Ep. 82 Creating a Sense of Success

Hi, and welcome to the Mindful Shape Podcast. I'm Paula Parker and I am a life and weight loss coach. All right. So this episode is going to be a little bit more off the cuff. I think I know what I'm going to be talking about, but I have some more broad strokes in terms of my outline. And so we're just going to kind of roll with the punches and see how it goes, but I'm pretty sure that I know what I'm doing here at this point.

I've just launched into my Weight Loss Reinvention course with a new group. And if you are still interested in joining, you are more than welcome to join. The course is open right now. It's just open all of the time and it's a go at your own pace. But for the next three months, we are doing weekly workshops in which we kind Work on the content together and I can ask questions and give strategy and all that kind of thing.

And this group I'm really excited about because we just have some, you know, as always, there's some really interesting people with interesting stories and lots to contribute. And I think that there's a lot that we can achieve together. It's always more impactful if you can be alongside people, right?

The self sufficiency Journey is such a myth, right? We do things together. We, we learn from each other and we're always better off. So all of that said, it's bringing up a lot of things for me, because some of the, some of what's being reflected back is that this is a new approach for many women, right?

Many of us who have been, you know, in this paradigm of. Diet culture for, for many of us, my method or my process can feel very different than that. And so that's why I called the course reinvention, because it's time to just reinvent the whole model. So this. Podcast is going to be kind of in, in relation to that.

It's kind of talking about, you know, I'm not going to dwell on it, but cause we all know about it, the old way of weight loss and kind of what a new approach can be. And some of my thoughts are around that. Also a really great time to be talking about it because. If you follow such things, you will know that Mercury retrograde is happening on April 1st.

And before that happens, there's what's called a shadow period, which is about the week before. And shadow period makes it sound a little bit ominous, but essentially what it is, it's just a really good time to slow things down and let go of things. And so I really invite you to do that. to use this time.

If you're listening to this in real time, which would be the last week of March in 2024 to let go of what's not serving you anymore and slow down. Okay. This is a very good time to do that. So as you know, What's the old way of weight loss? It's food is numbers, right? Usually calories, but there's other ways of looking at it.

There's also things of like colors and that kind of thing. I mean, I get it. It's a way for us to like categorize things and think about things. There's nothing wrong with that. But that's more towards kind of an older paradigm of thinking about food. Another one is exercise of movement as. a compensation for eating, right?

So move more, eat less, that's a whole goal, or kind of taken to extreme punishment for eating and or overeating. And then the old tried and true, you know, beating yourself up or berating yourself when you're on the scale, when you Look at your body and you think it should be different, right? And kind of feeling bad about that.

When you try on clothes, when you see a picture of yourself, anything like that, and then feeling any kind of disconnection from yourself. What is a new approach from that? A new approach is food as nourishment. I used to even hear food as fuel and I'm not opposed to that. I prefer nourishment personally for me.

It's not just fuel, like it is fuel for my body for sure, but there's also an element where it's like nourishing my body, taking care of my body and also pleasure, right? We don't have to just let go of pleasure. It's not an all or nothing. It's just hedonism when it comes to food or we're just eating, you know, like brand pellets or something.

So of course we're enjoying food, but it's nourishment and exercise and movement. It's not as punishment, it's not as compensation. It's something that we do because we want to move our bodies because it's fun, because we're building strength and we like how that feels. Or it's just an opportunity to connect with our body, maybe learn a new skill, challenge our bodies in some way.

And then lastly, and you know, obviously for me, this is a huge component is managing your self talk. I'm going to be talking a little bit more about that today. So like when you get on the scale or when you try on clothes, see pictures of yourself, like what is that internal dialogue? What is that experience like for you?

Most of us who have been on this weight loss journey, it's probably pretty negative. So I really invite you this magical time that we can let go of things to take a stand and really claim How you want your experience of weight loss to be so I've kind of given you sort of a an old way new way But really I mean it can be anything that you want You take a little bit of this a little bit of that whatever serves you.

I guess my invitation really is to just be intentional About what that is. Okay. So I'm not too concerned with exactly the meal plan that you have. Although of course that's important. We're dealing with the mechanics of weight loss. What I'm more interested in and what I think is more, more interesting in general is what you want your experience to be like.

For most of us, there's some sort of shame, blame, or guilt. That comes into it. Okay. So if you are experiencing that, you're not the only one. We all have that when it comes to our weight. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say all of us, but many women have that when it comes to their weight and or how they eat or what they ate.

So, I really want to invite you to start thinking of those as almost like sand traps, like they just, they do not help you. They just kind of keep you stuck. Okay. The problem with it is that they often at this point are very automatic. So we eat ice cream, which in the moment might seem like an okay idea.

