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I am a master at justifying my bad habits.
Like when it’s 10pm and I really don’t need to be eating a bowl of coconut bliss ice cream.
Give me 30 seconds and I can convince myself that it’s been a tough week and I’ve earned this small reward — after all, there are much worse things I could be eating.
Or that it’s really no big deal because it only has 13 grams of sugar per serving.
Or that I haven’t had any sweets at all for nearly two weeks, and I had a super healthy lunch. Surely a little ice cream before bed can’t hurt.
Any of this sound familiar?
It’s amazing how, in an instant, we can talk ourselves out of our big picture goals — what we TRULY want for our lives, for a few seconds of pleasure that we’ll instantly regret.
Yes we want to lose weight, to be healthy, to look and feel our best and be an example of health for our loved ones.
But in the moment, we decide that we’d rather have the ice cream!
Instead of saying no, instead of taking a stand for our radiant health and our goal weight, we take a step in the other direction, promising to do better tomorrow.
Now, I’m a big fan of the “crowding-out” strategy.
The idea is that you focus on adding good habits and good foods to your life. These good choices eventually “crowd-out” the bad and the bad falls away on its own.
But sometimes crowding out isn’t enough. Sometimes we get stuck and it becomes clear that there is a craving or habit that is standing in our way that we must let go of.
Especially when months or years pass and we still aren’t making progress.
How can we breakthrough so that in 3 or 6 months we can look back and see how far we have come?
How can we begin to make real progress towards our goals?
At a certain point, true transformation means you have to get serious. You have to make a commitment to yourself and stick to it. You have to learn how to say no.
But what we sometimes miss is that saying no is also something that we can learn. It is something that we can practice.
If it’s time for you to take the next step to take your health, weight-loss and well-being to the next level, here’s how to get started.
One of the most effective ways to create change is to make a single rule and commit to it 100%. Start with a meaningful commitment, but something that doesn’t terrify you.
For example you might commit to attending a single party without eating anything with sugar, a week of eating 100% vegan, no animal products, or a month of starting each day with a green smoothie.
This is called drawing a bright line — making a clearly defined rule that comes with a 100% commitment.
Yes, we all love freedom. Believe me, the last thing I want to do is to make a 100% commitment to never enjoying my favorite chocolate treat ever again. In fact, the idea of letting go of something forever can prevent us from ever getting started (more on that on the next point.)
But drawing a bright line removes the in-the-moment decision of whether you are going to make a good choice or a bad choice. It removes that possibility of justification.
As we’ve already covered, and I’m sure you’ve seen in your own life, we are all masters at justifying the choices we make that are not in our best interest.
Trick the justifier. Get the upper hand on your psychology. Draw a bright line.
Bright lines work best when you set both a start date and an end date.
A start date also helps you to formalize the commitment. It allows you to prepare yourself mentally and makes it more likely that the commitment will stick.
Most of us make 100% commitments after a particularly brutal fall off the wagon, but it becomes all too easy to throw that commitment out of the window when presented with the temptation again.
Give yourself at least a couple days to let the commitment marinate. Mondays, the first of the month or the new moon are also good dates to pick.
Setting an end date, on the other hand, removes the fear that you are never going to be able to enjoy a (insert your favorite vice here) ever again.
Again, make the commitment meaningful but not terrifying. A week or a month is a good length of time to start with.
Finally, mark both the start date and the end date in your calendar. If it’s not scheduled, it’s not real.
Making big change is awesome.
I love it when people go 100% plant-based, or quit sugar cold turkey. When you make a drastic change, it doesn’t take long to experience the benefits, and getting quick results is a powerful motivator to keep you moving forward.
But making big changes that last is difficult for most of us. If your personality is better suited to making small changes or you’ve tried to make big changes before that haven’t stuck, then taking a step-by-step is the way to go.
The behavior change literature supports small steps as the more effective way to make life-changes that are sustainable.
Again it really comes down to knowing yourself and your personality, but I recommend making just one single commitment at a time.
Pick something realistic that you know you can accomplish. Engineer a win for yourself. A small success now can cascade into bigger wins down the line.
Bright lines work so well because they eliminate the in-the-moment decision of will we stay on track or will we indulge?
If you haven’t drawn a bright line then every time you are faced with temptation you have to make that choice.
Do we decide to grab the candy when it’s there? Do we order the healthy option at a restaurant or the old favorite? Do we give in to that afternoon sugar craving?
Long-term success on any diet or health plan really comes down to consistently winning these small daily battles.
