Reasons To Succeed

“It’s not motivation you lack; it’s just that you have the wrong priorities.”

Although you may not be aware of it, your mind right now is doing exactly what it thinks is best for you. Yes, there is a part of you that wants to lose weight and change your lifestyle, but you have a lot more thoughts that tell you it’s OK to carry on living the way you are. Too many of these types of thoughts are part of the reason for you being overweight. This same principle applies to every aspect of our lives.

To demonstrate just how this works, ask yourself this question, “Why do you want to lose weight?”

If you have a pen and some paper, write down all the reasons why you want to lose weight, or you can just list them in your mind.

Usually when I ask people this question, and it doesn’t matter what the goal is, they can list five to ten reasons and normally those reasons are extrinsic, which means they are external, material goals rather than something that will change how they think and feel internally and improve them as a person.

For instance, when someone is asked why they want to be rich, the list of reasons is usually something like; so they can buy a new car, buy a new house, go on more holidays, buy their parents a home, help other people, feel happier and less stressed, and look after their family. People normally falter before they can list ten strong reasons and few of these reasons will be to improve themselves intrinsically.

Research by the leading experts on destructive habits, Professor James Prochaska and Professor Carlos DiClemente, shows that to build the motivation you need to maintain a challenging habit, like weight loss, your reasons to succeed need to far outweigh the reasons, or excuses, that you give yourself not to stick to the habit, and the more reasons you have the greater your chances of success.

The reasons to succeed and the excuses you give yourself, which we cover in the chapter Smash the Excuses, are two of the fundamental elements of the Transtheoretical Model of Behavioural Change, developed in the 1980’s by Prochaska and DiClemente. Their model of change has a proven 60-75% success rate for helping people find the motivation they need to give up life challenging habits, such as smoking, taking drugs, and overeating. Impressive statistics, especially considering the doctors never ask the participants involved to stop smoking, taking drugs, or go on a diet. 

Instructions

The objective of this exercise is to create a list of reasons why you need to, want to, and have to lose weight and keep it off for the long term. This will add Value to the Motivation Equation and reduce the Delay.

Take some time to list every benefit you can think of to achieve your weight loss goal and maintain the habit of a healthy lifestyle thereafter. Remember, it’s important to try and list intrinsic as well as extrinsic reasons.

Here are some questions to get you thinking:

How will it affect your health?

• Reduce the risk of arteriosclerosis
• Improve bowel regularity
• Experience fewer illnesses
• Reduce the risk of diabetes
• Improved resilience to Covid-19

How will it affect you financially?

• Become more productive
• Have fewer days off work
• Improves chances of promotion at work
• It could help save money

How will it affect your family?

• Be around longer for family
• Less worry for loved ones
• Encourage other family members to eat healthier
• Reduce or stop snoring