I’m answering your questions today! If you have questions, please feel free to submit them here and listen to today’s episode about an exciting improvment I’m making to the way I answer your questions!
I’d love for you to join me in our brand new Primal Potential Facebook group! It’s totally free and amazing way to stay motivated and engaged! It’s also a great place to get your questions answered!
Here are some of the mindset and fat loss questions I’m answering on today’s show:
I have a question about support. I don’t have a big social circle and the few that are in it, aren’t focused on weight loss or mindset. I’m loving the new community for this!!!! I was wondering if you have suggestions on how to meet like minded people in my area. I’ve tried the gym but find everyone politely says hello and then goes on about their routine in silence. Would a different kind of gym help? Any other avenues you think I should explore?
You share so many great things-but what have been the TOP couple ideas/perspective shifts that created a pivot or tipping point in your life?
Knowing what you know now, if you were to take up 100 pounds overweight tomorrow, and knew you could “perfectly” lose the weight, what are the top 5 things you would adjust immediately.
I would love more ideas about how to recognize automatic thoughts, because I’m a weirdo who doesn’t think in actual sentences? Or maybe, I’m just so accustomed to having the thoughts that they don’t register as sentences in my head (habits). Like I KNOW I do the whole “screw it, Ill start tomorrow” or “this treat doesn’t really matter” etc… But those do not come up as words in my mind, more like my mind skips the whole thought and goes straight to the feeling. How to reverse engineer this?
Is there normally an “aha” moment that turns us around and takes us down the easy road? Or is it just lots of practice and consistency and eventually it will start working?
You need to learn how to let go. I need to learn how to let go.
This is, without question, one of my favorite episodes of the Primal Potential podcast. This is one of these most powerful episodes of the podcast.
For you to benefit from this episode as much as possible, there are a few things I want you to consider before we begin.
Do you need to learn how to let go of your excuses?
Do you need to learn how to let go of your past?
Do you need to learn how to let go of your anger? Your fear? Your feelings of rejection?
Do you need to learn how to let go of a particular habit or behavior?
What are you ready to let go of?
On today’s episode, you’ll hear an incredibly raw, real and powerful conversation with relational alchemist, Stef Sifandos. Through his programs and his coaching, he helps people create transformation through connection. He’s one of the most clear-minded and genuine humans I’ve ever met and I’m honored to share our conversation with you!
Today’s episode is proudly brought to you by Fabletics! If you get excited about workout clothes that are comfortable, cute and completely affordable, Fabletics is going to blow your mind! When you register through fabletics.com/primalpotential you can take advantage of their special offer – 2 pairs of leggings for $24! And you can check out some of my favorites here.
I know this can be a divisive topic: is there any merit to using affirmations for weight loss? Is it just woo-woo-hippy-dippy happy talk?
From my experience with weight loss, business building and finances, affirmations make a huge difference and here’s why: your thoughts drive your choices.
The way you think has a massive influence on the actions you take and the decisions you make.
Affirmations are a valuable (free) tool that will help you optimize your choices and overcome excuses. Today I want to share an affirmation one of my 12 WT clients is using and I think it’s a great starting point!
Affirmations for Weight Loss or Overcoming Excuses
I’ve spent the last 10 days reaching out to my 12 Weeks to Transformation clients. I want to know what’s going well. I want to know what’s not going well. I want to know how I can help.
As much as I send these emails to help them, inevitably, they inspire ME.
One of my clients replied yesterday and, in the process of sharing with me what she’s going to do differently this week, she said:
I choose to be rare.
I absolutely LOVE that. I choose to be rare.
Think about it:
Your excuses, exceptions, excuses, doubts and delay….they’re overplayed. They’re common. Average. They are anything but rare.
“I choose to be rare” is a powerful mantra.
When you’re facing a decision, do you want to maintain your status quo? Continue to live in your comfort zone? Continue to settle for average? Continue to fuel your excuses, doubts or delays?
Or will you choose to be rare?
I choose to be rare in my work ethic.
I choose to be rare in my committment to choices that make me feel my best.
I choose to be rare in my decision to be present instead of distracted.
I choose to be rare in the way I communicate with kindess, patience and generosity.
If this is a topic you want to learn more about or optimize in your own life, here are a couple podcast episodes related to positive affirmations for weight loss, for success and really, for overall life optimization.
I help my clients solve problems. Often, in order to do that, we need to sift through their stories, histories, fears and limiting beliefs to get to a simple question:
What is the problem you’re trying to solve?
If you’d rather listen to this post than read it, please click the play button below. Otherwise, keep on reading!
More often than not, there’s such a deep pattern of focusing on the problem – the details of it, the emotions around it, the history that justifies it – that it can be uncomfortable to shift to the solution, but that’s where progress lives – over here, away from the problem, in the solution.
