There are times in life when we wish to change ourselves, our habits, or our behavior because we don’t like the outcomes and results we’ve been getting. The time might be the turn of a new year, our birthday, a new season, or any given day…like a Monday. To make these changes we need to make a clear choice and invoke willpower.
How do we make a choice and stick with it through the duration of change? How do we sustain our willpower? The first day of a “new you” is often fun and novel. But by the third, thirtieth, or three-hundredth day it can seem daunting, impossible, and forced if you don’t have key elements in place set up for your success.
Most change experts and practitioners agree that having a clear, precise reason – your why – is elemental to your success. We need a larger purpose behind our change efforts to keep us committed to the hard work…or to morph that hard work into easy, joyful work.
For example, my Fruit Til Five™ program is a free, guided session to live the high-fruit lifestyle for a week. Many people love the session, succeed for seven days, yet can’t sustain this method as a lifestyle simply out of the desire to eat a simple, clean, nutritious diet. They need a bigger WHY like:
- the reversal or prevention of disease,
- global environmental resource conservation,
- humanitarian compassion to feed more people,
- desire to be a good role model for their impressionable children,
- protect the sentient lives of animals, or
- to foster spiritual growth.
Basically, we want to feel freedom from the things that scare us and/or alignment with the things that bring us joy. We want to be someone we can stand to be around 24/7/365. These larger reasons & feelings are embedded into The Healers Diet™, my 23-day online course, in order to give WHY to the Fruit Til Five™ instructional HOW. One without the other is futile. If you have committed to living a life of integrity and of greater service, then every time you eat, choosing fruit & vegetables becomes an easy and effortless practice of your core commitments. HOW you eat is motivated & sustained by WHY you choose the foods of transformation that you do. A positive mindset connects your HOW and WHY to create success.
Tony Robbins has a terrific formula for creating breakthroughs and personal shifts based on three elements (on which I have expanded):
- Story – your beliefs – the past – WHY
- State – your present state of mind – now – positive or negative
- Strategy – getting from where you are now to where you want to be – the future – HOW
We all tell ourselves stories about our lives and the world. It’s how we make sense of life, people, and events. Sometimes these stories or beliefs block us like “I’m genetically predisposed to being overweight” or “As we age, we gain weight and our bodies fall apart.” If you believe this, then your state of mind will be one of chronic defeat & hopelessness. Any strategy you choose to loose weight or stay healthy will result in failure as a process of reinforcing your story. Even if we see and know people around us who defy our stories, we think they are special, lucky cases, or freaks of nature.
With an open & curious mind, you can change your story by learning new information about healing foods, experimenting with your own body, and collecting your own data. Put yourself into your own food lab and test new theories to help narrate a new, liberating, and empowering story. A positive state of mind is essential for positive change. Are you seeking liberation from old self-defeating patterns? Are you fed up with undesirable results? Are you tired of beating yourself up for being less than you know you could be? Your positive state of mind can put you on a completely different and new road to success. If you can’t mentally shift your state of mind, then go exercise…walk, run, dance, yoga, swim….or pray/meditate on gratitude. The chemicals generated by movement or meditation physically alter your state of mind and you can’t help but become more positive.
A new story (why) + positive mindset + strategy (how) + time = success
As Jonathan Fields so succinctly stated “Everyone wants to own the results, nobody wants to own the process.” The process can be daunting, however with a positive, curious state of mind, a clear and precise reason, and a new strategy, the process can be educational, rewarding, and life-changing. It might even be fun!
Self-discipline, self-regulation, self-control, willpower….call it what you want. Mark Manson brilliantly narrows down the nuances between will power and self-discipline and I believe him when he writes that for long-term change you need solid self-discipline. Willpower gets you started. You need these to evoke change or breakthroughs and there is no side-stepping, by-passing, or skirting them.
Did you read that? There is no short cut, fast pass, or fairy wand. Magic pills, quick solutions, and lofty promises are hollow, empty, and temporary fixes that waste money and create larger problems to solve in the long run. Owning the process is key to lasting change.
I’m working through personal change using this exact method. My goal: remove the last several animal based foods from my diet. Why? Because I have no logical reason to include any animal foods in my diet. There are no animals less worthy of compassion than any other. So no more Caesar salads (parmesan, anchovies), fried eggs in butter on Saturdays, or seafood for me after years and years of not eating mammal or bird meat.
New story: I can joyfully & actively practice my belief that all animals are worthy of compassion by not eating any animal foods. I believe this!
New state of mind: Curious to see how this 100% animal-free (I Am Not Vegan) approach impacts my body & soul. Happy & relieved that I’m living 100% in accordance with my beliefs. I can do this!
New strategy: Finding new nutritious animal-free recipes. Evoking self-discipline & will power. Reminding myself of my new story, my updated why.
These are some of the new cookbooks that I have invested in to support my strategy. (Click images for more information.)
This delicious vegan Caesar salad has been a wonderful substitute making it easier than I thought to let go of my old beloved Caesar recipe.
When hubby offers to cook for me my favorite comfort food of fried eggs and toast on Saturday mornings, I lay in with the willpower. I’m planning to substitute with a warm tomato sandwich using either Just Mayo or mashed avocado. A savory Saturday breakfast is a treat and tradition that demarcates the weekend for me. (My Food Diary has been instrumental in keeping me on track.)
Restaurant choices have narrowed even more as I’ll no longer use seafood or cheese as a fall-back option. No more occasional Greek salads with feta, Bibb salads with crumbled blue cheese, or Spring rolls with shrimp. This is hard on my family because my commitment to change limits their dining out choices. But this also means that I’m trying new recipes from my new cookbooks so that we can eat new & more animal-free meals at home.
As you can see, what is required of a person to change has been on my mind a lot lately. For years I’ve eaten an 85-95% animal-free, high fruit diet and it’s been relatively easy and enjoyable. Now it’s not as easy, yet I’m determined to make it enjoyable and nutritious. I’ve dipped into more nuts, seeds, and grains than I prefer in order to stay animal-free and I look forward to easing up on these ingredients to keep my fat intake levels healthful and my grain intake minimal.
Writing a new story, keeping a positive state of mind, utilizing a new strategy, evoking self-discipline and willpower, and owning the process has helped me realize that life is the carrot. There is no finish line, trophy, or golden carrot waiting at the end. The process is where the magic happens and the real change occurs. In the process of seeking a new result, I become a different person and that’s the real reward.
Sharpen your mind.
Strengthen your body.
Expand your soul.
Resist the instant gratification that leads to immediate guilt & disappointment. Practice delaying gratification and hold out for what you really want: a journey of self-expansion that helps you live a more authentic and integral life with the results you want.
It’s time to stop with the excuses. Our old story and our less than postive mindset are the only things in the way of success. You can do this!
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