Make looking better the main goal and you just might end up looking worse.
If, instead, you make thinking and feeling better the main goals….
… not only will you achieve those goals as soon as you begin to act on them BUT over time you'll begin to look better as a by-product.
Let me explain WHY.
As human beings our brains are wired to reinforce(encourage) behaviours that have an immediate or instant 'benefit' for it…
… and discourage us from repeating behaviours that DON'T have an instant 'benefit' or that bring about an instant punishment instead.
By benefit I mean something the brain can use in its favour immediately, even if the thing itself can have negative effects off into the future.
And by punishment I mean the opposite effect than the one the brain desires.
Take a piece of chocolate cake for example.
Not only is it tasty, but the body breaks it down much quicker than it does a piece of chicken….
…. and can therefore convert it to energy quite quickly.
In terms of survival, the brains primary and deep-rooted goal, it perceives this as 'beneficial' because it is more concerned about getting energy NOW as opposed to getting energy in one hour, tomorrow, the day after or next week.
And because a piece of cake is tasty and can be utilised quickly, the brain is more likely to reinforce the behaviour of stuffing your face with it than it is to reinforce the behaviour of eating a breast of chicken which although is the better long-term option, 1) doesn't tickle your tasebuds as much and 2) takes longer to utilise(break down and convert to energy).
When it comes to losing weight or looking better, such goals aren't achieved the moment you do your first workout or begin to eat healthier.
These goals can only be achieved after months of consistent exercise and healthy eating.
In other words the benefit is off into the future and because that is the case the brain is more likely to discourage you from repeating those behaviours…
… making them boring, unenjoyable and unsustainable for many people!
This is why up to 70% of people who begin their fitness journeys every January give up by the end of February.
They join a gym with their minds fixated on changing the way they look, a goal which, again, takes time to achieve, and therefore takes time to reinforce the actions needed to achieve it.
Because the results they seek don't come about quickly, they get discouraged, give up, fall back into their old routines and gain more weight.
They fail to realise that changing the way they look isn't really their main goal.
That the real, underlying goal is to think and feel better about themselves, and they believe they need to change the way they look in order to do that which isn't really true.
The truth is you can change the way you think and feel right now.
In fact, as I'm writing this paragraph the desire to do just that has arisen within me.
So I'm going to stop writing for a moment, fill up my bath with cold water and meditate while it's filling. Once full, I'll plunge into it and stay there for 3 minutes which is dramatically and instantly going to improve my mind-mood processes................
Right I'm back. And I feel like I could kill a lion after!
As I was saying, you don't have to wait to get into the shape you want to get into to think and feel better about yourself.
You can learn to feel that way now and by doing so, increase the likelihood of doing the things you need to do to look better off into the future.
To make the brain immediately reinforce the behaviours you need to engage in in order to get into better shape you need to make these behaviors come with an INSTANT reward when you act on them, and also an INSTANT punishment when you don't.
So how do you do that?
There's many different ways. But I believe one of the best ways to do it is by shifting your perspective and changing your goal to one that isn't impossible to achieve today or tomorrow.
You need to give your brain another short-term goal that brings about immediate benefits AND also positive future by-products.
For example, my current health goals are to 1) feel good mentally & emotionally and 2) to keep back pain at bay.
These goals can be achieved today if I act on the behaviors of meditation, yoga, drinking plenty of water and getting the right nutrients into me.
And because my goals can be achieved today and come with an instant benefit, the brain is more likely to reinforce the behaviors and encourage me to repeat them tomorrow and the next day.
This is how habits are formed.
If my main goal was to merely build muscle and get rid of the fat around my abs so I could post ego-boosting pictures on Instagram…..
… because those goals CAN'T come about immediately, I'll find it a lot harder to regularly eat healthier and exercise than I would if those goals could be achieved immediately.
As I mentioned, when a behavior doesn't come with an immediate benefit, or if a behaviour brings about an instant punishment, the brain is more inclined to discourage you from repeating the behavior.
So if my main goals are to feel better mentally and emotionally and to keep back pain at bay, if I engage in the behaviors of NOT meditating, doing yoga, staying hydrated and getting the right nutrients into me then I will immediately feel worse mentally and emotionally and my back will start acting up.
The brain will therefore punish and discourage me from repeating the same types of behavior tomorrow and the next day.
If looking better is something you've been trying to do, and frustratingly failing to do, then my advice is to shift your perspective and prioritise your goals differently.
Recognise the goal behind the goal to look better is to feel better. Then begin to do the things today that will make you feel better today.
Think about it.
If you were to ask 100 gym-freaks who are in amazing shape how they achieved such results, at least 90 of them will tell you the results came about as a by-product of achieving a different but more important goal:
TO THINK AND FEEL THAT BIT BETTER IN THEMSELVES EACH DAY.
Out of those 90 people, 80 of them will tell you initially their goal was to look better, but soon after starting looks took a backseat.
Training and eating good made them FEEL A LOT BETTER almost immediately.
And because it did, the brain encouraged them to keep doing it... And they did!
Out of those 80 people, if you paid them all to stop eating good and exercising for a month, at least 70 of them would fall into some form of depression by the end of the month. After a couple of days, they'd begin to think and feel worse about themselves.
So again, shift your perspective on things.
Set thinking and feeling better as the main goal and act on it. By doing so you'll create an upward spiral for yourself:
by thinking better you'll feel better. By feeling better you'll do better. By doing better you'll think better...
And as you do your external appearance will begin to reflect that internal change.
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