It might be seem fine. And then later we regret it. And so that system where we do the thing, we have the thought, and then we feel that emotion. Okay. It's like our body memorizes that and then anytime we, we do that, it kind of goes on autopilot and does that same exact thing. So we can have this experience over and over and over and over again and then it just like normalize it, normalizes it for us, right?

So there are very subtle ways that we beat ourselves up. Like Saying I shouldn't have eaten that I shouldn't have had that and it feels true. You're like no I'm really trying to release weight. I really it's true that I shouldn't have eaten that because I want to release weight Sounds true, but the impact of it is that it feels terrible and what it builds is a sense of failure Okay, and you can imagine the kind of choices that you make after that coming from a sense of failure.

You just know what that feels like. We all know what that feels like. It's kind of like we're going down a negativity spiral. So what I suggest instead is one, you want to be eating ice cream for reasons that you love, but that's a whole other issue. But let's just say you do eat it, right? Because it seems okay in the moment.

And then later you find yourself regretting it. Just notice how you're talking to yourself about that experience. Notice if it's like draining your energy or if it's possible to think about it in a way that actually serves you that actually can be neutral if nothing else. So what I'm talking about here is more of a kinder, gentler way to talk to yourself, right?

Which is okay. You know what? I don't love that. I had that kind of sucks, but it makes sense. Okay. Given the circumstances, given what I was thinking at the time, given whatever it was going on, it made sense. Why? Because I'm a logical person. I'm rational, right? Even if it's as simple as my brain is wired to seek pleasure or my brain has really associated fitting in with a group.

as ideal and I want to eat because everyone else is eating, right? My brain has associated food with relaxation, with food, with fun, food, with entertainment. If that's all it is, that's fine. You can just remember, Oh, my brain has associated that with, with escaping my negative state or how I'm feeling and wants to feel better.

And it thinks food is a solution. So that's why it happens. It's actually pretty straightforward. Why it happened. Oftentimes you'll hear people say, or I will like, Oh, I just don't know why that happened. I don't know why I keep doing this. That all makes a lot of sense, right? When we stay in confusion about that, it's typically because your brain wants to stay the same.

Your brain likes homeostasis and doesn't want to change. So that's kind of what you're up against there, right? Which is. Yeah, it is going to be uncomfortable to change, and that's totally fine. You can understand the reasons why your brain might go there, and if nothing else, it's from habit. Okay? But then we beat ourselves up and say, Oh, we shouldn't have done that.

It makes no sense. Why do I keep doing that? That creates a sense of failure. So when I just want to normalize, totally makes sense. You can learn how to change habits. You can learn how to manage how you think about. food before you overeat. So that's totally possible to, to learn how to allow urges, to overeat, learn how to manage urges, all of that.

I want to just talk about the difference between that sense of failure and that sense of success, because, you know, it's usually when you start off with a program and things are going well and it feels really easy. So in that phase one, you have that sense of success. And what I encourage you to do is start tracking cues of success, no matter where you are on the journey.

So when it feels easy, great. And then when it starts to feel a little bit harder, I still want you to start tracking Q's of success. So what do I mean by that and why would we do it? One is I just mean you want to look at all of the ways in which you are showing up for yourself. Even if they're as simple as, you know what, I'm going to bed at a decent hour and I'm drinking more water during the day.

You want to look for any cues that you are successful. I've talked a little bit about this before, but it's really important. The reason that we want to do that is because when you. start believing that you are successful, you will start cultivating that sense of aliveness in your body. So you will start cultivating that sense of success, that sense of like, I can do it ness, that kind of thing.

And really what we are all wanting in terms of weight loss is to have a relationship with our bodies that feels like us. That feels like we can access that sense of aliveness in this world because we're in this body We're in this vessel and it lives in a physical world And so when we feel like that is an alignment with who we want to be or the kind of woman We want to be and how we're showing up in this physical world that really activates that sense of aliveness That is what you're after And so we want to start cultivating that in this, what I think of as like a new approach to weight loss is you start cultivating that immediately.

How you do that is by taking a look at all your cues of success. That's one way. Of course, there are other ways. And one of the other ways is to really, once you notice, Oh, these are my cues of success. I want to celebrate that. Okay. So there is nothing that is too small to celebrate. And it's so important because that's how you build momentum.

So I have been thinking recently about this idea of like a 2 percent win, like a win that really only helped you or improved things, increased your progress, got you closer to your goal by 2%. Right. So it doesn't have to be this huge thing. Oftentimes like weight loss, it's slow. It's like on a day to day thing.

And so we want to be regularly like cheering ourselves on, right? Like what was the 2 percent win that I had today? So 2 percent wins. I encourage you to do it. Okay. Ways that we celebrate. I was recently on a, I'm in this container called the coach lab and they, she had, she's been running it for two years.

