43 Days to Go!
Each day you have learned something that has enabled you to create a small positive change. On day one we called these the “bricks” of change and that over time, a lot of small changes results in a huge change.
Now we are going to spend a few days on the mental aspects of improving your health and fitness lives.
A New York Post article referenced a study of women who knew they were overweight and had tried dieting. Since they really didn’t know how to diet properly, the more they started and stopped, the more weight they gained. The study drew the conclusion that dieting improperly is worse than not dieting at all. One main reason for this resides about twenty-four inches above our bulging belly buttons, in our brains. If we try something and fail, often times we stop caring for a short period and actually do the opposite of what we had originally intended. Psychologically speaking, we are thinking too much about final outcomes and not enough about the process involved in getting there.
Back in the early 1980’s, there was a talented Penn State place-kicker. Herb’s story was amazing in that he was struggling mightily as a major college kicker. After seeing his talent during practice versus his much poorer live game performance, he was asked to describe as specifically as possible the “internal dialogue” running through his brain before a kick in practice versus that of a game. His dialogue before kicks in practice was TOTALLY about the process of kicking. He was thinking about his steps, his plant foot, driving his leg through the ball. All his internal thoughts were directed to the process of kicking. Before game kicks, it all changed. He was thinking about the score of the game and the impact his kick would have on it, missing the uprights, making the kick, what Coach would think, what his Uncle would say after the game, adulation from his girlfriend; in other words, all outcome thoughts. The conclusion was simple once he saw clearly what he was doing. Process thoughts lead to success while outcome thoughts lead to failure. Herb righted this dialogue with a simple series of mental exercises and from that moment on Herb ran off a string of incredible kicks, a few of them stress packed last second bombs from 50 yards and
beyond.
The first important cognitive part of any program that involves change is to not think about the success or failure of the small changes you are making toward your bigger goal. Think about the changes themselves.
TODAY’S BRICK: THINK ABOUT PROCESS STEPS RATHER THAN OUTCOMES
Take Melissa, for example. Let’s say she had a bad day yesterday and ate a bag of Mint Milano cookies between lunch and dinner. If she looked at the outcome, success or failure, and beat herself up over failing, she probably would have gotten upset with herself, boomeranged, ate a big dinner with dessert, a bag of chocolate covered peanuts and a pint of ice cream at night. (Sick? No, actually quite normal for a lot of over-eaters.) If she had some cookies and didn’t accomplish the change she intended, the better way of handling would have been to look at the process. Maybe she needs to make sure there are no cookies near her. Or maybe she needs to drink a lot of water to fill herself up during that troublesome time period. Or maybe she just needs to start out with a different small change and get back to the snack change later when she is further along in the program.
See what we mean? Try to be successful but when you are not, as they say in Brooklyn, forgetaboutit. Dieting is not like landing a plane. There, if you miss the runway, well, it’s a much more costly blunder then we will find in dieting. Miss the runway…be upset; eat a snack….forgetaboutit!
Seems like a lot of words to drive home today’s “brick,” right? Here is the short form: think about the process you are going through and not the outcome. Process thinking leads to success. Outcome thinking leads to failure.
Continue to try to not eat snacks between meals and to do that, drink a lot of water with meals and between meals so you feel fuller and therefore will be less likely to snack. How’s that for using our bricks to link up? If you get the urge to snack, think water! You may end up having to mentally picture drowning those poor dancing Mint Milanos with a fire hose, but either way, make sure to be thinking process the entire way.
