Planning may seem like a boring topic. It may feel simple and obvious as a tool for weight loss, but so many of my clients are resistant to the whole concept of planning. They tell me that they don’t want to “feel confined” – they want to “be flexible”. I want to suggest to you that having a plan is the most freeing thing you can do for your brain. It takes brain energy every time we make a decision, and sometimes our brain just gets tired of this work. I know you know what I am talking about. Have you ever said anything like, “You pick the restaurant, I just can’t decide one more thing”? When we make plans, we are making decisions ahead of time and giving our hard-working brains a break from making decisions. Will power and decision-making are a limited commodity. When we plan, the decisions are made, we just follow the plan.
You can’t get where you want to go in weight loss or anything else without a plan.
Planning requires a level of belief. Most people will not go through the hassle of planning and setting a goal if they don’t believe it can happen. If you are resistant to planning, check in on your belief that you can actually accomplish your goal. For example, if you wanted to go to Italy and you believed that you could go, you would make plans and start thinking about it. If you wanted to go to Italy, but you didn’t believe it was possible, you would not plan for it.
We can’t focus well on too many goals. If weight loss is your number one goal for 2020, you might not want to try to accomplish a lot of other big goals this year. If you’re having to make big decisions in lot of different areas of your life, daily food choices will be more difficult. If you have one main goal to focus on, it’s much easier to create discipline around that goal.
Establish your specific goal for 2020 and have it ready before next week’s blog. We are going to create a vision board for your weight loss goal. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to involve glue sticks and cute pictures of quotes and sunsets.
TRUTH:
Because I know I can’t make or execute my plans alone –
Psalm 127:1 “Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain.”
