEVE IT.
I have caught myself thinking, well I’ve never exercised every day, so I probably will never succeed at this one. Learning something new implies you don’t have the knowledge to achieve it yet. I can’t look to the past to believe I can achieve something new. What if I create an intention to exercise every day? I then create a vision of seeing myself doing some kind of exercise, and getting stronger. I believe that I can stretch one day and use weights another day. Then must decide to put 30 minutes of exercise in my calendar. Then I need to show up for that exercise. Until I make a decision to exercise every day, I will continue to exercise in my mind!
I can’t look to my past to find that I have already exercised every day. Let’s use the past and gather some data. What have you completed in your life?
Learned how to drive
Graduation from school
Giving birth or adopting your first child
Eating home grown tomatoes
Starting a business
Going on a first date
Painting your room
Buying your first home
Before you drove, graduated, gave birth, adopted, planted, dated, painted or bought for the first time, did you know to do it? It started with a desire to go to school (or your parents desire for you). You had to make a decision to apply to the school and when you were accepted, you took the action of buying the books, getting dressed and showing up. The decision to go to school, made it easier to take each action required to reach graduation. I didn’t say it was always easy, but if you graduated from any class, any school, you had to decide you would. Maybe that decision was unconscious. Let’s make it conscious.
When I decided it was time to lose weight for once and for all, it started with a desire to stop overeating. I wanted to learn how to rely upon my internal compass to finally be healthy. I felt as if something else was controlling my actions. I wanted to discover what thoughts were behind the millions of decisions I made to overeat. I’m not sure I absolutely knew I could stop overeating, but I saw my mother suffer with diabetes and I did not want to go there. I needed to learn how to do it. I decided I would find a program and committed myself to learning how to do it.
Maybe you think making a decision is not helpful advice because you decided many times before to lose weight and you haven’t been successful at keeping it off. I get that. I really do.
ALTERNATIVE AGREEMENT
I want to propose an alternative thought pattern.
This is how I see it. Today you have this unconscious agreement and overeat because it is a habit. The agreement is: “You get to have whatever you want now but later you get to suffer.” The result of overeating is incredible discomfort. You keep gaining weight. Your clothes don’t fit. You see diabetes in your future. Food chatter fills your head.
What if you decided to exchange the elements to this agreement? “You get to deal with discomfort first and look at your suffering in exchange for the pleasure of feeling fueled, looking good in your clothes and knowing you are healthy. In the end, you get your desire to live more comfortably in your body. You will give up the food chatter and you get to think about taking that class, planting your garden, learning a new language.
You still get pleasure and discomfort. Only now you get discomfort first and pleasure second.
You get to decide. This is using intention. Doing things on purpose. Learning new ways. Growing.
Writing exercise to get started:
1. What do you desire?
2. Imagine yourself achieving it.
3. Create the thoughts that support your belief in your ability to learn.
4. Make a decision and write it in detail.
I teach women over 60 who are survivors of child sexual abuse, how to transform their relationship with their past and lose 40 Lbs. If you want to talk to me about anything, send me an email: pat@beauprecoaching.com