Archive for the ‘motivation to lose weight’ Category
The Don’t Quit Poem – A Motivational Video
I just came across this video that I thought I’d share – it’s great for whenever you feel down or like things are getting on top of you, and you feel like giving up. Give it a watch….
One of the keys to maintaining your motivation to lose weight is to surround yourself with all types of things that motivate you. Having videos to watch like the one above is a great tool to use whenever you feel in need of a boost – because no matter who you are we all have days when we feel down or off. Add watching it to the list of things you can do whenever you’re not feeling motivated – or feel like giving up, and you’ll strengthen your confidence as a result of knowing that you have lots of resources (like the video) to draw upon whenever you need it.
I’ll be posting more videos like the one above in the near future – subscribe below if you’d like to be notified (and to receive all our other motivational tips, tools and updates!).
All the best.
Finding Motivation To Lose Weight
It can be hard to find your motivation to lose weight – especially when you’re at the stage where you’ve got it all to do and you haven’t started yet, or when you’ve got off track and you’re going through a difficult period – and you’re struggling to stick to your path.
This article has been written to help you point your focus onto personal and wider reasons losing weight, and as a result help you find your motivation to lose weight. Take what connects with you personally in your situation and use it to motivate you to take and keep taking the actions that will result in your success.
Personal Reasons: Focusing On The Benefits Of Losing Weight
First, here are some personal benefits that can act as motivating reasons for you to lose weight:
You’ll Look Fantastic
When you lose weight you’ll look fantastic and as a result feel far more confident about yourself and around other people. You’ll no longer feel self-conscious or unhappy with your appearance, and you’ll feel a sense of pride in yourself and about your body
You’ll Feel Happier And Have High Levels Of Self Esteem
Losing weight will result in you gaining high levels of self esteem – not just from looking great, but from the sense of personal strength and accomplishment that will come from overcoming what may have been a major challenge for you in your life (until now!). As a result of deciding that you are no longer willing to settle for less in your life – deciding to lose weight and achieve the body you truly desire, and then making it happen, will give you a powerful inner strength that will make you feel fantastic about yourself and help you to succeed more in other important areas of your life.
You’ll Be More Productive And Energetic
At your ideal weight you’ll feel lighter, and this combined with the increased energy levels that you’ll gain from exercising and habitually eating healthy foods with make you more productive and vivrant in your life. You’ll be able to get more done – at work and in your personal life. As a result of this increased energy and productivity you’ll have more chance of being successful at work – which may well lead to pay rises or more attractive offers of work elsewhere. And in your personal life you’ll have more fun and excitement, because the increased energy will mean you’ll be able to do more on the weekends – whereas before you may have stayed in as a result of tiredness and exhaustion. You’ll open yourself up to more success and increased fun, excitement and variety in your day to day, week to week, and overall life as a result of successfully losing weight.
Bigger Reasons: Focusing On Reasons Beyond Yourself
The above are three powerful examples of the personal befits of losing weight and the reasons for doing it, which when you focus on them can act as powerful motivators. In addition to this, another powerful way to find motivation to lose weight is to focus on the reasons that go beyond yourself:
Being There And Being Able To Give The Most To Give To Your Family, Friends, Loved Ones
If you are a parent, your children can be a particularly powerful “reason beyond yourself” for losing weight. By feeling happier and having higher levels of self esteem, you’ll be a happier and better parent. With higher levels of energy, you’ll also be able to give more to them by having more energy to play with them and take them out on activities. As a result, both they and you will have more fun and happiness as a result of your successful weight loss. If you are not a parent, losing weight will also allow you to be there, feel happier, and give more to your partner or husband / wife, your family, and your friends in similar kinds of ways.
In addition to these things, we are more at risk of getting potentially fatal diseases like cancer and heart disease when we are overweight – so by losing weight you’ll also lower your risk and increase your long term chances of continuing to be here in the world for family, friends, children and all the other people that need, love and care about you in your life.
Making A Difference – Being An Inspiration, Role Model And Positive Example To Others
Often we don’t do the things we truly want to do because either we don’t believe we can, or because we fear failing. By successfully losing weight you’ll become an inspiration and role model to others; you’ll be an example of possibility and of success. By reaching your ideal weight and living a healthy, fit lifestyle you’ll be a demonstration to others of what they are capable of doing themselves. Therefore you’ll make a difference in the lives of others by helping to inspire them to improve their lives by losing successfully losing weight and living a happier, healthier lifestyle.
