Weight Loss without Worry

     You may have committed to eating better or exercising in the past and not followed through.  If you don’t follow through enough times, you begin to distrust yourself.  This can make it hard to pick up the torch again and can ultimately damage your self-esteem, self-image and self-confidence. 

     Commitment is essential if you want to achieve your goal so put any past failures behind you and put yourself back in the driver’s seat with these 4 no-fail strategies for keeping your commitments. 

1.  Find Out How You REALLY Feel about Your Goal — Set your goal but before you commit to it ask yourself, "Do I have any doubt that I can achieve this goal?"  Often times we set a goal and our conscious mind is saying, "yes, this is absolutely what I want" yet down deep in the recesses of your subconscious mind we are telling ourselves, "I’ll never be able to do that".  And, since your subconscious mind strongly influences your habits and behaviors your chances of reaching your goal will be slim.

If you find that negative voice speaking up consider changing the part of the goal that is causing you to feel unsure.  For instance if you set a goal to lose 10 pounds this month and your subconscious mind tells you "no way" then tweak it until it feels right, try changing the amount of time or the time-frame –  I will be 8 pounds lighter by the end of October.

This will help you stick to your commitment because you will believe in your ability to accomplish it.

2.  Make it a "No Exception" Rule – Here is a strategy borrowed from Jack Canfield’s book, The Success Principles, attach a "no exception rule" to your goal.  What this means is one or more of the action steps you set to move toward your goal will get done no matter what.  If you commit to losing 8 pounds by the end of October and you know that in order to reach that goal you will need to exercise everyday for at least 30 minutes then you do it , each day, no exception. 

No exception rules have many advantages, of course one is that they propel you toward your goal but they also are affective at quieting internal debate.  If you know you will be exercising every day without exception then you don’t need to have any discussion with yourself about wheter you will exercise or not.  There is no internal chatter about what you should do, you just do it because that is what you do. 

Write down your no exception rule and sign it, then post it somewhere you will see it throughout the day, the bathroom mirror works well.

3.  Come Up with 3 Reasons You Want to Lose Weight Today — To get what you want you have to know what you want, but it is easy to forget why we want our long-term goals when we are facing a temptation.  This strategy has you come up with 3 reasons you want to lose weight just for TODAY.  This will give you the motivation to stick to your goal for the day and allow you to honor your overall commitment.  When tomorrow comes pick three more reasons.   

4.  Make Your Commitment Public — By making your commitment public you will have instant motivation to get the job done - because let’s face it…no one wants to look like a smuck!  If you are too afraid to tell someone in person then commit on-line.  There are many on-line communities where you can state your goal and even get support in reaching your goal.  Two free ones I recommend are a Yahoo Health Group called wannabeabigloser and Spark People  these are both very active communities that can offer a lot of support.  Communities do require you to sign-in but most are free of charge and if it can help you reach your goal then what’s to lose?

     Commitment is all about getting real with yourself, you already have the power to change, you just need to apply it. 

     I welcome your comments and ideas about how to stick to your commitments.