How to Have Peace With Your Weight Loss Goals

Setting goals is always a good idea. The tricky part is having peace with your weight loss goals so you can actually achieve them! Let's dive into practical ways you can set and step towards weight loss goals so you can see success!

This is an opportunity for you to see new things and have different insight so you can create more change. Today I want to look at three things:

1. How to make a goal without the fear of failure, but with the power of possibility
2. Real science of how the brain and body are connected
3. Practical strategies for real change

Your Relationship With Failure

What has been your experience with failure? Did you ever fail a test at school? Maybe 89% felt like failure because you didn't get 11% of what they were testing?

I'll never forget the first test I failed. I did late immersion in grade seven, got the test back, and went to the bathroom. I still remember standing there crying because I'd never failed a test before. I didn't even know what to do with myself.

The idea of going home and telling my parents made me so afraid that I would be rejected, that I wasn't good enough.

Now I want you to contrast that with this: When's the last time you taught a little kid something new?

Let's say you're teaching a five-year-old to tie shoe laces. They're not getting it. What's your reaction?

Are you yelling at them? Are you screaming? Of course not.

You're encouraging: "Oh, that's amazing! Keep trying! Look at it this way. Let's try this way. Oh yeah, you're doing it! Let's take your shoes off and maybe if you tie it this way, it'll be easier."

Maybe you make a little game, a little song about the bunny ears.

So when did you stop learning and letting yourself learn in that way?

This is a really good question.

The Disaster of Your Inner Self-Talk

With weight loss, we say, "Okay, I want to lose 80 pounds." We go to experts, follow their list, ask friends, Google, look at our past.

We make a plan and then things get hard. It's hard to stick to a new plan, especially when you're treating yourself like you're screaming at that five-year-old:

"Why did you do it like this? What's wrong with you? When are you gonna learn? When are you ever going to change? You're not smart. We've been doing this now for 10 minutes and you're such a failure."

If this is starting to resonate with you – that was me for 30 years. "What's wrong with you? Why are you such a failure?"

Your mental inner dialogue is on autopilot. You didn't wake up and say, "Guess what I'm gonna do today? I'm going to be really mean to myself so I can reach a goal."

Why are you allowed to yell at you? Why is that permitted?

If your friend was learning a new skill, you wouldn't yell at her. So why do you yell at yourself?

Making Goals Is Not the Problem

Making goals is amazing. Making goals is not the problem.

The process is the disaster because of your inner self-talk. It's like a battlefield, and that's why we go to:

• Procrastination - "I cannot do that thing. If I do it, I'm gonna get yelled at"
• People pleasing - "I better make everyone else happy because I ain't happy. I don't know how to make myself happy"
• Perfectionism - "If I am perfect, then everything will be fine"

The Marble Jar: Building Self-Trust

Brené Brown tells a story about her daughter coming home devastated. She'd trusted a friend with information and the friend told everyone. Her daughter said, "I'm never going back. I hate people."

Brené came up with the marble jar concept: Every time you trust somebody and they prove trustworthy, you put a marble in the jar.

I use this with weight loss, but we do it with urges.

When you have an urge to eat something and you know it won't help you, that it doesn't solve the problem, and you process that urge – you let that vibration be in your body – you're strengthening the muscle that you don't have to follow the urge.

You don't have to buy the extra fabric. You don't have to eat the chocolate. You don't have to gossip.

The more you do that, the more you build trust with yourself. You watch that trust grow.

As you focus more on growth and change, the less you'll be in negative thinking.

How Do You Actually Have Peace?

If you've been listening to my podcast for a while, you know: Our feelings only come from our thoughts.

We can have circumstances that influence our thoughts. If someone's yelling at us, that feels really urgent – we go into our lower brain and perceive danger.

But ultimately, we always get to have the last word of what we think and how we want to be.

When we're in our higher brain and think about our thinking, we reclaim our power.

Peace comes from thoughts like:

• "I can do hard things"
• "I'm really proud of myself for trying"
• "I haven't figured this out yet, but I'm never gonna quit on myself"
• "I'm really struggling, but I'm so proud that I'm not going back to old patterns"

My Recent Struggle With "Good Student" Mentality

Last Friday I was working on something huge, really out of my comfort zone. I wanted so badly to get it right.

It was fascinating because I kept bringing in my "good student" mentality: "I can do this. Just follow the rules."

And I had to stop myself: "No, no, no. We're not doing that anymore, Dara."

"But that worked for me for so long!"

"Yeah, but that's not working now."

I had to remind myself: That's a diet mentality. That doesn't work for you. 99% of people who go on diets gain their weight back.

It was hard for me to catch myself in the moment. I had this big goal, and it felt very important that I do well. But I kept stopping myself: "No, no, no, we're not doing that. Not just like I used to do with sugar. Not just like I used to do with flour."

When you're making goals – whether they're weight loss goals or any other goals – it's really hard to catch yourself in those subconscious patterns.

You Can't Do This Alone Forever

There's no amount of Pinterest boards, no amount of recipes saved, no cookbooks or meditations that are going to create permanent change.

You are your own unique individual. You have your baggage. The more you can use tools that show you your unique baggage and struggles, the more you can find your own unique solutions.

People will say to me, "Your podcast changed my life." They chose to use the tools for their brain and decided to make changes. Yes, the podcast is powerful.

But imagine being in a program and getting that support. It's such a different experience because now you're not just on your walk or doing the dishes – you're in real time, learning with others who understand exactly what you're going through.

There's an energy there. A power you can't get anywhere else.

One woman in my program experienced a huge loss and was devastated. She said: "Because of the connections – the tools are huge – but because of the connections with the other women in the program, this has been so much easier."

Another woman was getting coaching and said, "Yeah, I talk to my accountability partner about this quite often. I'm still working through this."

Isn't that amazing? She can articulate her pattern, AND she has an accountability partner from the program. We match people up. Then you get coaching from me on that process.

The Choice Is Yours

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got.

You can have peace during the holidays with your weight loss goals. But it starts with changing how you talk to yourself, building self-trust one marble at a time, and getting the support you need to make it stick.

Watch this episode on YouTube or listen to it here:

Ready to stop yelling at yourself and start building real self-trust? Join my Love Yourself Thin coaching program where we work on these exact patterns together. Learn more at DaraTomasson.com