Achieving lasting motivation to lose weight is largely a result of identifying the benefits and reasons for losing weight – like the ones above – that move you and that are meaningful to you, and focusing on them on a regular basis so that they act as a driving force behind your actions. Find your motivation to lose weight by identifying the benefits and reasons for losing weight that move you on a personal and on a wider level, and then make a habit of using them continually to motivate yourself to achieve the weight loss success you truly desire.
Need Motivation To Lose Weight? Get It Here!
Here at Motivation To Lose Weight we’re committed to helping you achieve lasting motivation to lose weight – the type of inner motivation that comes from the inside and that doesn’t go away.
Sometime’s however we need motivation from the outside – we need to read or hear things that pick us up and keep us on track. This article is designed to do just that – it’s for anyone that feels they’ve lost their motivation and need something to help them get it back. I’ll be helping you do exactly that by reminding you of some truths about yourself and about weight loss.
You Are Absolutely Capable Of Losing Weight
I would usually feel in need of motivation when I was down on myself and lost my self-belief. If you’ve tried to lose weight before and for whatever reason you failed, it can be hard to keep that out of your mind. You can doubt yourself and feel scared that you’ll fail again. As a result of this – past failures and worrying about failing again, it’s hard to feel motivated to take action.
This changed for me when I realized three things: First, that the past does not equal the future; second, that if other people can do it – so can I; and three, that there’s always a way if you’re committed.
1. The Past Does Not Equal The Future
You CAN lose weight, get thin and stay that way. Instead of focusing on past failures, learn from them – you needed those experiences to teach you things that will help you succeed this time. Take the positive lessons you can form the past and then let it go, and instead focus on what you do want and EXPECT yourself to succeed this time, because this time you know better.
I used to continually doubt myself because I’d always think about how things went wrong in the past. As a result, I’d keep failing – which kept reinforcing my doubts and my lack of self confidence and belief. Once I truly realized that the past does not equal the future, I was able to make a “fresh start”. I focused on what my outcomes were – what I wanted as opposed to what I didn’t want, and I started to achieve the goals that I’d been setting myself. As a result, this strengthened my self confidence and belief, which in turn lead me to succeed more. Ultimately, as a result of focusing on my desired outcome as opposed to the past, I have been able to lose weight and achieve the body I’ve always wanted. You can do the same, and you will.
The truth is that the past cannot effect your now – or your future – unless you allow it to. You will now succeed because you will now focus on succeeding; because focusing on succeeding and on what you want is what will maintain you motivation to lose weight, and result ultimately in your success. Leave worrying about what happened in the past to others, you don’t need it! The past does NOT equal the future for you.
2. If Others Can Do It So Can You
There are hundreds of thousands of people that have been in exactly the same situation as you that managed to lose weight, get thin and stay that way. In fact, you’ve probably heard of many people who were in a far WORSE situation than you. What do they have that you don’t? The answer is NOTHING.
I used to feel envious when I heard of people that had lost 100 pounds or more and kept it off. I used to think that they were ‘special’ in some way. Then I realized that these people are no different from you or me. They’re normal people, with the same problems, challenges, and life-situations as you, me and everyone else. And yet they’d managed to achieve remarkable success when losing weight.
I found that an incredibly empowering and motivating belief is this – if others can do it, so can I. If you can find one person who’s done something, that means you have the ability to do the same. The fact that so many people have been able to lose weight and keep it off means that you can I can too. These people have nothing that you don’t have. You are at least as capable – if not MORE capable of losing weight and keeping it off. You just need to focus on that fact an let it drive you from now on.
3. There’s Always A Way If You’re Committed
There’s a big difference between wanting to lose weight or “trying” to lose weight, and being COMITTED to losing weight. When you try or want to lose weight, there’s a big element of doubt and ambiguity involved. When you’re committed to losing weight you are completely cut off from any other possibility – you WILL lose weight, get thin and stay that way – and you will do whatever it takes to make it happen.
If you’re like I was, you may have “tried” lots of diets. You may also have read quite a lot about healthy eating, and about exercising. And you may have done a class here or a class there. However, despite all this nothing much changed in the end. You may have made some progress – perhaps even for a few weeks or months, but ultimately it didn’t last. You want to lose weight and you may know a lot about losing weight and about what you should do, but it doesn’t stick for you – whatever you try, and whatever results you get, fail to last.
