Ep. 105 Create Your Compelling Vision

Hi, and welcome to the Mindful Shape Podcast. I'm Paula Parker. I coach women who really want to release excess weight off their bodies and stop thinking about food all of the time. So today's theme is really what's driving you in the beginning to make changes. I'm We'll not be sustainable longer term.

And so we need to come up with a plan for that so that you can stick with it. I'll start off by just telling you a little story. So I dated this guy in my twenties who had let's call it an unusual philosophy around work and money. So he was a trades guy. He did drywall and he said that he only ever worked when he needed money.

So he would do a job. Get paid and then, you know, party, sit around until the money ran out and then call around and line up another job. Now you likely have maybe a little judgment about this because this doesn't seem responsible at all. Like what about savings? What about an emergency fund? What about money for trips, for education, for a future home, clothes, things like this, right?

Right? Right. Right. He was only motivated to work when it got really bad, when his bank account like was dry, when the money ran out completely and he couldn't afford anything. He couldn't even afford his rent. And side note, when I met him, he wasn't even living in an apartment at that point. He was living in a hostel. 

So kind of ignored the red flags on that one, but a story for another day. So  the cost of relying on this stick versus carrot. As motivation to make money was that he didn't have any savings. He didn't travel. He was living in a hostel. He couldn't buy clothes whenever he wanted or really anything, couldn't buy anything.

Our first date, we went out for dinner and he couldn't even afford it. And I had to pay why I continued dating him again, another story, but he didn't have money. Okay. So Based on how he was making money decisions that he would only work when it completely dried up, he couldn't create a future because he didn't even think about the future.

He was solely motivated from scarcity, from lack, from the pain point. Now, all of this seems very obvious when it comes to money. So you would never intentionally use this strategy When it comes to money, when it comes to your finances, letting it run out, letting it become extremely painful until you are ready to work.

Now do situations come up where there's a medical expense or something happens where we, our finances might get really low, of course, but it's not because you just weren't going to work. You're just going to sit and like watch Netflix or something until you run out of money. No. And yet we do this with food.

and our weight all of the time. So when is it that we're really willing to say no to ourselves when it comes to food? When are we willing to plan in advance? It's often when we're coming off feeling very terrible about overeating. What gets us into action is coming from a pain point. We're so sick and tired of suffering that it motivates us to reach out, try something new, Maybe download something, take a training, buy a program.

We have enough activation energy to make that initial change to what we're currently doing. The emotions that are driving us there are self loathing, despair, even disgust with ourselves or our bodies. We're kind of in this energy of I need to, I need to eat better. I need to release weight or I should, I should be doing better.

Versus the energy of, I get to, I get to release weight. I get to make changes with my food. Imagine if, and I think I've said this before, but just imagine if you gained weight and it was permanent, like you could never release that way. Once it was on there, that was it, but that's not the case. You get to change your habits with food.

You get to release that excess fat off your body.  It's the energy of, it's worthy of me and I'm worthy of having it. You might find in the moment that you're deciding on eating something or not, your brain will offer up that, that weight loss goal that you have, it really isn't that important or that it's vain or superficial, especially if you only have to release like 10 pounds or 15 pounds, it might say it's not a problem.

And you really needn't deprive yourself if you want something that tastes good. Your brain really minimizes the goal. So you think, well, you know, I'm thinner than a lot of my women, my age, a lot of my friends maybe, or it's normal to be this size. It's like normal to carry extra weight on your bodies.

Which it is normal because I think, I don't know what the latest stats are, but I think it's more normal than not to be overweight. So your brain will say, well, it's not that big of a deal. You feel apathetic towards your weight loss goal. Essentially, it's not a worthy enough goal to feel negative emotion in the short term.

You're simply not willing to say no and feel that negative emotion in the moment. So then we listen to this very rational justification and then we eat more than we need. And if you're only making changes to what and how you eat in order to lose weight because you think you should or that you need to in order to be better in some way, better than you are now, maybe more attractive, more disciplined, more responsible around food, more in control, more mature, anything like that, more, better, right, then you will be making that food choice from insufficiency.

And when we make decisions from feeling less than from insufficiency, we won't believe we are worthy of that dream of that version of ourselves that can say no, that lives in a body she loves and feels in charge around food. We won't believe in that moment that we are even worthy of that. So We will eat the food, right?

So despite the fact that your initial decision to release the weight was kicked off, likely by this insufficiency by negative emotion, maybe it's self loathing or disgust or despair, that is not the fuel that will be able to to keep things going that you'll be able to rely on continually when we're making food choices.