The other day I got an email from one of my 12 Weeks to Transformation clients and after reading it, I challenged myself to answer the same question before responding:
In one sentence, what is the problem this person is trying to solve?
Here’s part of the email:
I weigh over 300 lbs, come from an obese family and a terrible food environment growing up, and have literally struggled being obese my entire adulthood, though many would say “I carry it well”, whatever the hell that means.
I know that is my history, but it’s not my story. The reason I’m writing you is that I don’t want to waste this golden opportunity to write a new story for the rest of my life based on my own goals and dreams.
But I have never done that before.
I feel woefully ill-equipped for such an undertaking. I have always just taken what life has thrown at me and made the best of it, and many good things have come out of that, don’t get me wrong! But I heard a quote somewhere that states that good can be the enemy of great.
How did you grow in the confidence to rewrite your story into the self-empowered life you’re leading now?
After reading that, I asked the question: In one sentence, what is the problem? I think it comes down to this: I doubt my ability to create change because I haven’t done it before.
At the core of this email is an opportunity, disguised as a problem: self-doubt.
The history and emotion in this email point to a powerful question that holds so many people back:
Do I have what it takes?
How can I believe change is possible when I have failed to create it so many times before?
My answer might surprise you.
You don’t have to believe that you have what it takes to reach your goal.
Don’t get me wrong: if you believe in yourself, that’s great. Keep on keeping on! But, if you’re struggling with self-doubt and you feel limited by your past patterns, that’s okay. If you aren’t sure you have what it takes to do the work and keep doing it for life, that’s completely fine.
The only thing you need to believe is that you are capable of one good choice.
How did I lose the weight? Pay off the debt? Start a business?
One choice at a time.
The belief wasn’t there at first, it was built over time. And even now, belief ebbs and flows and that’s fine because all change requires is your next choice.
Do you have one good choice in you?
What can you do to win the moment you’re in?
Think back to when you felt overwhelmed by a school project or term paper. You might have doubted your ability to write 10 pages on the mating habits of the humpback whale. No big deal, because “10 pages” isn’t how it happens.
You research.
Then, you write an outline.
You draft your intro.
You find answers to your questions.
You write a bit more.
One word at a time, you accumulate those 10 pages, by doing a series of things you CAN do.
Do you have one word in you? One sentence? Five minutes of uninterupted writing?
Belief is not a prerequisite for progress.
If you listen to the Primal Potential podcast, you’ve probably heard me tell this story before. It’s one of my favorites and I tell it to my clients constantly!
This guy, we’ll call him Ed, really wanted to get into real estate investing but he didn’t have any money. The only way Ed could think to get cash for his first deal was to sell his new truck.
He had overspent on the truck and it was definitely an expense he was willing to part with. But, Ed had a problem. He was upside down on the truck loan. He owed more than it was worth.
Ed wanted to do a private sale to get a better price for his truck, but even then, he wasn’t going to be able to sell it for what he owed and he didn’t have the cash to make up the difference.
He told himself, “I don’t know how I’ll make the numbers work, but in order to sell it, I’d have to clean it, so I’m just going to vacuum the truck.”
He did. He cleaned it up and got it looking brand new.
He still didn’t know how’d he make the money work, but he took the next step.
“I still don’t know how I’ll make the numbers work but I’d need pictures of it for an ad, and that part doesn’t cost me anything.”
He took pictures of the truck.
Then he posted an ad.
He kept taking the next step. Then the next.
Eventually, he found a buyer and they made it happen, but the point is this:
Don’t let what you think you can’t do distract you from doing what you can do.
Vacuum the truck.
When we convince ourselves that we have to see or believe in the finish line in order to start, we overlook the beautifully simple reality that all we need to do is make one improved choice at a time.
That is the extent of belief you need.
Continue to redirect your thoughts away from the length of the journey or the overwhelm of the end goal.
Break away from your story of doubt and fear and focus on the next 5 minutes.
Maybe you don’t believe that you can lose 100 pounds. That’s fine. Make one great choice. Maybe you don’t believe that you can pay off $150,000 in debt. That’s fine. Make one great choice. Maybe the idea of starting a business fills you with doubt. That’s okay. Write down your first step and then take it.
Overwhelm and disbelief are perspective problems.
You’re either focused on too much of the past or too much of the future.
Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow isn’t here yet. Today you’ll have dozens of opportunities to make one great choice at a time.
Begin there.
Every choice is a chance to create the change you crave.
If you have other questions or challenges: did you see that I’ve created a resources and FAQs page for you? Take a peak to see if I have resources listed that will help! If you don’t see what you’re looking for there, let me know so I can help!
Every month, we have a live webinar in the Primal Potential Masters Club. We’re usually talking about strategies to create change and implementation of ideas from whatever book we’re exploring that month.
At their request, we’re working through Chasing Cupcakes this month and at the start of the webinar we were sharing our answers to the question, “What change do you want to create?”
