Shape the Path

We’ve discussed how to direct the rider and to motivate the elephant but the third essential component to successful change is being in an environment that is conducive to your success.

Quite often what looks like a people problem can really be an environment problem.

You could stick the smartest, most disciplined, highly motivated individual in an ice cream store and at some point, if you wait for long enough, they’ll be scoffing ice cream as if their life depended on it.

So tweak your environment to support you not sabotage you.

If you have 3 packets of tim tams in your fridge and cupboard, they need to go before you eat them. If you have trouble getting up in the morning, place your alarm clock on the other side of the room. If you need to exercise before work, set out your gym clothes ready to go the night before. It’s much easier to complete a task that you’ve already begun than to begin a new one.

Tweaking your environment is a major theme in the book “Mindless Eating” where they share several major strategies to prevent over eating. Studies have emphatically shown that simply using smaller bowls and plates, avoiding watching tv or reading a book whilst eating and actually eating on your own rather than with company make major differences to the amount of food we eat. Are the people who watch tv whilst eating dinner gluttons because they eat more or do they simply have an environment problem?

The next thing is to build habits. Habits are actions that we perform without thinking. When undertaking change, you are making a lot of new decisions and constantly monitoring your behaviour. This will drain you of the energy to continue to make the right choices and deplete the motivation of your elephant. That’s where habits are so important. They are almost unconscious actions that don’t drain you of mental energy. An example would be to build your gym routine into your other routines, say when you drop the kids off at school you go to the gym immediately after. Drinking a glass of water 10 minutes before you eat every meal will help you to ensure you’re getting sufficient water each day and prepare your body for digestion. These rituals are simple and can be completed with a minimum of mental and physical effort.

The final strategy to ensure you successfully complete your change is to rally the herd. It is said that we are the average of the 5 people with which we spend the most time. So who are the lucky people you are spending your time with?

If you want to achieve a change, you should spend more time with people who have achieved what you want to achieve. If your goal is to run a marathon, do you think if you spend the majority of your time with people who have run marathons before and will be running again that you’d be a better chance to succeed, than if you spend all of your time with people who never run? Of course. Do you think if you spend more of your time with people who are fit and healthy that you’ll become more fit and healthy? Naturally. Studies have proven this to be the case.

You can also rally the herd by making yourself accountable to the people around you. Once you’ve decided upon your goal, share it with those around you. It’s amazing how helpful people can be if you tell them what help you require. If they don’t know what you’re trying to achieve, they can’t help you.

So even if you’ve failed in your previous attempts to achieve your health and fitness goal, I want you to try again. You may not be the lazy, unreliable, undisciplined person you thought you were, you may have simply had an environment problem. So tweak your environment, build good habits and rally the herd and try again!

Motivate the Elephant

To motivate the elephant there are three key considerations that will get it moving. 

The first is you have to find the feeling that will spark the action. This is a very individual consideration. What is that will inspire you to action? What feeling are you seeking?

A big part of this comes from establishing your own identity. Who are you? How do you view yourself?
How would you like others to view you?

       

I’ll provide a couple of examples to get you going.

      1) I’m a 39 year old mother of 2 young children and I am desperately keen to be the role model for my children that they deserve. If I can successfully achieve my own health and fitness goal, it will be a major boost to my own confidence and I will demonstrate to my children how to persist to achieve a goal as well as live healthy lives. This will make me a better mother.

      2) I am a businessman who has worked hard to achieve a high status at work but have neglected my health to achieve this. Playing basketball with the guys at work has really highlighted how far I have let myself go and the guys have made a few jokes about my body shape and performance that whilst I have laughed off, have stung me deeply. I’m gonna work as hard on my health now as I have at work and show them what I’m capable of. I can dominate on and off the court if I put my mind to it.

Note: these motivating feelings are inextricably linked to your own personal sense of identity. Know yourself and conquer your journey.

Second, a key strategy to stay motivated is to shrink the change. The prospect of suddenly and drastically changing your life to accommodate exercising 5 times per week, organizing all of your meals and doing daily meditation is daunting to anyone. There is so much to change, where do I start? How will I ever finish? This is hopeless and impossible. Game over.

By shrinking the change, you are setting yourself manageable goals. Can I eat 42 perfect meals this week? No way! Can I eat breakfast every day this week? Yeah! Can I walk for 25 minutes on my lunch break? Damn straight.

You need to shrink the goal to the point that you are 100% confident that you can achieve it. Once you’re convinced that you can do it, write it down and commit to it. Winning a war requires winning a series of smaller battles. Win enough battles and you’ll win the war. The secret is to engage in battles that you can win.

The second way to increase your confidence is to grow yourself.

ME        vs        TASK     = Lack of confidence

ME       vs        TASK     = Confidence

ME    VS      TASK     = Confidence

ME     vs       TASK      = Extreme confidence

If you think about the David and Goliath story, how many of us would have stepped up to fight in David shoes and how many would have been happy to fight in Goliath’s? I’d wager that Goliath would’ve been more confident, perhaps over confident. The fact that Goliath lost is irrelevant, what matters is that he was confident enough to have a go. You can’t win if you don’t play.