If you have to make this decision every time you place an order at your favorite restaurant, or every time you walk past the candy bowl at the office, it is almost guaranteed that eventually you will give in.
The amazing power of bright lines is that eventually the decision becomes automatic. Once saying no becomes habitual you no longer even consider reaching for the candy bowl.
The golden rule here is to make your decisions in advance, and eliminate as many decisions as possible.
For example, try planning your meals and snacks the day before, or deciding what you’ll order at the restaurant before you go.
Let’s get real. Nobody wants to be held accountable, because deep down we don’t want to give up our indiscretions.
As much as I want to put my health first, I don’t want to have to give up my afternoon Miracle Tart. And when I’m sneaking my afternoon chocolate, I surely don’t want anybody looking over my shoulder!
That’s why accountability is so often talked about, but so rarely put into practice.
But in the same way that we can begin to practice saying no, we can also begin to practice accountability.
When you draw your bright line, make the commitment to mention it to someone. Make your commitment public in whatever way pushes you out of your comfort zone just a little bit.
You can ask your friend or significant other to help you keep the commitment or post it on facebook.
Just take that small step to let someone else know what you’ve committed to.
You can get started right away. Decide on your commitment, pick a start date and an end date and mark it on your calendar.
There will never a perfect time to get started. There will always be something coming up or some excuse about why this can wait another week.
But I care most about what is best for you. Honor yourself enough to make this top priority. Care about yourself enough to set a higher standard. This is game time.
Let us know your commitment and start and end date in the comments below, and we’ll follow up and help hold you accountable.
We will never sell your information or spam you, ever.
Matt Jager is a wellness activist, yogi and co-founder of True Wellth. His life mission is to transform the healthcare and food system in this country, so that every single person has access to the tools and support they need to look and feel their best, control their health, own their happiness and revolutionize their well-being.
We have a special interview and book giveaway to share with you today.
But first we wanted to say thank you to everyone who took the time to send us travel questions and well wishes on our move! We made it safe and sound and are enjoying getting settled here in the DC area.
Next time, we’ll go behind the scenes and share all the tips and tricks we use to eat well on the road.
But for now, on to the feature du jour…
If you are at all interested in nutrition, you’ve likely heard of The China Study.
This landmark book has sold over a million copies and the New York Times called it the “most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease.”
The China Study was co-authored by legendary nutrition researcher T. Colin Campbell, PhD, and when it was time to write the book he asked that his son Tom move back home to help out.
This supposed one year project ended up taking four years to complete, and during the process Tom developed such a passion for the subject that he went on to become a physician.
Fast forward to the present, and the now Thomas Campbell, MD has released a new book that offers a practical follow-up based on The China Study principles.
His book The Campbell Plan explores the science behind recent dietary confusion, feeding kids as well as what to stock in your kitchen, how to read labels and shop, and what to watch for in social and eating out situations.
And of course recipes! 55 delicious and easy recipes to be exact.
You already know how nerdy I get about behavioral psychology, so I was especially excited to see that the book addresses some of the behavior change principles behind making and sustaining healthy eating habits.
Show Notes:
Dr. Campbell has been gracious enough to provide a copy of his book to our community, and you can enter to win!
We’ll be randomly selecting one recipient (see entry details below) and notifying the winner on Monday April 6th, 2015.
UPDATE: The giveaway has ended. Congrats to Tracy C! We’ll be in touch to send you a free copy of The Campbell Plan.
Here’s how to enter:
*Note: Only open to residents of the Continental U.S.
We will never sell your information or spam you, ever.
Matt Jager is a wellness activist, yogi and co-founder of True Wellth. His life mission is to transform the healthcare and food system in this country, so that every single person has access to the tools and support they need to look and feel their best, control their health, own their happiness and revolutionize their well-being.
Image Attribution: Quotes Everlasting
Note: As a complement to this post, I’ve asked Regan to offer a few free 30-minute coaching sessions. I expect these to go fast, so make sure to fill out the application, asap!
Last time we talked about one way to create a breakthrough — how baby building blocks can remove the barrier to getting started and lead to significant change.
Today, we are taking a very different approach to breaking through. Hail Mary, hallelujah, let’s go big!
The year is still new and shiny, and I want to talk about how you can reach your health and weight loss goals before the next holiday season rolls around.
I recently asked what inspires you to eat more plants on your path to better health, and I LOVED reading these comments.
You have such compelling and important reasons to make these changes. Here are some of my favorites:
These are FANTASTIC goals.
