On our most recent Free For All Friday show we had a listener question come in. We love listener questions, and in particular this one.
The question was….
“So what if you’re depressed don’t even want to start taking care of yourself when you know you should?”
I thought that’s a genius question. On our show we talk a lot about strategy development. We talk about how to implement these strategies into your life. We talk about which strategies we should use at what times.
We talk abut why certain strategies should be used in place of, or before other ones. We talk about building certain strategies on top of another to develop momentum that propels you to a new life.
But we all have times when we’re down and feeling depressed. You know you should take better care of yourself but you don’t even want to. As a result, you beat yourself up because you know you shouldn’t be thinking like that.
[spp-tweet “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”]
Finally after beating yourself up, you’ve taken any motivation out doing something that’s uplifting.
I get it.
I completely understand…. but how do break the habit and create a new cycle? How can we get the snowball rolling so we can actually gain some momentum?
That’s the million dollar question.
Think of all the power, thrust and force that has to happen for a rocket to launch or an airplane to actually lift off the ground.
It’s an incredible amount of energy but eventually the amount of energy needed to fly gets exponentially less for every few feet it ascends into the atmosphere.
Every time it goes higher and higher the less and less energy it needs to expend in order to reach its final destination.
That’s where you want to be.
So the bad news is that if you’re going to break the downward spiral and chart a new direction for your health and for your life, it’s going to be really hard at first.
Freakishly hard.
Old habits don’t die easily.
So you have two tasks ahead of you…
- Manage your existing patterns (and try not to emotionally attach to them)
- Start putting energy into new habits
So here are some tips that might help you create new healthy habits when you don’t feel like it.
Set small achievable goals
If you want to lose 100 pounds for example, don’t focus on that. Map out a transformation plan that has an end date. Say you want to lose 100 pounds within 12 months. That means each month you have to lose 8.3 pounds or about 2 pounds per week. You’ll have 7 days to lose 2 pounds.
Think about small goals that you know you can achieve.
The other way to look at it is to work your way up in terms of goal setting. Pick other goals that may or may not even be related to the goal you’re trying to set because you know you can achieve them. This will help you feel better about yourself subconsciously.
Which brings me to my next point…
The power is in the habit not the results
What people need are better habits that they can accomplish in their sleep because they’re fun. The power isn’t in losing 100 pounds. The power is that you created habits that make you value yourself.
Achieving success with your health or in any other area of your life is easy to do, but the problem is that it’s also easier NOT to do these daily habits. You want small mini successes that make you feel good which will motivate you to take even more action.
Which brings me to my final point…
Stay True To Your Word
You see when we tell ourselves we’re going to get up early and go to the gym and we hit the snooze button on our alarms, in a very small way we’re disrespecting ourselves. We don’t hold a high amount of honor for our word and our actions. How *could* you be motivated if you don’t even believe in yourself?
When you know you lie to yourself on a daily basis, how can you have any kind of legitimate respect for how you live your life? When you honor your word (to others AND yourself) you build life force energy. You’re building the structure and framework of the launching pad for a new life. You’re actually building the foundation that will eventually become the snowball that will keep growing and growing as it gathers momentum down the snow hill.
When you say things, you mean them and they happen, no matter what. There’s honor in that. When you honor and respect yourself you begin to be confident in who you are and who you’re becoming.
The question is, do you honor yourself enough not lie to yourself?
[spp-tweet “Some people want it to happen, some people wish it would happen, others make it happen – Michael Jordan”]