So we will need a fuel source. So you can thank yourself for, you know, feeling such negative emotion that you're willing to try something new and put yourself out there and maybe invest or put some effort or do some research. That's That's great, but it's not going to sustain you because weight loss, of course, is not just one decision.

It's decisions every single day of your life.  So once we've set out on this weight loss journey, we have this goal. How do we keep it up? What do we use as a fuel source instead? And how do we generate that? How do we activate that? It's like thinking of instead of the stick to motivate us along the way, we need carrots.

Okay. So the biggest carrot that I can offer you is a compelling vision. That matters to you. Maybe I've talked about this before in terms of a compelling reason, but I really use whatever you like. I really like compelling vision because it's more of a it's just not something that's very specific.

Although again, if you feel like a specific, you have a specific reason and that really ignites you, then great for me personally, it's more like a vision of like who I want to be and what I want my life to look like. It's not something that's going to prevent you from getting off track, but that will pull you back.

When you do something that is so compelling that it's more compelling than the numbness and the soothing. If we continually overeat and you might be thinking, well, I don't know what that is. I don't have a compelling reason. I don't have a compelling vision. I don't know what that is, but it's just a decision.

You use your imagination to decide. What it is for you, maybe you want to be the person who can put the fork down halfway through her meal easily and feel really satisfied, feel content, maybe you want to be in the best shape of your life, no matter what your age is, maybe you want to be the healthiest person, you know, I actually think that I am the healthiest person I know. 

And that feels really good because I'm around a lot of healthy people  because what does that say about me, right? What do I tell myself about that? That even though I'm surrounded by all these healthy, smart, successful, kind hearted people, educated people, I make the healthiest choices more often. I've been fortunate to be fair.

I haven't had any major health crisis, and I've also figured out. the health thing. I've mastered that for myself through educating myself and managing my brain to make the best choices while still being able to have the odd indulgence without the guilt.  Okay, so your compelling vision can be whatever you decide it is,  but it's that version of you for whom this effort is worth it.

The version of you who deep inside, you know, is there And who you were capable of being because otherwise you wouldn't care about this. You wouldn't even have this goal. You wouldn't be listening to this podcast for sure. You wouldn't want to release any weight. You would have resigned to being content with the weight you have and the food habits you have now.

You would have accepted that that food noise, the food drama, the scale drama, is just who you have to be for the rest of your life. You just have to live that way for the rest of your life. But you're capable of more. I know that. And somewhere inside, I know that you know it too. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here.

So the key is to engage with that version of you. That compelling vision in a way that will ignite emotional fuel, that will inspire you, make you recommit no matter how off track you feel or how deflated you are. And then you get better and better at shortening that timeline, collapsing the timeline.

You get back on track quicker and easily. So you're bound to get a little off track to drift away from your goals. I've, I've talked about this before as like the drift, totally normal. You're going to slide away from maybe some new, newer healthy habits. It's inevitable. The goal is not to avoid all mistakes and all missteps.

The goal is to course correct quickly, to have a quick recovery. And recovery is a decision too. It's reminding yourself. of who you are, that you are someone who is capable, that you are someone who's smart enough to do this, and that you'll have your own back and that you have this compelling vision. You are that compelling vision.

You are that version of you. You're just need to re engage with her. So So let's talk about how you can reconnect to that. And I'll give you some strategies that I find helpful to do that in a minute. But first, let's just talk about how to decide on your compelling vision if you don't have one already.

So here are a couple of questions to help you connect to that compelling vision. The first question is, if there were no obstacles What would you want to weigh?  And if a number doesn't resonate, what would you want to wear? How would you want to look? How would you want to feel in your body, in your clothes?

When you go out for a walk, when you're on a hike and you run into your ex and his new wife.  Whatever it is, if there were no obstacles, what would you want your experience with your body to be like?  Number two,  if I could choose the purpose of this weight loss journey, what would it be?  So if you could choose the purpose.

If you had to make it mean something, all the struggle, all the pain, if you had to make it mean something, what would you want it to mean?  So maybe that is You learn how to stop people pleasing.  Maybe it's you learn how to practice self compassion. Maybe it's you learn to get to know yourself more deeply than you ever had before because you're forced to out of that self loathing.

Maybe it's that you are learning how to feel strong, to believe in yourself again, to learn how to process all of your emotions, to even learn what emotions you're having, and to have your own back no matter what. It might be one or it might be all of those things, but you get to decide. And I really encourage you to think of this as more than just trying to release 10 pounds.