Inspire Others: We want to be around, energized and healthy for our children and grandchildren, and provide an example of good health.
Solve A Health Issue: Some of us struggle with diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol or some other chronic condition preventing us from living life to the fullest.
Look And Feel Our Best: We want to have energy and confidence for whatever life throws at us, knowing that we are looking and feeling our very best.
A LOT of transformation can happen in a year. Think about what life will be like when you’ve met your goal.
Imagine waking up and instantly feeling at home in your body. Full of energy, you hop out of bed, ready for anything that the day throws at you.
Imagine being off your diabetes, blood pressure, or cholesterol meds. Not only do you get to say goodbye to a major monthly expense, but you no longer feel off from the side effects.
Imagine being totally happy with the way that you look. You get compliments when you go out for your walk around the neighborhood, and don’t have to shy away from pictures.
Imagine losing 20, 30, or even 100 pounds and the ease, freedom, and additional self-confidence that it would bring.
These are all completely life-changing benefits, and YES, you can make major progress in a year.
Not overnight. Not with some magic bullet or diet pill. Not without some real effort.
No, this only happens by committing to yourself, your health, your future, and making steady and consistent progress. Day in and day out.
But if you just keep at it, you can absolutely revolutionize your health and reach your goal weight (or at least make significant progress) in a year. Totally achievable.
Now let’s get honest with ourselves.
It’s easy to dream, but what does it actually take to get from point A to point B?
As we well know, there are quite a few pitfalls along the way. Ok, fine since you asked so nicely, I’ll share my favorite cartoon with you one more time.
True for life, and especially true for health. Here are a few of the biggest roadblocks that we all face when it comes to taking charge of our health:
●Time: One of the best thing we can do for our health is to prepare our meals at home, but it’s so hard to find the time amidst the demands of modern life.
●Cravings and emotional eating: We all sabotage ourselves at some point. We make progress only to find ourselves thrown off track with cravings or emotional eating.
●Over-complication: Instead of focusing on the big wins, we get lost in the details, overthinking and over-complicating everything. Finally we burn out.
●Conflicting information: Are fats good? Bad? What about carbs? Is coconut oil saving your life or killing you?
●Negative self-talk: Those little voices in our heads that tell us that we aren’t good enough, that we can’t do this, that we don’t have what it takes.
●Social pressure: Your dear significant other, best friend, or mother-in-law is not exactly on your team. Then there is navigating parties, eating out, holidays, and more.
●Life: Sometimes the things beyond our control have the biggest impact on our health. A stressful job, problems with relationships, having to take care of others.
Not exactly a walk in the park!
I bring this up not to discourage you, but because if this is to be the year that we change our lives, we need to step back and look at the landscape.
For this to really work, we have to embrace reality and make the necessary changes.
Maybe you are intimately familiar with the challenges you face and know where you get off track.
Maybe you are starting out and all this is completely new.
In either case, how can we overcome these barriers? Is there a way to ensure that we will follow through — even if we have tried and failed many times before?
Having the right information is important. And with all the conflicting health information out there, it’s become increasingly difficult to know what to do.
But the bigger challenge always comes back to the follow through.
When we look at what is holding us back, we often know deep down that another recipe, book, or kitchen hack isn’t going to produce the monumental sea change that we are looking for.
So for this year to be different, for this to be THE transformative year, I want you to think big. How can we engineer success? How can we ensure follow through?
It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Thomas Jefferson:
Note: We have a tendency to always jump to reasons why the solutions won’t work. Suspend your inner skeptic just for a minute. What if anything was possible?
Brainstorm with me for a minute. What haven’t you done that could make all the difference? What’s a “big win” that would put you well on your way to success?
Is there a barrier that you haven’t addressed? An elephant in the room that you’ve preferred not to look at?
Get creative, think big, and DON’T limit yourself just yet. You can sort through the ideas later.
Let me give you some examples:
None of these are easy. They either require a big investment, a large life change, or having the courage to look at a deep issue.
They all require you to step out of your comfort zone.
But they are all extremely powerful. In one fell swoop you could eliminate a major obstacle and be so much closer to reaching your goals.
Imagine how much easier it would be to follow through if you could come home to meals waiting for you.
Imagine what a difference it would make to have a group of friends that support your healthy choices.
How less likely would you be to cheat if you were investing in a coach or a chef. You’d know you’ve made this top priority, and would be taking it that much more seriously.
This is the difference between buying a gym membership vs investing in a personal trainer.
It might be hard to muster the willpower to go to the gym, but if you are paying for a trainer, there is no way you are ever going to miss a session.