I turbo charged my motivation to lose weight and successfully lost weight once I understood the HUGE difference between commitment and “wanting to” or “trying” to do something. When you are 100% committed, you MAKE things happen. There’s no doubt, there’s no “hope”, there’s only an absolute commitment – which translates into a sense of absolute certainty that you will succeed, and a rock solid dedication to making it happen. When you are committed, you will find a way to make it happen. The vast majority of diet and weight loss systems work – you just have to stick to them. Decide on one – commit to it, and cut off from any other possibility. Absolute iron clad commitment is what guarantee’s your success, and you don’t need anything to get it. Simple DECIDE. Commit to losing weight, getting thin and achieving your ultimate health and fitness goals – and then use that absolute commitment and make it happen.
I’ve intended for this article to help you get that shot of motivation you need when you feel like you’re not motivated and need motivation to lose weight. However, the ideal is that you never find yourself in this situation again. Ideally you’ll develop a sense of motivation that is internal – that comes from inside and that lasts, without needing external motivation to “pick you up”. One way to do that is to use what you’ve learned in this article and strengthen yourself with it every day. Strengthen your belief in yourself and in your ability to succeed, remind yourself each day that the past does not equal the future, and each day get in that “zone” and strengthen your absolute commitment to losing weight – to taking action and to making it happen no matter what. As a result, you’ll develop supportive mental habits that will empower you and allow you to maintain an enhanced state of motivation to lose weight and – as a result, achieve the weight loss success you’ve always wanted.
What to Do When You Have No Motivation To Lose Weight
Many people experience being in a situation where they want to lose weight, but at the same time don’t have any motivation to do it. This can be a frustrating, especially when you don’t know why you’re not motivated – or what to do about it.
Problems with motivation are usually caused by the part of you that wants to stay the same being stronger then the part of you that would like to change. Here’s why this can happen, and what you can do about it.
Lack of Autonomy
In order to feel motivated, you must have reasons for losing weight that you are genuinely your own. This is especially so for people who put a high value on their independence and personal autonomy. Being told by your doctor, partner, friends or anyone else that you should lose weight can often be a major de-motivator. You must have your OWN reasons for losing weight – not what you’re being told by other people.
If you’re being or have been pressured or told to lose weight by others, then this may be a major reason for having no motivation to lose weight. That part of you that wants to stay the same is usually strengthened by being told by others to change – because many of us strongly object to be told what to do by other people. Being told what to do by others violate’s our independence and autonomy, and our response is usually to defiantly do the exact opposite of what others are trying to get us to do.
The decision to lose weight must be your own, and it must be for your own reasons. If you decide that you do want to lose weight – because YOU want to, and not because anyone else thinks you should, you can build and strengthen your motivation by thinking about why you want to do it. What are YOUR reasons for changing? For example, you may decide – regardless of what your doctor has told you, that you want to lose weight because you value your health, because you want lower your risk of disease, and because you want to feel better and have more energy. These reasons – if you identified them by and for yourself, would then motivate you because they’d be reasons that are genuinely and independently meaningful to you.
If having others pressure you to change has been a cause of lack of motivation for you, you can motivate yourself by taking some time to think whether or not losing weight really is important to you and – if you decide it is – identifying the specific reasons why you want to do it.
Past Failure And Low Self-Confidence
A second major cause of having no motivation to lose weight is the effect that past failures can have both on your confidence and on your belief in your ability to succeed. If you’ve tried to lose weight and failed repeatedly in the past, it can be very hard to motivate yourself to try again.
As a result of past experiences we can develop beliefs like “I can’t lose weight” or “I’ll never be able to lose weight”, which kill our motivation and stop us from trying again. If this is the case for you then the key to overcoming this problem is to realize that these beliefs and completely FALSE and invalid.
The way to do that is to realize that there are thousands – probably millions or people who have been in exactly the same position as you, who have successfully lost weight and keep it off. In fact, the likeliness is that there have been many people that were in a worse situation than you. So the fact that there are people who were in the same situation as you that have successfully lost weight and keep it off means that you can do it too.
