You know you want something

You want to be healthier, fitter but you keep finding yourself in the same spot. You’ve followed all kinds of workouts and diets, and they are impossible to stick to. It’s frustrating, and slowly you lose faith that things can or will change. If you ever think or feel like that you are not alone!

"I TRIED DESPERATELY TO FIND SOMETHING THAT WOULD GIVE ME THAT DRIVE TO CHANGE"

I was the same, at one point I even decided that even though I wasn’t happy I would just accept that life would never be what I really wanted. It sends shivers down my spine just thinking about that. Thankfully I ‘woke up’ and decided that I deserved to have the life I wanted and that I was prepared to do what it took to create it.

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Try try again

Back then there was so much I needed to change that it was overwhelming, but there was one thing that I knew I could do to start feeling better about myself, but even that was too difficult. For many years I longed to be healthier, but I was too busy, I barely had a minute to myself, I felt like I knew the basics, but I didn’t really know where to start or how to piece it all together or how I would ever fit it into my life. There was so much information out there, and different people told me different things, I even found myself doing the cabbage soup diet at one point as I tried desperately to find something that would give me that drive to change. I don't even know how many times I started a health kick, or I joined a gym and time, and again I stopped. The problem was that every time I’d jumped ahead and I’d missed the two things that you have to do first.

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Step 1 : Enough Has To Be Enough

There is something that is not ok, something that you want to be different. to begin you have to Admit that it (whatever 'it' is for you) is not ok. The chances are that you think you’ve already done step 1...we all think that we’ve done step 1! But saying I want to get fitter or healthier is slightly different but importantly different from saying “it’s no longer OK to be how I am”.  Let's take "I want to he fitter" for example...that was me, I said it for years. It doesn't mean anything, you have to say "I am no longer going to let life get in the way of my health, it's no longer ok with me that I don't look after myself". Yours, of course, will be different, the point is that you have to decide that you will no longer accept how things are.

But that on its own is not enough you have to do step 2 as well.

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Step 2: Feel It

You need a pen and a piece of paper (or you can grab an iPad/tablet/phone) for step 2, this is where you create the meaning that will give you the strength you need to stick with it, you are going to write down why 'it' is not OK, you have to feel it. You want to get a deep as you can with this, what does 'it' make you feel? what don’t you like, how do feel about you? what would it mean if you woke up in 10 years and you’d done nothing?

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Going back to my getting fitter example I'd say “it’s not ok that it I don’t get the time to exercise. It is not OK because I don’t like how I look or feel, it makes me feel unhappy, and it frustrates me. The idea of waking up in 10 years time and being more out of shape terrifies me”. 

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The more you can face your feelings in step two the more powerful it will be. Go to that place deep, deep down, and be honest with yourself - write down the things that you wouldn’t tell anyone else, the real reasons you want to change. You need this because on the days you need something that will carry you through, a deeper meaning that will be stronger the desire the the pull of the familiar...and like sirens calling sailors to the rock the comfort of now will call to you, it will tempt you, it will tell you that it's not so bad, everything is ok really and you will be tempted, you will wonder if it's worth it - in those moments wanting is not enough, you must have something more.

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Being Ready to Change

When you start with these two steps, it creates that final point of decision that you will not accept the status quo anymore and importantly the meaning behind that which you are going to need to be successful. 

The thing that people don’t tell you is that changing (anything) is difficult. This is because in the beginning you will always be drawn back towards the ‘old’ you. There will be opportunities time and again to stop, to go backwards and in those moments that you go back to what you wrote down and that gives you a fire inside to push you through.

With these two steps, you are ready to start, to begin to change. The best thing is that these two steps are the foundation of any change you want to make in your life, from jobs to relationships to getting fit.