We often find ourselves with 5 minutes to spare. No matter how busy we are there’s always 5 minutes to check facebook or twitter, chit chat with a coworker, rummage through the kitchen for a snack or browse the internet for news.
What if, in just one of these 5-minute windows, you did something that would help transform your year and propel you towards your goals? I’m not talking about overhauling your life, going on a diet, getting to the gym or launching a new business. I’m just talking about something you can do every that in fewer than 5 minutes.
Here’s a list of little things to plug into your windows of opportunity as they arise that, if you do them daily, will make a massive difference in the quality of your year – 5 ways to improve 2015 in less than 5 minutes! If you’ve got more to add to the list, shoot me an email and let me know or leave a message in the comments!!
Establish one goal you’d like to achieve and identify ONE THING you can do today (in less than 5 minutes) that will help you reach it. Example:
Goal: Pay off $20,000 in debt
Daily Brief Action: Take 5 minutes to plan out your meals for the week. Planning ahead and eating at home absolutely saves money from your food budget!!
Write down 3 SPECIFIC things you’re grateful for. Gratitude will profoundly change your outlook but don’t be generic by always saying, “My job, my kids, my spouse”. Example:
I am grateful that my wife prepared my favorite meal tonight
I am grateful for my co-worker who went out of his way to help me with my project
I am grateful that my body is strong and healthy enough to walk, run and workout!
Get your blood pumping by doing 10 pushups, 10 body weight squats and 10 situps. No matter where you are, you can do this. You can keep repeating this circuit until 5 minutes go by or stop after one round. Remember that you physically & mentally feel better when you’re getting more blood flow to critical organs like your brain. And even a few minutes of movement releases “feel good” endorphins that will brighten your day! If you can’t do pushups on your toes, no problem. Do them on your knees. Can’t do them on your knees? I’ve been there! Do them against a wall.
Let someone know you appreciate them and why. Imagine if you got into the habit of expressing appreciation to friends, coworkers, family members and strangers every day for a year. After a year you’d have more friends, you’d be happier and I’m quite certain you’d have many more people doing the same for you!
Identify something you want to happen and spend 5 minutes visualizing it in detail. Think its corny? That’s ok. Research continuously proves that when we vividly imagine an event or outcome, our brain is unable to distinguish between our visualization and reality. Our brain accepts the event as true and begins working in your subconscious to bring it to fruition. The more detail the better!!
We all have these windows of opportunity. Will we continue to waste them reading about the Kardashians or will we seize them to help improve our future? This takes such little time. You can make massive improvements in your life with small actions repeated consistently. Why wouldn’t you???
In case you missed my big announcement, you’ve probably figured it out by now, but the Primal Potential podcast is now live!!! I am beyond excited – this is something I’ve been working on for a while and I truly believe it will be an incredibly powerful tool to help people finally achieve their weight loss goals. Check out the very first episode of the Primal Potential Podcast!!! Here’s a quick overview of everything we talked about!
What Is The Primal Potential Podcast?
Primal Potential is the incremental, anti-diet solution for effective, permanent weight loss. The Primal Potential Podcast will help you overcome emotional eating, hormonal imbalances, unhealthy habits & your dieting mindset through education and inspiration. We don’t just talk about what you should eat and what you should avoid – we talk STRATEGY. Primal Potential is bridging the gap between KNOWING and DOING. Each episode will leave you with concrete tips for making positive changes that make a difference.
What Makes It Different From Other Health & Fitness Podcasts?
We have a really powerful format. Each episode tackles a common challenge or mainstream myth, reviews the actual facts or solutions and then provides practical implementation strategies so you can start making changes TODAY. Lots of other podcasts present one new approach after another, bringing on experts to share what they feel is the secret to weight loss but honestly, those shows can just leave you feeling more lost and confused than ever! The Primal Potential Podcast is committed to helping you find what works for you. We aren’t about crash diets or extreme protocols. We focus on natural, healthy solutions for permanent weight loss.