You’ve almost guaranteed that you will follow through.
Or buying some books to read versus enrolling to get a college education. The chance that you’ll read the books and get the same education? Pretty minimal.
Enrolling in college? This is a huge life-changing investment that provides a quantum leap in your skill set.
These are the “big win” solutions that can almost guarantee a major life change.
Maybe these particular examples aren’t right for you at this point in time. We all have our constraints. Believe me, I know not everyone can hire a chef.
But there are always creative solutions to the challenges you face, and the point I’m making is that sometimes to meet your goals you have to REALLY go for it.
How can you engineer success? How can you ensure that you will follow through?
Apply for a free session with Regan
A year from now you could still be reading blogs about health and weight loss or you could be well on your way to having your life back.
You could still be dreaming of the far off day when you’re favorite jeans will fit again, when you’ll have lost enough weight to begin exercising, or go on vacation, or enjoy a day at the beach.
Or you could be free to enjoy your time with family and friends without having to worry about medications, not having enough energy, or feeling self-conscious.
Make this the year. Be willing to try the big things that you’ve never tried before, to step out of your comfort zone, and know that the solutions are always there if you just keep at it.
Unless you have some special super power, odds are your journey won’t be perfect. No matter. I have total confidence that if you just keep at it, you will arrive sooner or later.
And Regan has been kind enough to offer some of her personal time to help you get started towards your goals this year.
She is offering a limited number of free 30-minute coaching sessions.
If you are interested in some additional guidance and accountability, this is a great way to get started, put together a clear path forward, and create some added accountability.
Space is limited and I expect these to go fast! If you are interested, go ahead and fill out the application here.
We will never sell your information or spam you, ever.
Matt Jager is a wellness activist, yogi and co-founder of True Wellth. His life mission is to transform the healthcare and food system in this country, so that every single person has access to the tools and support they need to look and feel their best, control their health, own their happiness and revolutionize their well-being.
Photo Credit: Karunakar Rayker
Congratulations to Heather, the winner of this week’s giveaway! We’ll be in touch to send you a copy of JL Fields’ new book Vegan Pressure Cooking.
Now that we’ve done two book giveaways in a row, I have a confession:
I can’t read!
I used to be a voracious reader, but over the last few years the time that I devote to cozying up with a good book has slowly diminished.
Looking back over the last year, I’ve hardly read anything at all!
I keep ordering interesting books and making big promises to myself, but the days just seem to get away from me.
Fortunately, I make consistent measurable progress, which you can see in the following graph:
You may have guessed by now that I didn’t actually write to you solely to lament about my literary decline.
The thing is, many of us struggle with the same issue when it comes to making progress with our health.
●We decide that it’s time to get in shape, pick out a 6-week program, but we are somehow always planning on starting the next Monday.
●We decide that this time we are going in 100%, no cheating! But one misstep and we say, “Well I messed up today, but tomorrow will be different!”
If any of this sounds familiar, don’t worry because you are not alone! We all struggle with these very human issues.
So today I’ve got an interesting strategy that I’m going to try out.
And if you’ve been struggling to make progress towards your health goals and goal weight or struggling to stay on track, I want you to try it out too.
Stanford Psychologist BJ Fogg has a strategy for behavior change that he calls Flossing One Tooth.
The idea is that the hardest part of behavior change is just getting started.
We imagine the entirety of the task before us (ie a whole book to read, a whole lot of weight to lose, or a complete dietary transformation) and get so overwhelmed that we can’t take that first step to actually begin.
By focusing on creating “tiny habits” we remove the psychological barrier to getting started.
And once you get started and have a success under your belt, it becomes easier and easier to build on that success.
More times than not you don’t quit after flossing one tooth. You simply provided the catalyst and created the momentum that propels you forward.
And before you know it, you’re flossing twice a day!
So, last week I set a goal for myself to read three paragraphs a day.
I can read more than that if I want, but my obligation to myself is just three paragraphs a day.
Once I reach that goal I can continue with my day, guilt free.
Right now, I want you to create a tiny habit of your own.
Think about something that you know that you should be doing or have struggled to get started with, and break it down into the smallest possible unit.
Do you want to be eating more vegetables? Commit to eating just one vegetable at every meal. Just one lettuce leaf or broccoli floret.
Working towards being plant-based? Commit to eating just one plant-based meal a week.
A tiny habit can be a small version of something bigger, like the examples above.
Or it can be a starter step, something like browsing a recipe book and bookmarking one healthy meal that looks especially appetizing.
