Commit to the Process

Today’s topic is all about committing and saying YES to the process of weight loss.

This sounds really basic but we cannot underestimate how big of a deal this really is.

The bottom line is that the first step towards any weight loss goal is deciding, in your mind, that you are committed to making a change. You first think about what you want, then you commit to making it happen. You may not know exactly what it entails or how long or how messy the process may be, but you have a vision for what you want the end result to be and you are so passionate about the vision, that you know you will be willing to do anything that it takes to make it a reality.

Without this first step, you perhaps have toyed with a few ideas for how you’d like to lose weight, maybe you have talked about wanting to lose weight with a significant other or friend, maybe you’ve even tried several diets with limited success, but you’ve kept it fairly non-committal, with one foot in and one foot out. Not everybody is actually ready to commit to the process of losing weight, and ready to make a change. If you aren’t ready that is ok. However, don’t stay in the limbo area.

You are either working towards a weight loss goal or you are not. The limbo area is where you can lose integrity with yourself for setting goals for yourself that you have no real intention or plan for materializing.

You aren’t really fully committed until you have fully decided that you dont want the status quo anymore.

To put bluntly, once you make a commitment to yourself - make it the real deal. 

I like to think about it like when I got engaged to my husband. Perhaps, for those of you that are married, you may identify with this story. So my husband and I had been dating for about 1.5 years when we started casually talking about marriage. We talked about it here and there, and of course, slowly we were testing the waters to see how serious we were with being married. We started talking about some of the details for our our lives would look if and when we got married. We talked about where we wanted to live, and what kinds of things we knew we prioritized and wanted to have in our lives. Gradually, the topic of marriage was popping up in our conversations more frequently. We knew that this wasn’t really a hypothetical thing anymore. So, when my husband finally proposed to me after dating for 2 years- while the exact timing was a surprise, the fact that he was proposing wasn’t a surprise because we had talked about it a lot,  i knew it was coming. At that point, once we got engaged however, that was the definitive moment when the transformation into a married couple started. 

Once we actually got engaged what we were doing was really committing to the decision of getting married. There was a big psychological shift when we learned that we were committing to spending our lives together. And that was a really big deal. Planning for the wedding, the details of the flowers, the photographer, the musicians, the menu planning, the ceremony, those were exciting to plan, but they were really just details - because the really big decision of getting married was already done. We were committing to spending the rest of our lives together. From that moment on I knew that my life was going to forever be different - that we were committing to carve our futures together. We didn’t know at that time all the steps that we would be taking, or all the details involved to plan for our wedding, or even what all the ups and downs that would come our way as a married couple, but we had made the single biggest decision and that was committing to the entire process.  

So I think this is really a great analogy when we are contemplating any big transformation in our lives, and it applies just as much to weight loss. We think that the big transformation occurs when we achieve our goal, when we actually and tangibly accomplish something big. And what I want to tell you today, is that every transformation has to start within your mind. You THINK of it first, you talk about it (to yourself or to someone else), you envision all the potential details of what this transformation could entail, you do your research (look things up online, etc), you get educated, essentially you are trying it on for size, to see if you really like what this transformation could look like for you, and then when you are finally and really really ready - you take the plunge and you commit. 

Some weight loss decisions are really really easy to make. Like when a doctor gives you a diagnosis and you decide cold turkey that it is time to lose weight.

Other decisions are really not that straight forward. Say for example, if you’ve been carrying around an extra 10-30-50+ pounds but you’ve been able to stay reasonably active, you may not have a pressing urgency that you need to lose weight immediately, but you still sense that you’d be have more energy in your daily life if you were to lose weight. Our brains naturally want to stay in the status quo and they have a tendency to offer us a lot of reasons why committing can be scary and why we shouldn't change. Our brains also tell us that we really don’t know all the steps involved and that it would be safer if we can stay where we are and not change because it is a more comfortable place. We also know that we cannot fail at something if we haven’t attempted to do it, right?  So not committing is the easier option for sure. For some people they would rather stay in the “indecision” of not committing that making a bold move to commit to the process. 

As with any big decision, you need to be willing to go out on a limb, and on a leap of faith, believe so deeply that this is what you want, that you will take the risk and go for it. When you aren’t afraid of failure, and you are more excited by the prospect of success  - that’s when you will go for it. 

If you have been thinking for a long time that you need to lose weight, but you are afraid to commit to the process, I would ask you to take a serious look at what is holding you back. What fears or inhibitions are stopping you from taking action? Not everybody is willing to take a stand and make a big change in their life. Not everyone that wants to lose weight is at a point where they are ready to really commit to making a change. And that’s ok. This isn’t about being right or wrong. In fact, it is very good to know where you are in this process, and basically know your own status. 

You know like a Facebook relationship status? You are asked to pic “single”, “Married” and “it’s complicated”, well - what I’m saying to you, is dont let “its complicated” be the status that you’ve defaulted into for your weight loss journey.

Decide for yourself now, if you are ready to embark on achieving your weight loss goal, and if you are not ready, that is fine. There is no shame in that. But just make sure you are aware of your current status. Dont’ stay in limbo.  

Once you feel compelled to finally lose the weight once and for all, the transformation begins the moment you make the commitment in your mind. This is the first step in setting yourself up for success.

It is not enough to just read a blog post and then hope that you will magically get results in your life. If you read this post all the way until here, then you may be very intrigued to decide to commit to your weight loss goal. I can assure you, will never regret making the decision to prioritize yourself.

If this message resonates with you, then I would urge you to make a bold decision to commit to yourself and your weight loss goal.   

xo