Lots of “weight loss experts” have never lost a serious amount of weight. Sure, maybe they’ve carried an extra 10-20 lbs from time to time but most of them certainly have never experienced the pain of food addiction, obesity, binge eating and the like. Primal Potential is different. I have been in the trenches. Yes, I have the educational and professional background in health and nutrition, but I also have a lifetime of struggling with obesity & crash dieting. I understand the struggle. I also understand the POTENTIAL we all have to reach our goals – I was able to overcome 20 years of struggling with emotional eating and food addiction and lose over 100 pounds without dieting. Every week I share with you my own experiences as well as my professional insights. I can relate to you and you can relate to me. I want to know your struggles and I want to help you overcome them. I want to form a connection with you. I want you to reach out to me and tell me how I can help. I want to know what topics you are confused about, where you need motivation, and how I can support and encourage you.
If you find this information useful, we’d be THRILLED if you’d take a minute to subscribe to the free podcast via itunes and while you’re there, please leave a rating and review! As always, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us via the contact form or comment if you have topics you’d love for us to cover or specific questions. We’re here to help YOU reach your goals.
[ctt title=”The whole Primal Potential approach is about transforming your body without dieting or being hungry” tweet=”The whole Primal Potential approach is about transforming your body without dieting or being hungry” coverup=”8Xbbu”]
I think you’re doing too much. Maybe its more clear to say I think you’re trying to do too much. I think you’d get more results, better results, if you focused on doing less. I’m talking specifically about your attempts to lose weight. You’re trying to do too much and you’re setting yourself up for failure in the process.
If someone had told me this a couple years ago I’d have told them to jump off a cliff, so I get it if you’re not on board with me yet but please: keep reading. After all, if I’m right, you can do less and get faster/better results. If I’m wrong, you can go about your merry, frustrated way.
There are 2 primary arguments behind my assertion that you’re trying to do too much. First is the 80/20 rule which I wrote about several weeks ago. The bottom line is this: 80% (or more) of your results come from a mere 20% (or less) of your efforts. So you don’t have to identify EVERYTHING that could help you lose weight and do it all! You just have to identify the MOST impactful 1-2 elements and focus on mastering THOSE. Anything else is going to waste your time and energy while NOT delivering the results you’re hoping for.
But more importantly, willpower is not an unlimited resource. The more you try to draw on it, the less there is for you to access. If you’re expecting to leverage willpower dozens of times a day to achieve success, you’ll be sitting disappointed in front of an empty box of cookies in short order.
Think of willpower as a cell phone battery. The more you use it, the more you drain it. The less there is to draw upon. Your willpower battery might start out fully charged in the morning, but as the day goes on there is less and less available. Have you ever experienced this before? You wake up pumped for the day. You go to the gym and have a killer workout. You make your healthy breakfast and you’re feeling super proud of yourself – all before 8am! You know you’re going to crush the day. This is the beginning of something different. You’re on your way. But then around 2pm you start talking yourself into a little treat. I mean, you’re hungry, you need some energy, you did get a workout in so you kinda deserve it….you start that negotiating process and before you know it you’re eating a candy bar. And since you did that, you might as well save the healthy food you had planned for dinner and pick up a pizza on the way home. You’ll do better tomorrow.
What the heck happened? You were doing so well and your head was in the right place and all of a sudden all hell broke loose. Again. You were so sure you’d be stronger this time. You exhausted your willpower. The battery ran out.
So what can you do about it? Well, the first thing is to try to do less. When you decide that you need to drink more water, exercise daily, avoid sugar, get 10K steps each day, not eat out, avoid processed foods, and whatever else – you’ve taken on too much. You’re asking too much of your willpower. I’m not saying that those aren’t great things to eventually work up to, but in order for them to not draw on your willpower they’ll need to become habitual and that takes TIME.
That takes us back to my first point that you need to focus on the MOST IMPACTFUL elements for YOU. Identify for you 20% (or less). What are your big rocks? What are the 1-3 activities that set you up for success OR the 1-3 activities that set you up for failure?
For example, if you don’t pack your lunch do you inevitably end up going out with co-workers and being tempted by fries and cookies? Then maybe one of your big rocks is to always pack your lunch.