Just make sure it’s something as easy as flossing one tooth – so easy that you are absolutely positive that you can follow through with it.
Oh, and this is important: Once you do your tiny habit, celebrate it! Fogg says that this celebration is especially important in reinforcing the habit that you are creating.
Because I’m especially nerdy, my celebration consists of giving myself a thumbs up and saying to myself, “Who da man? You da man!”
You can say something positive to yourself, do a celebratory action like a fist pump or thumbs up, or do a little happy dance. Just make sure you feel happy and recognize your success.
If you want to learn more about tiny habits, BJ has a free and simple five-day course that walks you through the process. Check it out here.
One of the best ways to increase your chances of following through is to create accountability through making a public commitment.
So leave a comment below and let me know what your tiny habit is. I’ll follow up with you next week.
We will never sell your information or spam you, ever.
Matt Jager is a wellness activist, yogi and co-founder of True Wellth. His life mission is to transform the healthcare and food system in this country, so that every single person has access to the tools and support they need to look and feel their best, control their health, own their happiness and revolutionize their well-being.
Photo Credit: Terence S. Jones
When I used to fall off the plant powered wagon, I would experience anguish that can only be understood by watching this hilarious youtube clip of Denver the Guilty Dog.
Oh the guilt!
And I’m not the only one.
When we take a tumble, we often say things like, “I am having so much trouble following through…I don’t know what is wrong with me.” “I feel like such a failure for not being able to stick with this way of eating.”
We think that our failure is due to the fact that we lack willpower, discipline, and motivation, and come to the conclusion that we are somehow faulty human beings!
Not only are we left with the guilt and pain of failure, but even worse is the confusion, the overwhelm, and not knowing the next step forward.
But as you know by now, my manifesto is different. It is my passionate conviction that the problem isn’t you!
Though our first instinct is to blame ourselves, there are factors that play an enormous role in determining whether or not we succeed — yet we don’t often give them the attention they deserve.
Things like social support, organization and planning, and our inner psychology.
That’s why I talk about building Lifestyle Support Systems — the habits, programs, systems, psychology and safeguards of health that help us to orient our lives our health and well-being.
Now this can be a pretty overwhelming concept,
The last thing I want is for you to read this post and decide to spend the afternoon seeing for yourself why ostriches stick their heads in the ground.
Maybe it’s super fun?
So last week I introduced the Six Pillars of Lasting Health and Successful Weight Loss and gave you a six question quiz.
Today we’ll get minutely practical and use your quiz results to identify your one big win — the single most important action you can take to move forward towards lasting health and your goal weight.
Ready to begin? If you haven’t yet, take the quiz, identify which question you scored the lowest on, and click the corresponding link below.
I scored lowest on:
Even if you overcome emotional eating, have the most wonderful social support network, and never go off track, you will probably not lose weight if you are on the twinkie diet.
You have to know what foods are going to help you lose weight and get healthy and which only moonlight as health foods.
And in this day and age, that’s not super easy!
There are a million different ideas and approaches, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed and throw in the towel before you begin.
But interestingly enough, the research shows that following through on any program is more important and effective than finding the perfect one.
Your one key action to improve this pillar:
If you don’t know what to eat to get healthy and lose weight, the best thing to do is to try a plant-based whole foods program.
Discuss the options with a qualified medical professional, pick the program that resonates most with you, and follow it as diligently as possible. Usually the time frame is anywhere from 10 days to six weeks.
At that point, objectively step back and look at the data. Did you see improvements? Were you able to follow though? What is working? What isn’t?
The first hand experience is invaluable, and you’ll begin building the nutritional understanding that will allow you to sort through all the conflicting advice out there.
The more you learn, the more you will be able to become your own health scientist, evaluate the different approaches, and decide for yourself what works and what doesn’t.
And if you get stuck, you can make tweaks and changes and find a solution.
Need help choosing a program? Are you not getting results on your current program? These are what I have found to be the most important questions to ask:
The follow through is the most important! If you know the program is too strict for you and you won’t follow it, start with an easier option. Engineer a win for yourself.
When you have a win under your belt, it’s easier to fine tune things and pick a more disciplined program.
You can modify or experiment with different approaches as you learn more about nutrition and what works for you as an individual.
When willpower fails, it’s often because we haven’t made it easy enough on ourselves.
And so once we know what to eat, the next step is to make sure that those foods are easily and readily available!
How can you organize your life in a way that makes it as easy as humanly possible to follow through?