One client said, “I want to be excited about my day. I want to feel proud and determined. It’s not important what I’m trying to accomplish; the goal is the feeling.”
If you’d rather listen to this email than read it, please click play below. Otherwise, keep on reading!
The goal is the feeling.
Yes, this is an idea I talk about at length in the book – differentiating between the external goal and the internal target, but you know, sometimes you have to hear something at the right time for it to hit you in the right way.
It was the perfect moment for me to hear this familiar message that suddenly felt new.
As soon as she said it, it shifted something in my thinking. It showed me a flaw in how I was approaching one of my own primary goals.
She continued, “It’s about the commitment to the process.”
Committing to the process more than attaching to the outcome is something I encourage all the time but “the goal is the feeling” takes that to an even more valuable and specific level!
Think about it this way: we can commit to the process with a bad attitude or as a martyr. We can commit to the process while we moan and groan about the choices we’re making.
We can make all sorts of great choices and still be unhappy, disconnected and unfulfilled.
However, when the FEELING is the goal, we immunize ourselves against the negative-perspectives that often go along with goal pursuits. We ensure that the work we’re doing and the tasks we’re executing deliver the kind of life we’re wanting to create.
As soon as she said this, I started thinking about one of my own goals and processes.
I shared with the Masters Club that my #1 priority this year is joyful, fulfilling relationships. I used my relationship with my boyfriend as an example.
If you were to look at how I spend my time – just look at my calendar – it would tell you that my work is my priority.
When he wakes up, I’m working. He knows I’m working and tries to stay out of my hair. I say good morning, give him a kiss and ask how he slept, but then I’m right back to work.
My process-oriented approach to making a change so that my relationship is my #1 priority in ACTION, not just in my head, has been based on specific actions (not feelings). I was doing things like:
Closing my computer when he wakes up
Making time for cooking meals for him to take to work instead of telling myself I’m too busy
Not huffing and puffing if he asks me to do something during my work time
It was a very task-focused approach to improving my relationship.
However: when I heard “the goal is the feeling” I instantly saw the flaw in my approach.
I want to feel more connected. I want there to be more joy and lightheartedness in my relationship.
I can execute all the above things and still not create those feelings I’m after of joy, connectedness and lightheartedness.
I can give him more time and be more present but still not hit the target I’m striving for.
When I implement my client’s mantra – the goal is the feeling – my strategy shifts and the results are so much more aligned with what I really want.
How can I create more connectedness today?
How can our interactions be more lighthearted today?
How can I infuse joy into our time together today?
No surprise, my answers have nothing to do with cooking dinner or closing my laptop!
It was a big shift for me.
It made me think of one of my other Masters Club friends who shared that she realized she was going about the “great mom and wife” pursuit the wrong way.
She spent so much time and energy cleaning the house, making meals and keeping everyone organized, but the vibe in her home wasn’t the vibe she wanted. She wasn’t FEELING how she wanted to feel and neither were her husband or her kids.
She decided to ask her family, “What makes you feel loved by me? When are you enjoying our time together most?”
They didn’t say anything about the laundry being done, the house being clean or the lengths she went to to make homemade bone broth.
They wanted her to snuggle. They wanted her to listen. They wanted her to laugh and play.
When the GOAL is the FEELING, everything shifts!
Guys, this isn’t just about relationships.The same thing is true with nutrition.
When we’re process oriented – committed to a process of eating well – that might look like discipline and willpower.
I need to eat more veggies
I need to snack less often
I need to stop eating after dinner
We can commit to that process and hate it the whole way along.
Maybe we’re eating well but we aren’t happy.
If the goal is the feeling, it shifts everything.
I want to feel proud and confident. I want to feel full of energy. What choices will make me feel that way?
When you decide to be led by how you want to feel, you’ve created a hedge against negativity and martyrdom.
That single shift makes the pursuit much more pleasurable, increasing our changes of consistency.
The joy is in the journey.
If not, shift your perspective.
The goal is the feeling.
How do you want to feel?
What choices facilitate those feelings?
What choices don’t make you feel the way you want to feel?
What can you do about it today?
These questions and perspective shifts are really the essence of Chasing Cupcakes.
If you haven’t started the book because you’re not a big reader, I’ve got a special opportunity for you. I was asking my publisher how we might encourage the non-readers (simply because reading has absolutely transformed my life and the way I think) and we came up with an idea.
If you listen to music or podcasts, try listening to Chasing Cupcakes. If you’re new to Audible, you can get a free Audible trial membership AND a free audiobook by going to audibletrial.com/primalpotential
You don’t have to start with Chasing Cupcakes. But you will get a free month to try out Audible and a free book to start with – of your choice!
Make today amazing by considering how you want to feel and identifying the choices that contribute to that feeling as well as the choices that impair or impede that feeling.