Maybe you know that if you don’t have healthy, easy to prepare options in the fridge you defer to carry out because you’re tired at the end of the day. Then perhaps a big rock for you is to stock up on groceries each week and cook a couple meals ahead of time for nights when you’re too tired to cook.
Everyone’s big rocks will be different but you need to identify yours and focus on that. Practice, practice, practice until it becomes a habit. THEN, and only then, add more.
The other important component for success is to tackle your big rocks as early in the day as possible. If working out is a big rock for you, get it done in the morning. If prepping food is yours, do it first thing. Since willpower is exhaustible and we draw on it during the day, you’ll have far more success if you knock out your big rocks as early as you can.
Finally, you want to automate everything that is NOT a big rock. Willpower isn’t just exhausted by activities that require willpower. Willpower is exhausted by activities that require our mental focus, attention and deciding. Decision making, planning, problem solving – all these things zap our willpower reserves. The fewer decisions you have to make, the less you draw on your willpower battery. Here are some examples of how you can automate to conserve willpower:
Plan your day’s meals the night before. Don’t force yourself to make these decisions on the fly. Extra points if you plan your meals an entire week in advance
Pick out your outfit before bed
Establish a morning routine. When your mind follows a routine without decision making it will conserve your willpower.
Why waste your willpower battery on silly decisions like what to wear, what to have for breakfast or whether or not you should hit snooze. Don’t. Automate. Make it simple and stick to your choices. Don’t waste your energy second-guessing your good choices.
The other essential components of conserving your willpower for when you really need it are getting enough sleep and eating well. You need to be well rested and adequately fueled for your brain to function efficiently.
Do less. Automate more. Experience significantly more results!!
It’s hard to put into words how I feel about 2014. There have been obvious highlights and low lights. I love being able to reflect on what went well, what didn’t and how I hope to improve 2015.
The first quarter was really about progress and anticipation. I was making great progress with my fat loss and was preparing to have my skin removal surgery in April. I was able to keep my head down and stay focused because I knew that was right around the corner and I wanted to be as lean as possible for that.
The second quarter was really about recovery and patience. I was healing from surgery and I was preparing to leave my job to start Primal Potential. Since I couldn’t be as active as normal, I had a lot of time to think, plan and structure how I wanted to spend my time once I left my job.
The third quarter was about transition. I went from a high-stress, non-stop corporate job to working from home on my brand new business. It took a while to find my groove. In fact, I don’t think I found it in the third quarter. I switched gyms – a big change for me – and was really working on finding a rhythm that worked for me.
The fourth quarter was where the hard work started. I realized that in order to get the to the last & final phase of my fat loss I was going to have to start doing the EMOTIONAL work. I had become really good at eating clean and working out consistently but I had hit a bit of a roadblock. Though I didn’t want to admit it, I knew that some of my emotional baggage was holding me back from reaching my true potential. I began meditating. I started taking long walks with my dog every day. I focused less on strict nutrition and more on careful observation of my thoughts and inner motivations. I’m still in this process. Though difficult, I know will be incredibly rewarding and will remove any and all artificial limits I’ve placed on myself. I’m learning a lot about myself.
I’m learning that no matter how much weight I lose, some people still won’t accept me. I am learning that this isn’t a function of my weight, but rather of those other people.
I am learning that weight loss doesn’t erase my weaknesses but exposes them. Fortunately, once exposed, I can begin to work on them.
I am learning that I need to look to myself for validation, not other people.
I am learning that shortcuts double the length of the journey and take you through some nasty places you really ought to avoid.
I am learning to surround myself with people who want to be a part of my story and not to waste precious energy on people who don’t.
I am learning that helping other people achieve their goals and transform their lives is the most valuable thing I can do with my time and energy.
I am learning that I am completely in control of my outlook and my outcomes.
In 2014 I really evaluated myself based on the rate of my weight loss. Sometimes that left me feeling incredible and sometimes it left me feeling defeated. Going into the new year I really want to continue working on evaluating myself based on my consistency, effort & attitude. I want to have more fun, go on more adventures, focus as much on my mental and emotional fitness as I do on my physical fitness.
