Discover Your Why to finally Lose Weight
Motivation for weight loss is hard to sustain. But, if you once you discover your why, you’ll finally lose weight and crush your goals!
Some days I can be extremely motivated, crush my goals, and have such an optimistic view of my future that I can honestly believe my goals have already been achieved. Other days, I want to crawl back into bed and spend the day watching inappropriate sitcoms and eating warm toast with soft butter.
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Motivation can be elusive. Whether you are working on your health goals, losing weight, building a business, or just trying to get through the day, without motivation, you just feel stuck. Even when you figure out how to get motivated and crush your day, you find you have to RE-find it over and over.
That is, until you discover your WHY! Once you discover your deepest reasons WHY; WHY you are in business, WHY you want to lose weight, or WHY you want to organize your house, nothing can get in your way of making it happen. Not even your husband bringing you home a loaf of bread, hot from the baker! A strong enough ‘WHY’ can have the power to make you turn down a cookie, run when it’s 15 degrees outside, or really get out of your comfort zone to make shiz happen.
“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.” Viktor Frankl
I love the quote above from Viktor Frankl because the HOW’S of life, business, and health can be unbearable!! Discovering your WHY, and then learning how to keep that reason at the top of your mind throughout the day can make it bearable when the hard times inevitably come.
A lot of this blog I’ll be talking about business and weight loss. Those are the two things I plan most of my goals around. I call it Health & Wealth Goals. So, I wanted to share some of the way’s I’ve been able to discover my WHY I wanted to lose weight, and leave the HOW to lose weight for other articles. (see my weight loss transformation here: part 1 my first weight loss & part 2 The last 10 lbs
Strategies to discover your ‘why’ for weight loss
- Keep a Journal– My journals have been very enlightening. They serve as a window into the good days and the bad days. Even, the good months and the bad months. Patterns emerge from my journal on the days I feel in control of my health and eating, and when I feel out of control. It’s so easy to forget about how truly amazing I feel when I’m eating right vs eating junk food, or more likely in my situation, just over eating. When I avoid overeating, I feel powerful, confident, creative, energetic. The days I overeat, I feel defeated, weak, tired, uninspired, and withdrawn! Knowing this, why do I EVER want to feel crappy? Wouldn’t my life be so amazing to always feel powerful, confident, creative, and energetic? YES!! This “why” is the biggest reason I no longer overeat.
- Talk with friends (or a therapist)– Sometimes talking to your friends, or a therapist, actually helps you to see things in your life that you didn’t realize are there. Talking with my sister about my health goals long enough usually uncovers reasons I might be sabotaging weight loss. Putting that into words can often take away it’s power and help me realize I’m being ridiculous. For example for many years I wanted to be a health influencer, but never thought I had the body for it. Talking with my sister helped me realize I was sabotaging my own weight loss efforts because if I ever achieved my goals, than I would have no excuse to postpone building this business. If I kept myself unhealthy, I could procrastinate my health business a little longer.
- Meditate– Bringing your mind to meditation or prayer can help you dig deep and learn your deepest desires! I choose prayer for my mediation, and God has spoken to me on MANY occasions and showed me how good life can be when I reach my goals. He has showed me through visualization the potential I had for living life to the fullest and really reaching my goals.
- Try out some reasons– This is my FAVORITE thing! I’ve “tried out” so many mantra’s and reasons for losing weight. Most of them didn’t work for me. I always thought I wanted to lose weight to look better in jeans, but for me, it wasn’t good enough. This is a perfectly fine reason, and if it is yours and it works, I support it 100%. The reason it was never a good enough reason for me, was that I already didn’t look that bad. I wasn’t considered overweight by most people. Just “stocky”. I tried out other reasons like I’d live longer, or I’d never suffer from IBS again, but they also weren’t enough to turn down a cookie. It wasn’t until I craved that daily feeling of confidence and power MORE than overeating did I learn my personal reason WHY.
- Take action– Do the work, and you’ll discover your reasons. If you are like me and love the thinking and planning more than you like the action, you’ll never reach your goals. Practice sharing your reason WHY with friends and family to see how it feels. Does it resonate with you? Does it feel authentic and real? Whether you are ready or not, taking action IS the #1 way to learn what your personal WHY is. DOING THE WORK. It will be hard at first, but once you find your WHY as Viktor Frankl said above, the HOW is bearable.
Questions to ask yourself to uncover your why.
- What gets you out of bed in the morning?
- What circumstances give you feelings of hope?
- When you’ve reached health goals in the past (even temporarily), what was reason?
- Who do you know that has shared their why that you look up to?
- Who are the health influencers that you admire?
- What does a day look like if you are living your healthiest life?
- What would be different in your life if you achieved your health or weight loss goals?
- What do you want people to think about you?
- What do you want to think about you?
- What do you imagine happening when you reach your goals?
- How do you want to be remembered by people when you die?
- What activities consume your thoughts and make you forget about your problems and life?
- What are you willing to struggle for?
What are some common ‘why’ reasons people use for weight loss?
- Mine- to be confident and kick-ass at business and life.
- Others could include: A Medical Diagnosis
- To be a role model for your kids
- To look good in jeans
- To look good naked for your spouse.
- To be a mentor for others
- A pivotal life moment that “woke” you up.
- To prove you are the master of your own life.
- To keep a promise to yourself.
After discovering your WHY you’re going to have to find a way to keep it at the top of your mind. In fact, the days that I am not living up to my potential (translation- overeating peanut butter and granola bars), are the days that I either don’t think about my WHY, or purposefully move it to the back of my mind because I don’t want to deal with it. So, writing it down, creating a vision board with it, adding it to your journals, planners, calendar, bathroom mirror- BASICALLY KEEP IT IN ALL THE PLACES THAT WILL STARE AT YOU IN THE FACE ON A DAILY BASIS!!
Weight loss and other challenging life choices will never be an linear line of improvement. You’ll have some dips along the way. You’ll get discouraged. You’ll want to throw in the towel. But, the stronger your reason for staying healthy is, the more good days you’ll have than bad, leading to overall improvements in your health or weight.
Related posts: Once you dial in why you want to lose weight, and how you intend to do it, check out my 11 Tried and True Ways to Stick to a Diet
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