Growing yourself is strongly tied in with the identity that we discussed earlier. Do you perceive yourself to be the type of person who succeeds when confronted with challenges? That you are disciplined when faced with distractions.  That you persist when faced with hurdles. You need to draw upon examples in your life where you have demonstrated that you are successful, disciplined and persistent.

So to motivate your elephant, you need to find the feeling that will inspire you and ensure you are confident that you can complete the tasks.

So we’ve directed the rider and motivated the elephant, but their success can still be railroaded if we haven’t cleared the path.

Directing the Rider

In the previous blog we identified that the rational side of our brain can be likened to a rider of an elephant. Today we will show you how to direct your rider to success.

In directing your rider, we must first help him to find the bright spots and demonstrate that you are capable of discipline, persistence and resilience. Have you completed school? A university degree? Do you have a partner? Held down a full time job? These are amazing achievements that require endless amounts of persistence and resilience. So many obstacles must be overcome for years at a time. Had kids? You're amazing! You can do anything you put your mind to.

Other bright spots to look towards are perhaps the times in your life where you have felt fit, healthy, energetic and vibrant. What were you doing then? What was working for you? Try to replicate those circumstances or at least the key principles behind them.

The next step that is critical for your rider is to direct the critical moves. You need to have some non negotiables in place that will ensure you stay on track and get the results that you require. These are key considerations that you can turn to in a crisis. They are clear and measurable with no room for confusion. Remember, inaction can look like laziness but often it is confusion.

Your critical moves should take into consideration your movement, nutrition and rest/stress management. Obviously professional advice for you as an individual would be ideal, but some critical moves may include:

• Movement ideas might be to ensure you are taking 70,000 steps per week and completing 2-3 sessions of a structured weight training program per week. (tip: always record your reps and weights to keep you on track
• For nutrition you might pledge to eat breakfast every day and ensure you include a source of protein, vegetables and omega 3 in every meal. You might record your food diary and have designated meal preparation times 3 times per week.
• For stress management / rest - you might pledge to be in bed by 10:30pm every night, keep a gratitude journal that you fill in before bed every night or complete 5 minutes of meditation every day. 

Choose 1 of these tips from each category and focus on that until you are 100% confident that you can get it right every day without stressing about it. From there, add another. Remember, these are critical moves that are non negotiable. You must complete them or die trying to get the results that you are after.

Finally, to get your riders taking action and not spinning around in circles puzzling over all of the potential critical moves, we must point to the destination. What is the goal? How will you know when you get there? Make it a big, fat, hairy goal. "Fit back into my school pants by christmas!" or "Bikini bod by Bali". If you have the goal clearly in mind, your rider will figure out how to get there. 

Remember, the Rider's limitations are that he'll over analyse everything and that he is physically weak. The only way is to keep moving in the right direction and not stewing endlessly about the possibilities is to get your elephant on the same page which we'll discuss in the next post.

Create long lasting changes easily

I've done myself a massive favour this week and read the book "Switch - How to change when change is hard", by brothers Chip and Dan Heath. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking to learn more about what makes successful change.

When looking to achieve any sort of change, whether it be regarding work, social or personal change, the Heaths contend that there are some basic guidelines that you must adhere to achieve success. You must take into consideration the intellectual side of your brain, the emotional side of the brain and the environment in which you are operating. If these 3 elements are not in harmony, your chances of success are drastically reduced.

To gain a greater understanding of what that means, the Heaths borrow a clever metaphor whereby the emotional side of your brain is represented as an immensely powerful albeit flighty and skittish elephant. The intellectual side is represented by the analytical but relatively weak rider of the elephant. And the environment is the path on which the elephant is walking which may be smooth and clear or littered with obstacles.

An indecisive rider combined with an obstinate elephant and a cluttered path is the perfect recipe for inaction. In contrast, a rider who knows his destination can march a motivated elephant down the pathway to success. Change can be very easy with the right ingredients.

In my professional context, people come to me with the aim of improving their health, which will result in improved body composition (weight loss / muscle gain) and improved performance. As a rule, everyone understands that a healthier life is a worthwhile pursuit so intellectually they are on the right track.

They may be fed up with being tired all the time and perhaps in their eyes, unattractive to the rest of the world, so they are emotionally ready to make the change. This is enough to make those first, bull-at-a-gate steps towards their new life of health and fitness.

But how many times do people get to this point, and two to three weeks down the track, they start hitting the snooze button, going out drinking and making those late night stops at Maccas again. And there we are, back to square one, back at our unhealthy former state, except we may now be worse off because we're growing an identity of being failures and perhaps are more scared of trying again.

If you've ever gone through this process, you are probably starting to form the idea in your head, that it's too hard to change, and being fit and healthy just aren't meant for you. You're not disciplined enough, you don't like exercising or eating well, and it's all too difficult to achieve with your busy lifestyle.

That is WRONG! You CAN do it! And over the next three posts, I’ll show you how.