I am currently re-reading a book called Essentialism by Geoff McKeown and I can tell that it won’t be the last time either. It’s about finding what is essential in life and having the courage to remove and eliminate everything else that is distracting you.
Aaaaaaaaaanyways, after re-reading the book I had some thought on how to use elimination and saying “no” to help with your fat loss goals. Here goes.
What usually happens when we get stuck with our health and training goals? We either try to train more often or eat more in the way that got us some success in the past. There is nothing wrong with that approach if it works. We keep adding more stuff on, thinking that more is better. It’s helpful to take a step back to analyze why you aren’t having any success or why did you stop doing what worked in the past. What got you sidetracked or what stopped you from getting on tracks in the first place? There are times when more of the same is not always the answer.
What if you would take a completely opposite approach and instead of adding more you would eliminate the unnecessary. You would find what’s holding you back and get to the core of the problem instead of just piling more “solutions” on top of already non-functioning foundation. Think of it as building a skyscraper; how often you think the engineers go “well, we haven’t really stabilized the foundation and the basement is flooding but let’s see if we can fix it by adding a penthouse and an antenna”. I mean, I am not an engineer and I’ve build very few houses in my time (read: none), but to me it does not make any sense.
What if instead you would find one core issue that is holding you back. If you could eliminate one thing, habit, situation or even a person (as in, limit your time with the person, not like really “eliminate”. Because that is wrong. You go to jail for that. And hell. You definitely don’t want to go to hell. Or jail.) that would bring exceptional results, what one thing would it be?
If you always take the same route to work and stop on the way to get cream cheese bagel from Jimbo’s corner cafe, try taking a different route, if at all possible.
Do you always skip your training session after work because you’re too tired? Try scheduling your training session first thing in the morning or during lunch hours.
If you always eat cookies at work and it happens unintentionally when you go to the break room to refill your tea cup, come up with a solution that would stop you from stepping in to the break room at all. That way you don’t have to fight with your willpower as the cookie jar is not there to tempt you in the first place.
All those things are reasonably easy to change, even if Jimbo is the nicest guy around and he’s bagels have the creamiest of all the cheeses. Easy? Tick. Convenient? Debatable.
What can be challenging though is to distant yourself from friends or even family who might have a negative influence on you. You know the type, you always end up pulling an all-nighter of cocktails when the intention was just to have dinner. It’s the type of person who’s presence makes you commit to less than ideal decisions, often. Who’s idea was it to do a bungee jump without the cord anyways?
It can even be a person who’s company, whining and manners make you feel like crap. You get back home, depressed, and make poor decision with your food if that’s how you deal with emotional situations.
In the age of social media we all know the type who is always complaining about something or feeling sorry for themselves on Facebook. Block them from your newsfeed, ain’t nobody got time for that! It will subconsciously bring you down, guaranteed.
It can be hard to say “no” to such people but eventually you’ve got to decide what is essential and what’s not. You can say “no” graceful and not come across as jerk, if that’s what’s stopping you doing it.
The moral of the story is: before trying to do more of the same, think what is holding you back and see if it is possible to eliminate or change it. It might be something as simple as taking a different route to work or it can be something deeper such as dealing with your past ghosts to finally get some traction forward. Once you find yours, accept it and eliminate it, things will start to move forward faster than you ever thought possible. It’s a one step back, two steps forward. Stop pushing water uphill.