And so she had a big call to kind of celebrate that. And one of the questions that, so she has all these like senior, like very well established and really role models in the coaching industry. She has them on there and you can ask them questions. And so one of the questions I asked was how do you celebrate?

Because in the coaching world, you hear a lot about this, like it's important to celebrate. It's important to acknowledge your wins and that kind of thing. And so I was kind of curious as to how they would answer and I'll share with you some of the things that they said. Some of it I've heard before and some of it I do, but there was some things that were newer and if you're not inside the coaching world, which I know so many of you are not, then this might be something really cool.

So, one is just to tell someone that who will really appreciate it. Right. So we all know, like in our world, the kind of who we talk to about certain things. So like there are certain people in my life that I really love to talk about business with, or there's some people in my life that I like to talk more about like mysticism and like that kind of stuff.

Right. And there's other people I just know, like, it's kind of going to fall flat. So you want to talk to somebody. And don't just take it as it is. It's gotta be about your wins with whom, you know, it feels really safe and they kind of get it, right? If they don't get it, it's going to fall flat. So it needs to be somebody who's going to appreciate it.

And if you don't have the community, then come into the group. Right? Come into the weight loss reinvention because we are here for it. Okay? We will see you. The next one is by a symbolic gift. What do I mean by that? It's a gift for yourself. Like oftentimes when we think of celebrating, we think of like buying something.

So I, you know, bought this jacket, I achieved this goal in time and I was like, Oh, I'm going to buy this amazing jacket, that kind of thing. So it needs to be something that's symbolic to you. That's meaningful. Whether it's a little plant or just a journal, maybe a candle that you light or some sort of scented lotion or something that you like, it does not have to be huge.

You don't have to be saying, okay, I did my 2 percent when I'm, You're buying a ticket to Las Vegas or something, right? The point is that you're buying something small that's like a little token and you will imbue it with meaning. So every, that's what matters, right? You can just buy yourself, accumulate stuff, but it's not going to mean anything.

So the invitation is to really have something like a journal or like a candle that every time you light it. You were reminded of your win. So this I think works a little bit better for bigger wins. So rather than your 2 percent wins, right, might be a bigger win, but I don't know, maybe not. Maybe 2 percent win is good enough, right?

It's just cultivating that feeling of success. So whatever it is, whatever you buy, you want to be doing it with intentionality, right? You're doing it because I'm not just buying this thing as a reward. for achieving my goal. No, you're buying it because it's a symbol of you working hard at something and succeeding.

Also, it doesn't mean that you achieved your goal. Success is, we need to like, you know, open up the scope of how we define success in the first place. So reaching your goal or not, that might be one aspect of creating success, but of course there are many others. And another one that I have that I personally really like is listening to a song and then reconnecting with that sense of aliveness.

So what I'm talking about here is really embodying that feeling and music can really help us access that, so whether that's a sense of achievement or just feeling proud that you worked at something or feeling proud that you are gaining some momentum in something that you're working at that's important to you, you can listen to a song and you can tap into that feeling.

And then anytime you want to reconnect with that feeling, that sense of aliveness or achievement, you can listen to that song and kind of remind yourself. You can remind yourself how to do it. It kind of becomes your celebration song. Of course, you can also do a reflection or journaling session about, you know, your goal and how you came to do it.

That's always amazing. And then lastly, I'll offer anything that just feels luxurious to you as a gift to yourself, something that you wouldn't normally do. So maybe it's take a walk in the middle of the afternoon, or for me, it's looking at, you know, multimillion dollar homes on real estate. websites. So that just, you know, that's a little bit of a leisure, luxurious time where I can just visualize this life that I have, where I live in this very, very luxurious house, right?

Like that's my thing. So whatever it is for you that kind of like taps into that feeling, that's what I'm talking about there. Okay. So celebrate, make sure to celebrate small things, right? Big things do it. It will really help cultivate that sense of success. And as I say, we don't make great decisions out of a sense of failure.

We just don't. And we're going to feel worse. And we're going to want to soothe with food more. We're going to be less inclined to allow hunger, that feeling of hunger. We're going to be more inclined to eating past satiation, eating from an emotional place rather than like a physical need for food. So anything that you can do to give yourself that gift of feeling successful, I really encourage you to do it.

Again, I think of this as like more of a new approach to weight loss. It's not a you need to lose weight. And so we're just going to do this the harsh way with a stick. It's more of like, you know, one, you don't need to lose any weight at all, but if you want to, if it's a part of your personal journey, that's really important to you, then you get to do it in a way.

That is not self punishing. You get to do it in a way that, like, fills up your bucket as you go along. Alright. Okay. I think that's all I have for you. So, I will talk to you again soon. Okay, bye.