Letting go of expectations
For many people, changing their diets and eating habits for good is one of the great challenges of life. We can see this with the success rate of most popular diets over the course of a person’s life. The sad truth is, many will slow down their metabolism by crash dieting only to put the same back on, and then some.
It can also be emotionally draining to constantly have high expectations of yet another quick fix diet, to only go back to our own eating habits a week or two later, feeling completely deflated.
Many of these perceived failures happen because we far too high expectations of the results and not enough knowledge of how we operate as human beings.
We often see women on the front covers of magazines flaunting a brand new body after a gruelling 6 week workout frenzy with a trainer. Sadly they are often peddling a new DVD and will often be caught a few months later looking a lot like their normal selves again.
The magazines are often not shy in degrading them as well, calling them out on their cellulite whilst they are enjoying a day on the beach. This is the sad world of the media though (and another story altogether!)
We as people operate on habits. Everything we do is based around this fact.
Some people choose good habits such as eating good food, planning exercise into their schedules etc, whilst others choose habits of buying the wrong types of foods, sitting down to watch tv, before deciding to attend the gym etc.
We can see from this example that the person who sat down to watch a program will probably not get up to go for a run or workout.
The difference between these two individuals are habits. The first person has pre-empted the fact that to find his way to the gym will require having his/her trainers, gym kit, snack and water ready to go in the car, so the likelihood of arriving at the gym after work is very high.
There is not much difference between these two people, only one has good habits in place, so that success in health and fitness will naturally be very high.
We also tend to live from our expectations. When we let go of expecting to be perfect all the time, looking like a front cover model after six weeks for example, we make room for simple consistent habits to take their place.
It’s very easy to get discouraged after working hard for two weeks and not see any real results. This is because we have very high expectations that haven’t been met. Nothing makes us throw in the towel quicker than expecting miracles to happen every single week!
Letting go of expectations allows patience to naturally arise in us. That harsh voice inside us tends to quieten down and we don’t mind waiting for the transformation to take place, even if it means a year or two years.
So, instead of saying to yourself ‘I am never eating cake, chocolate, crisps, biscuits or any rubbish ever again in my life’. Think to yourself ‘I will strive to add a vegetable or salad to my dinner every single night this week.’
The second statement is much less overwhelming and can be achieved very easily, just by buying a bag of lettuce or spinach, tomatoes and peppers for the week ahead.
If you keep this habit up for a month, add another habit. ‘I will strive to drink 2 cups of water every day this week without fail’. Sounds too easy doesn’t it? This is however, how we build a solid foundation to a successful health and fitness program over the course of a lifetime. Try this method this year, instead of enduring two miserable weeks in January of feeling starved and deprived, only to slowly return to your normal eating habits come February.
Enjoy your day,
Nicola.