“I Know What I Need to Do, I’m Just Not Doing It.” Sound Familiar?

I was on a consult with a woman recently who was interested in weight loss coaching.

She said to me, “I know what I need to do, I’m just not doing it.”

She’s not alone.

In fact, most of the women who reach out to me for coaching say these same words.

Why is it that we know what to do but we don’t do it?

I’ll tell you why.

It’s because we don’t value keeping our word to ourselves.

It goes something like this.

You set a goal to get up and go to the gym every weekday morning.

Sunday night rolls around and you don’t want to go.

Your brain starts to argue with itself.

“I don’t want to go…. You need to go! You said you would… but I didn’t sleep well last night and I want to feel rested for work tomorrow so I don’t want to get up earlier than I have to… OK, just go after work then.”

After work rolls around and that meeting went longer than you thought or you forgot and ate a late big lunch so now you can’t go to the gym.

You’ll just go tomorrow.

And something else gets in the way.

Maybe you go once, twice or even three times, but the habit never takes hold and you find yourself giving up on that goal… until you get fed up yet again with jeans that are too tight.

So you resolve to start yet again.

And the cycle continues.

Sound familiar?

The effort it takes to build a new habit, especially a habit that takes a lot of energy, is repulsive to your brain.

Our brains only want three things:

1. Seek Pleasure
   
2. Avoid Pain
   
3. Conserve energy

Psychologists call this the Motivational Triad, and getting up early to go to the gym does not fall under any of those categories, no matter how bad you want to look like P!nk in a bathing suit.

So why did you make the decision in the first place if your brain is only going to sabotage you?

You make these decisions because you genuinely want to feel something different than you feel right now.

You want to feel strong, beautiful, fit, healthy, and in control-- not flabby, overweight, unfit, and out of control.

So how do we get our brains on board with our desires?

How do we take action on our goals even when we don’t feel like it?

Decide to honor your word to yourself, every single time.

Most of us are not bad at keeping our word... to others.

We honor our commitments to other people all the time.

We show up on time for our bosses, our spouses, our kids, our friends.

We don’t flake out.

We don’t make excuses.

We don’t miss dates and appointments because we don’t want to disappoint other people.

And yet we are totally OK with disappointing ourselves.

We make decisions and commitments to ourselves everyday and then don’t follow through.

How would your life change if you made a decision to lose weight, committed to that decision, made a plan of action, and then showed up and took the planned action every single time?

How would your life change if you did the same for your career goals?

Your health goals?

Your financial goals?

Relationship goals?

Every single result you have in your life right now exists because of the action you took to get that result.

If you plan out the actions you need to take to reach your goals (“I know what I need to do...)” AND you actually TOOK every action that you planned, successful completion of your goal would be INEVITABLE.

You can start this right now.

Start small.

Maybe a mini-goal.

For example, decide what you are going to eat at least 24 hours from now.

Pick just one meal.

Make it a perfect meal for you.

One that makes you feel healthy, nourished, and satiated.

And eat exactly that meal.

Nothing more, nothing less.

And notice how you feel when you take action from this place of planning ahead and following through on your commitment to yourself.

Keep doing this.

Decide.

Commit.

​Follow through and take action.

Your success will be inevitable.

You will be unstoppable.

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