Ditch Your Goals - Change Your Focus And Change Your Results In 2019
If you're like 80% of the population, the chances are that that burning sense of motivation you felt on January 1st has dwindled drastically and you have nothing but a pile of cold ash.
Don't worry, I'm here to help. You see, if you are looking to make lasting change in 2019, you need to change your focus.
The problem with most attempts at change is that we focus solely on an outcome or goal e.g. ‘I want to lose weight’. The problem with that as our only goal is:
A) weight-loss is not linear, and therefore there will be times in which you are technically ‘failing’
B) we develop an all-or-nothing, on-or-off mentality in regards to weight loss (leading to typical yo-yo dieting)
With point B in mind, you’ll often find people go all out in trying to achieve that goal of weight loss, that they do anything that may help with weight loss (a restrictive diet, supplements, lots of cardio etc.), most often all at the same time.
The issue with this is that there is no method or process developed for losing weight. You will be successful in losing weight if doing those thin his mentioned above for a relatively short amount of time, unfortunately it is not sustainable though.
You’ll lose weight, be happy momentarily, start eating normally, slowly pile the weight back on, arrive back at square one and then start again when you’re fed up of being overweight.
In 2019, to achieve long-term success you need to become PROCESS driven.
The only thing we definitely know about weight loss is that a calorie deficit = weight loss. The process you develop in order to achieve that is completely down to you, and autonomy is a great factor in ensuring long-term success.
People often come to me looking for a diet plan. They want a cookie-cutter plan that will put them into a calorie deficit. They are willing to sacrifice 6-12 weeks of enjoyment around food and drink because they are focused only on their goal. If you’ve ever done a diet plan before, you’ll know that they are usually quite restrictive and after just a few weeks, you’re ready to pack it all in.
In focusing on the process, you can get curious with the recipe for success (that’s not meant to be a pun, but I’ll take it). What works for YOU?
Does having breakfast work for you? Does a diet lower in carbs work for you? Do you like to have one big meal, or 5 small meals? It can be helpful to look at these variables as cogs, that operate as part of a bigger machine aka your process. One cog (aka a keto diet) doesn't work for you? Cool, replace it with a different cog.
These are all things that you can find out when you’re focused on developing your process on the way to weight loss. The good thing about it is that it will be specific to you, ensuring better adherence and most importantly greater a greater success rate.
Becoming process driven also allows you to focus your attention on what really matters.
Blindly following a diet plan doesn’t, for example, identify if it is actually your lack of sleep that is greatly effecting your overall daily food intake.
By focusing on your process, you may realise that your lunch and dinner time meals are great - they are calorie controlled, include a wide range of nutrients and have a good helping of protein. The issue lies in waking up tired, going to costa on the way to work and ordering a banana, croissant and a large flat mocha with whole milk and an extra shot (almost 650 calories). You look at your current processes and identify this as a problem area.
In identifying this problem you then look to address your pre-bed routine and find that by going to bed at 10pm, rather than 11pm, you wake up feeling refreshed. This means that rather than waking up and throwing down 650 calories easily, you are comfortable with an americano and a banana (120 calories). Not only this, but you find that you now have more energy in the morning, and take the stairs rather than the elevator.
This will inevitably, if done consistently, lead to weight loss, but all you’ve focused on is the process of going to bed 1 hour earlier.
Another great benefit of focusing on the process instead of the goal or end destination, is that a process never stops - it is just continually refined (according to your goal).
What I mean by this, is that, if your goal is to lose 2 stone and it is the only thing your focused on, once you’ve lost it, great. What’s next for you? You may have achieved quick weight loss, and didn’t spend any time working on the underlying habits that got you to being 2 stone heavier than you wanted to be.
To focus on your process is to focus on your habits, and anyone who has achieved long-term weight loss will tell you, it is their ability to focus and alter their processes that determines their weight-loss success.
Once weight-loss has been achieved you are then able to alter your process in order to maintain your new bodyweight. There’s no ditching fad diets or removing meal replacements shakes and eating ‘normally’ - just a simple process change.
This might mean that you eat out one extra time a week with your friends, partner or family, or enjoy a couple of glasses of wine at the weekend. Due to the fact that you’ve built a positive process geared towards weight-loss throughout other areas of your life, this will change will no longer be the start of your yo-yo dieting.
Sometimes achieving your weight-loss goals can be a trigger for returning to all of the bad habits that got you there, because you no longer have a reason to do ‘weight-loss’ things. It no longer needs to be on or off, black or white, as long as you have taken the time to become process driven.
The first important step in becoming more process driven is writing stuff down! Without writing stuff down and taking stock of your current processes, you will be unable to action any reasonable change to them in order to move forward. No information is unimportant in this process. What do you do from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to bed? Write this down for 3-5 days, giving you the foundations for you new process driven master plan.
I’d love to hear how you’re going to become more process driven in 2019, so drop me an email: hello@getlifting.co.uk
Oh, and whilst I have you, head over to the Get Lifting online store and check out our brand new Ultimate Recipe Books - complete with calorie controlled, great tasting food.