Yes, I definitely have some body composition goals and I probably always will – I think those are great goals to have! But I also have goals related to my enjoyment of life, related to my business development, related to my personal development and my attitude.
Overall, it has been an epic year for me. I quit my job and sold my house. I launched a new company and began sharing my storing with the world. I’ve written over 500 pages of education, inspiration and documentation of my journey. I’ve become leaner, stronger and most importantly – I’m leaving 2014 with a heightened sense of gratitude and hope.
When I was a kid I played competitive AAU basketball. We took basketball SUPER seriously in my house. My sister Debi was always better than I was (and a good 6 inches taller) but we were both pretty focused. In fact, for a while we actually worked with a private coach – practicing drills for hours on the court outside his house.
I would lie in bed at night and imagine myself at the free throw line. I would imagine every detail – my stance, how the ball felt in my hands, the pace of my breath, the sounds in the gym, the movement of my body as I released the ball, the arc of the ball as it traveled and fell into the net. Why? Because at a young age I was told that we actually train our brain by what we think about and visualize. And I believed it. Of course, like many things we learn as kids, I kinda forgot about it as I got older.
Recently I was reading a book that talked about the way visualization techniques are being used to help people who are suffering from extreme pain caused by phantom limbs. In the earliest experiments (hundreds of years ago), researchers would simply cut holes in a cardboard box. The amputee would put their arm/leg into one of the holes and position their body so the missing limb was right up against the other hole. They would hold a mirror. Via the reflection, it looked as if they now had both their limbs. Remarkably, the amputees stopped experiencing the pain of the phantom limb. Through visualization, they were able to create a new reality for their brain. The amputees were encouraged to bring the box home and complete this exercise regularly until the pain completely disappeared.
Dr. Leonard Epstein, chief of behavioral medicine at the University of Buffalo, has studied the impact of visualization on weight loss at length. He refers to it as “episodic future thinking” and encourages overweight and obese people to vividly imagine a goal or event they are looking forward to. Its super important to note that he says the effect depends on how vividly the event/goal is imagined and how positive the event is. So the more exciting the visualization, the more important it is to you and the more detailed your visualization, the greater your success will be. He also recommends wearing some type of “tag” to trigger you to practice this visualization. This could be something like a rubber band on your wrist or moving your watch to the other hand or even a reminder set in your phone for a couple times each day. The people who routinely and vividly visualize their goal lose far more weight than those who don’t!
Using visualization for weight loss is a remarkably effective tool. I use visualization every day. I use it in two different ways and I do my visualization exercises first thing in the morning and again before bed. First, I visualize my day. Hour by hour I visualize what I’ll accomplish, how I’ll feel, my interactions with other people, what I’ll eat and how I’ll feel about it. I try to be as detailed as possible. I think through my workouts, the type of intensity I’ll exert, how I’ll feel afterwards, etc. I imagine how satisfied I’ll feel at the end of the day. In bed at night, I’ll visualize the same thing for the following day. So every day is being visualized twice – the night before and in the morning.
I also visualize my future goals being achieved. I do this by thinking about my ideal day. I think about where I’ll wake up in the morning on this ideal day. Who I’ll be with. How I’ll feel. What my body looks like. How I spend my day – in detail. Where my career is at on that given day. This detailed visualization only takes 2-4 minutes and is a part of my evening and morning routine.
I understand that many people think this is hogwash. And that’s fine. You don’t have to do it. But you can’t argue that there is a ton of science supporting its validity. And if you interview many of the world’s top athletes, they will tell you that visualization is a big part of their preparation. If you’re looking to improve your health and lose weight, I’ll ask you this: can it hurt? Can it hurt to add a few minutes of visualization into your day? For me personally, I’m looking for all the advantages I can get. Weight loss isn’t easy. Self-discipline isn’t effortless. Visualization doesn’t take long, it improves my mood and outlook and I also believe it helps fuel my success.
Have you ever tried it? What do you think? Is it something you’d consider adding to your day? Lemme know in the comments!