As I say, if you're just trying to release 10 pounds, it's only going to take you so far because you're just going to be focused on following the food rules versus. What is this really about for me? Because then when it's about something a bit bigger, when it, when you're really connected to that compelling vision, one is you're going to feel motivated.

You're not going to be just following the rules for the sake of following the rules. You're going to feel compelled. to do it because that's just who you are. Okay. So the reason we don't do this, the reason that you might find you are hesitant to even answering those questions and connecting to your compelling vision, you might just kind of hear this and be like, yeah, that's kind of a fun idea.

Think about it a little bit more than just weight loss.  Here's what I want to say. If you actually do it, if you actually write down, if there were no obstacles, what would I want to weigh?  How do I want that to feel? And what is the purpose of all of this? If it is more than just releasing 10, 20, 30, 60, 100 pounds, what is this truly for me?

What could I make this purpose into? The reason you won't do that one is easier not to  do is that you might not connect to your compelling vision because We scare ourselves. We think that if I get excited about this, if I connect to it and I don't get it, I'm going to be really disappointed. And here's how to overcome that.

One is look for evidence that it's possible. You've had success in the past, so you know it's physically possible for your body to release excess fat. We know that unless your body is, you know, not in alignment with physics on this planet. We know it's physically possible. Okay. Number two is you've likely made a ton of progress so far.

You've learned things over the years, all the different things that you've tried, you've learned and you know yourself better and you know your body better. Maybe it's the smaller wins that you've gained more recently. Maybe just listening to this podcast has helped you in some way. Like maybe you're prioritizing sleep, you're drinking more water, you're weighing yourself and, and less critical of yourself, not beating yourself up so much, or you're kinder to yourself.

You're remembering when you get on the scale. Oh, right. It's not going to be two days that I'm going to see results. I'm going to give myself three weeks. Like I'm going to give myself that time. I'm going to invest that time to allow change to happen, to allow that physical process to happen. Maybe you're kinder to yourself when you do overeat and you're learning the foods that work with your body and you're Noticing that you are naturally avoiding ones that don't, or maybe you're drinking a little less than before.

Maybe you've learned that wanting the food,  having those cravings in the moment is simply you wanting to feel better, feel better in your life. And you are remembering that more often, whatever it is, there's some progress.  You are closer to that compelling vision than you think.  If, if you really feel like you're not, then  it's possible because That compelling vision is possible because you've heard others have been successful and maybe it's just been on this podcast, the clients who I've interviewed, who have been successful, and it gives your brain some evidence,  the more you can train your brain to reengage with that version of yourself, the more you'll be thinking about her, the more real she will become, the more you will be thinking like her and making decisions like her, the closer you will truly be.

Become in being that person and just let yourself dream, let yourself live into that person. And then lastly, even if you were to do this exercise and you maybe make it into a practice and you start using the positive emotions that you generate by thinking about your compelling vision, that version of you, and you start feeling more commitment, more resolve, more inspiration from thinking about that, and you make no change in your weight.

Would you be worse off? You might say, yeah, because now I'm so disappointed and I wasted all that time. But I would argue that you're already living in that disappointment with your weight and your food habits now. So there is no downside. If nothing else, you will have had the experience of feeling good, feeling optimistic, and feeling positive. 

Okay, so let's, now that we've created it, now you, you have a sense of how to connect to your compelling vision, let's talk about how you reconnect when you fall out of it. Because we will, right? We will drift away from this  and we need to notice that.  So I want you to start noticing or even reflect now.

What do you start doing or what do you stop doing when you're drifting away from truly being connected to who you truly want to be around food? Is it that you stop planning? Is it that you let yourself snack a little bit more? You're grabbing bites while you're making dinner? Something maybe you've gotten out of the habit of doing?

You start falling back into those habits? Do you allow yourself seconds when you, in your body, can tell that you've had enough? Alright, do you allow yourself to have more and more even when you know physically you're satiated and you don't need anymore? Or is it more of like habits around exercise or journaling or weighing yourself that you start to notice you let slide?

Be on the lookout for that.  Again, just remind your brain, this is normal. You will get disconnected. That's not a problem. Your job is to become aware. a person who is skilled at reconnecting,  then you reconnect intentionally. So notice that it's normal, right? Notice when you're, when you're doing it, when you're drifting away, notice, remind yourself that this is totally normal and then reconnect intentionally.

And this will, how you do this will be very personable to you. The goal is to fill up your head with thoughts that make you feel committed, resolved, calm, optimistic, encouraged, inspired to take action toward. Your compelling vision, right? So when we think about our compelling vision, we feel connected to it.

