A headline caught my attention today. 2000 Americans surveyed wanted a perfect body and would give up sex for a year, shave their head, stand in line at the DMV for a full day, give up all electronic devices for a month, and more. Not all 2000 would give up sex. About 30% said they would.
Desperation abounds for looking good in today’s society. We know what we want, but we don’t know how to get there. We have a poor self-image and unable to set and achieve goals. Written goals improve the probability of achieving them. Most people never write out their goals.
Would you rather have high blood pressure, lots of migraines, high cholesterol, and more to have that lean, trim body? Or, would twenty pounds overweight and perfect health suffice? We are a creature of habit. We live by our successes and failures. Our subconscious mind archives every attempt we take and puts them into a ‘success’ or ‘failure’ category.
We have that New Year’s Resolution to lose weight. We’ve done it year after year after year, with no success. Each attempt has been archived in your brain as a failure. Based on your past failures, your subconscious mind will sabotage every attempt you take to achieve losing weight.
Why? You have failed in the past, and your subconscious mind doesn’t want you to fail again. Your subconscious mind’s prime directive in life is to avoid anything that will cause harm to you. Logically, losing weight is right for you. But, you have a history of failure in this area. Your subconscious mind will protect you from failing again.
There is a disconnect from wanting that perfect body and having a history of personal failure in trying to achieve it. Fortunately, there are solutions. The subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between real and imagined. Every imagined success is counted as a real success. Each of these imagined successes is archived with other real achievements (if any) and past failures for losing weight.
Eventually, with enough imagined victories at losing weight, the subconscious mind can no longer control your actions. There is a 50:50 split of success and failure in this endeavor to lose weight. Over time, if the imagined successes continue to be archived with the previous successes and failures, you will now have your subconscious mind helping you to succeed in losing weight.
Does losing weight guarantee that perfect body? That body that you would give up sex for three months to achieve? There is more to good looks than just losing weight. How many of you have run into a beautiful woman or a handsome man? Really impressed with their appearance? But, they did something to negate their appearance with some other aspect of their mind, manners, or morals?
We don’t know what we don’t know. Most of us won’t take the time to find out a little about what we don’t know. We want that perfect body with our current self-image. Your current self-image got you into the body you have today. Just changing the physical appearance means that in a few years, you will be back in your old body.
It is similar to the lottery winners. Multiple studies show that 70% of lottery winners go broke and file for bankruptcy in just a few years. They didn’t have money. Their self-image was one of being broke or not having an understanding of how to handle money. Having money didn’t change their lives for the better.
Having a perfect body without the supporting cast to achieve real success is temporary. Maybe it is better to begin writing some goals to change your self-image and self-esteem. Perhaps it is better to have written goals for better health, eating nutritionally balanced meals. And, it is perhaps better to seek more knowledge of those things you don’t know so that you can make a lasting improvement in your life?