An effective way of strengthening your confidence in your ability to succeed is to adopt and reinforce two core beliefs: “The Past Does Not Equal The Future” and “There’s Always A Way If I’m Committed”. You can also find or read about people were in the same situation as you and successfully lose weight, and use them as role models.
Looking Ahead
A useful motivational technique that you can use in addition to the suggestions above is the “looking ahead” technique. First, ask yourself, “What would it be like if I didn’t lose weight?” What would be happening in your life? What would be likely to happen next? How would you feel? Close your eyes and use visualization to do this. Next, project into the future again, this time envisioning what your life would be like if you obtained your weight loss goals. Imagine your feelings about yourself and the potential reactions of others.
Techniques like the one above only require a minute of two and can be very useful in motivating you towards action in times when you have feel like you have no motivation to lose weight. While lack of motivation can be caused by deeper underlying reasons, as I’ve discussed, it can also often be caused by a lack of focus. Visualizing future consequences of not losing weight, and the future benefits of losing weight is an effective way of focusing yourself in a way that creates motivation – and this can be a valuable technique to use at times when you feel like you don’t have any motivation to lose weight.
How To Maintain Your Motivation To Lose Weight
I really want to lose weight, I just wish I had the motivation to actually do it…
Does this sound a little familiar?
If you are someone that wishes he or she was in better shape but can’t seem to get into the mood to actually take action, then you are someone with motivation issues. But, don’t feel all that bad about your scenario. There are a lot of other people that are in the same boat as you are because many people struggle with their motivation to lose weight. The main difference is that you are looking for a solution. That alone will work wonders for helping you achieve results.
Look at it this way: if you want to be motivated, then you are already somewhat motivated to take action. So, let’s build on that momentum for success.
It Is Not A Chore
Putting the Fun in Weight Loss
You need to look at the joy of the process. Finding ways to make what you do fun can really skyrocket your motivation to lose weight. Exercise, for example, can be a blast if you pick the right active hobby to use as the basis for exercise. If you become an avid tennis player, you probably will not look at this type of exercise as a chore. More than likely, you will enjoy it so much that you would be motivated to keep doing it. There is also the possibility that you may make other changes in order to support your new found hobby. A high fat diet, for example, would undermine tennis performance. By making dietary changes to boost the success potential of your hobby, you will lose additional weight.
Looking at the Positive End Result
Try to avoid looking at your present situation. Look towards the end result of being someone that is in tremendous shape and improved cardiovascular health. When you have your mind set on your end result, you will often be more motivated to do what is necessary to achieve such a result. Again, you do not want to place yourself in any psychological position that does not promote positive mental outlooks on your end goal.
Don’t Beat Yourself Up
Do you find yourself depressed over your current weight? While this is an understandable and very human reaction to your plight, it also needs to be a mindset that you get yourself out of. There is no benefit to wallowing in a negative attitude. This will certainly not help you stay motivated to lose weight. Remember, attitude and mental outlook is everything. Never lose site of this fact. And most importantly – never give up on your goals.You definitely can drop the weight with the right outlook.
What To Do When You’ve Lost Motivation To Lose Weight: Shifting Your Value System
It’s hard when you don’t know what to do when you’ve lost motivation to lose weight, but you CAN turn things around by understanding why you’re not motivated. In this article I’ll show you one of the primary reasons why people lose their motivation, and show you what you can do to make sure this issue no longer causes you to lose your motivation to lose weight from now on.
The Importance Of Values, And How They Run Your Life
What we do every day is determined by our values, or in other words, by the prioirties we place on specific things in our lives. The key to high levels of lasting motivation to lose weight is to make health one of the highest priorities in our lives. By placing a high value of your health, you will naturally feel motivated to lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle because we AUTOMATICALLY move towards things that we place a high value on. Therefore, if you don’t feel motivated to lose weight (or if you’ve lost your motivation) it may well be because your health isn’t a high enough value in your life. If this is the case, you can increase your motivation and prevent yourself from losing it again by increasing the value you place on health and making it a high priority in your life (I’ll show you how to do that in a moment).
The way to know whether you’re placing a high enough value on health is to look at what you do on a daily basis, because our daily activities are a reflection of our value system – we act based on the things we prioritize and place the highest value upon in our lives’.