We tell ourselves things like it's possible. This is important to me. This matters. We feel connected to it. Then we will start living into it because we will start making our food choices from that feeling of being encouraged, of, of feeling inspired, right? And then we will build momentum. And once we're in momentum, it just feels easier. 

So how do we reconnect? Again, this is going to be personable to you. So decide what's going to work for you, but it could be getting coaching. It could be listening to a podcast like this, even when you don't want to. So I recently had this realization, I have noticed that when I am in this drift,  I will not want to listen to podcasts that I usually find really inspiring. 

And I think this happens because our brain just does not want to think about it. It does not want to think about food. It does not want to think about the gap of where we are to where we want to be. It does not want to think about that. It like can't handle the negative emotion that would come up from that.

So I want to challenge you. So my strategy previously had been to, you know what? You just rationalize. You know what? You know what? I need a break from that. I'm going to listen to some light true crime stuff. I'm going to like listen to this, but here's the thing. You can do that and you can take a rest.

And I absolutely encourage you if emotion is high and you really need a break, you take a rest, but get back to it as quickly as you possibly can.  The reason being is that when you can become that person that says, no, this goal is important to me. I'm going to, force myself,  even when I don't really feel like it, to force myself to  start thinking this way, I am going to force myself to re engage.

For me, it's been such a game changer, literally a game changer, okay? You, you will go from somebody, if you're thinking about if this is food for you, you will go from somebody who maybe lets a drift happen or like a rut  happen for a month, two weeks. to a few days, to a day, to a few hours, to maybe one hour, to instant, where that timeline is collapsed, where you fall out of belief, where you are disconnected from your compelling vision, that version of you, who you want to be when it comes to food and weight, you fall out of that.

Maybe it's because you overate.  It's for whatever reason, you start comparing yourself to somebody, you start feeling down, whatever that is, and you collapse that timeline immediately. You force yourself to be someone who, despite negative emotion, I'm going to take action. And again, I always say this with a caveat, that you need to know yourself.

You need to know when a rest is appropriate. Right? Because sometimes it is when you have a lot of negative emotion, you need to process that you need to rest. If that negative emotion has subsided,  then you will have a rational brain and you can start thinking clearly and get back on track. Okay.  All right.

So you might also, you know, watch YouTube videos or health or fitness documentaries that really inspire you. It could be doing a meditation in which you simply sit And imagine what it's going to be like for you. Okay. It could be doing a self coaching exercise. I have so many on my website. You can sign up for those and, and take a look at that.

You can be writing about it. What's going to be better when you were at your like optimal weight for you, your natural weight, what's going to be better? What might be different? Okay, another way to reconnect, it could be movement. Movement is the best thing to do in terms of  changing your state, shifting those neurochemicals in your brain so that you feel better.

Go for a walk, go for a run, do some stretching, anything that's going to move your body and help you feel better and more optimistic, help you access the way of thinking that's going to tell yourself, you know what, that compelling vision that's possible for you and it's happening.  And lastly, it could be listening to music or affirmations.

Okay. So anything that's going to change your state and it's going to help you connect to that compelling vision. So not all of these things will work all of the time. The key here is to really plant the seed in your brain today that you get to decide on a compelling vision for you and then connect to it in any way That works for you specifically,  that this could be really another tool in your toolbox.

And if you get really skilled at shortening that recovery time, you're going to be a different person. You're going to be showing up completely differently. You're going to follow through on your plan. Again, not because you have to, or even because you said you would, but because this is not about following food rules.

This is about who you decided you would be, and you are simply living into that version of you. That version of you who makes great choices.  So if all of this sounds really good to you, and you are thinking, you know what, I need some help reconnecting to that compelling vision, or I need some help, you know, coming up with that compelling vision and not feeling apathetic, not like seeing a little bit of progress.

And then my brain goes to, you know, what's not that big of a deal. And then I never really get to have the relationship with food that I want. I never get to really Feel how I want to feel in my body. If that is you and you want to incorporate coaching as a tool to reconnect to that compelling vision for yourself, then I invite you to connect with me, I am taking on clients right now.

You can contact me by emailing me at Paula at mindful shape. com. And we'll set up a call and we'll just see if it's a match. I'll talk about my process to see if it would help you and where you're at right now in your life. And then if it is. That's great. We will move forward. And if it's not, that's totally cool too.

It's a time for you to take a stand for what you want and we'll come up with some action steps to help you get closer to where you want to be. Okay. I hope that was helpful and I will talk to you soon.