Weight loss is achieved by placing a high value on the lifestyle behaviours of: weight loss, eating healthy foods, and exercise. If your value rating is high for these lifestyle behaviours, then they should be reflected in your daily life. In other words, if you currently place a high value on weight loss, eating healthy foods, and exercise (the things you need to do to lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle) then this should be reflected in what you do on a daily basis. If these lifestyle behaviours are not reflected in what your daily actions, then it is highly likely that the reason why you don’t have any motivation to lose weight is that health and weight loss isn’t something that you’re currently placing enough value on in your life. If this is the case then what you need to do therefore is learn how to increase the value you place on health and weight loss.
How To Increase The Value Of Weight Loss And Health In Your Life
Increasing the value you place on weight loss and health you will automatically increase your motivation to take the actions (eating healthy foods, exercising) that you need to take in order to lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle on a day to day basis.
The way to do this is to first ask yourself the following questions and exercises:
1. Where do your weight loss and exercise goals fit into your list of life priorities?
We all have many priorities in our lives – for example, our work, friendships, relationships, family, children, leisure, and so on. The specific things that you place a high value on (or not) however are specific and unique to you. The first step here is to become aware of what your highest priorities are, because we’re often so busy living life that we’re not necessarily consciously aware of our priorities. To do this:
2. Is the ranking high enough that you act on it?
As you look at your list of priorities, take a few moments and assess whether your health and weight loss goals are high enough on the list to be causing you to consistently act on them on a daily basis.
3. Are your lifestyle goals overshadowing more important priorities?
Often we allow things that are of less long term importance to us to overshadow the things that are truly important in our lives. As you consider your current situation you may find that there are lifestyle activities (watching too much TV, going out often, etc.) in your life that are taking priority over and overshadowing more important areas of your life, such as your health? Consider your current situation and determine whether or not this is true for you.
4. Would your priorities change if you began to suffer adverse health consequences?
Many of us make the potentially fatal mistake of neglecting our health because we neglect to see the consequences that our negative actions can and are having on our lives. For some people, it takes a major wakeup call like a cancer scare before they make health a high priority in their lives. Considering how your priorities might change if you were faced with adverse health consequences can act as a self “wake up” call, and help you realize what’s actually most important to you in your life deep down.
5. What would it take to commit to making health a priority in your life?
The final question to consider is what it would take for you to make health a priority in your life? Are you willing to risk a major – perhaps fatal – health scare in the near, medium or longer future before making health a priority? Or is this something that you’re no longer willing to risk? If so, the decision to commit to making health a priority in your life is all it takes.
Lets now look at how you can shift your value system and make health a priority in your life.
Shifting Your Value System
The above questions and exercises will have revealed the current value system that you have that has been determining your day to day actions. Until now you may not have even been consciously aware of it. The beauty now, however, is that once you are aware of your value system you can consciously change it if you feel that there are aspects of it that are having a negative impact on your life and that aren’t supporting you in having the things that you truly want for yourself. The problem is that most people’s value systems are largely controlled by other people or by the events and circumstances of their lives – as opposed to consciously identifying the things that they value and that are most important to them, and living their lives based on those values and priorities. Most people don’t consciously choose their values, largely because they aren’t aware of or don’t realize how much of a powerful impact their value system is having on their life.
Now that you are aware of your current values and priorities, the beauty is that you can consciously shift your values if you feel that your current value system isn’t serving you. If until now health hasn’t been a high enough value for you, you can re-order the list of priorities that you identified for your life and place health at a higher up position on your list. You can of course do this for other important areas (such as family) if you feel that there are other areas in your life that until now you’d been neglecting.
The key once you’ve clarified the true priorities and re-defined your values is to then ACT based on those new values day to day. If you’ve made health a high priority in your life and placed it towards the tops of your values then you will find that you automatically feel motivated to lose weight, eat healthy foods, and exercise on a day to day basis. Bear in mind however that shifting away from the old patterns of behaviour that were part of your previous value system will take effort to begin with, as it take time to build up new habits of behaviour. The key is to keep acting in a way that is consistent with your new values – doing so will strengthen and reinforce them, and move you away from the old behaviours that no longer serve you. To further motivate and aid yourself as you make this transition you can remind yourself WHY health is now a high priority in your life by making use of visualization techniques and visualise the future consequences you will experience if you continue to neglect your health, as well as visualizing the positive benefits you will experience now and in the future as a result of continuing to take actions that are reflective of the high value that you now place and your health and general physical fitness and well being.
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