Your one key action to improve this pillar: Think about the one meal that is the most difficult to prepare or where you get off track. Is it breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? Snack time? Dessert?
Take 5-10 minutes and make a step-by-step plan of how you will make sure you have easy access to the right foods. Here are a couple examples.
Afternoon Snack:
Dinner:
It can take some time to get your particular system figured out. If this is your biggest barrier, take some time to learn how to buy and prepare healthy foods in a quick, easy, efficient and cost effective manner.
It will get easier over time. It can also help to start with a meal plan, or you can use a resource like the Chipotle Method to learn how to put together quick and easy meals.
In a study highlighted in the New York Times, the researchers found that when we have a close friend that becomes obese, we are 57% more likely to become obese ourselves.
Even more incredible is that we are 20% more likely to become obese if the friend of a friend becomes obese.
The takeaway? It’s critical, absolutely critical, that you find some friends that support your journey to optimal health.
Your one key action to improve this pillar: Find a meetup group (www.meetup.com), a yoga class, or a local support group that you are interested in joining and sign up now.
Put it in your calendar.
If there are no groups available, reach out to one person who shares your health values. Call or email them right now and Invite them over for a meal, for a walk, or for a Sunday food prep session.
If there isn’t anyone else in rural South Dakota who cares about health, then join a facebook group or find a virtual accountability partner.
If I told you that you could double your chance of success without any additional effort, would you do it?
Accountability often makes us squeamish, but adding real consequences to our goals can more than double our chances of success.
A Yale economics professor founded the website Stickk, in order to do just that. The site is an online commitment store that allows you to set a goal and add a financial incentive to ensure that you follow through.
From 2008 – 2011, the Stickk found that average success rates of 33.5% skyrocketed to 72.8% when an additional incentive was added.
Your one key action to improve this pillar: Call somebody close to you, a friend, your significant other, your son or daughter and tell them that if you haven’t set up some accountability by this time next week, you owe them $20.
Then go to www.stickk.com, set a goal, find a referee, and put some money on the line.
You really want to make this thing happen right? Do you want a 30% chance of success or a 70% chance of success?
Think about what it will be like to succeed. How great you’ll feel. How good you’ll look. How your life will improve. Imagine all the money that you will save on medications and health care costs.
It’s worth it. Put your money where your mouth is.
This may seem a bit ambiguous.
But remember Nora’s success where she overcame a lifetime of failed diets, and lost 100+ pounds?
In her story, the big shift happened when our heroine not only found the right information, but shifted her mindset.
Negative or self-sabotaging thoughts can have a huge impact on our ability to stay the course and follow through long term.
Your one key action to improve this pillar: Simply recognize when you are having a negative thought and acknowledge it.
Here are some common ones:
Just becoming aware of our thought patterns is the first step towards changing them. Recognize the story you tell yourself.
When you recognize the story, you can begin to rewrite it.
We are all going to have negative thoughts. We are all going to struggle. Know that the path can be difficult.
The right mindset is understanding that this is a process. Keep your focus on getting healthy, expect some ups and downs, and know that if you just keep at it you will succeed.
Progress over perfection. It doesn’t matter how many times you fall down as long as you get back up. It doesn’t matter how many times you spill the milk as long as you don’t lose the cow.
Health isn’t just physical. Shifting from a diet mentality to a healthy lifestyle mentality is so effective for this very reason. It broadens our focus to look at the whole picture of health.
A healthy lifestyle involves physical, emotional, mental, and social health, and these are all intertwined.
That’s why Addressing Our Issues has to be included in the equation.
Fascinatingly enough, this shows up as one the biggest factors that separates people who are able to lose weight and keep it off, from those who end up yo-yoing.
In a study, 90% of the people who were able to lose weight and keep it off shared this common trait: They dealt with their problems head on.
Note: It doesn’t say that they solved their problems. Only that they were willing to deal with them head on.
We all fall off the wagon. We all have moments of self-sabotage. We all have some weird piece of ourselves working in our best interest, and some weird piece of ourselves working against it!
Whatever the issues are, we must face them. Emotional eating? Stress because of work?
There are a million different examples and possibilities, but I’d bet top dollar you aren’t scratching your head wondering what it is for you.
Your one key action to improve this pillar: Find the tiniest thing that you can do to begin to address your issue, and put it into practice.
Addressing our issues can be a daunting task, so the best way to move forward is to break it down into the smallest possible steps.
What is the first step that you can take to begin to move forward?
Do you struggle with stress? Sign up for just one meditation class, or begin meditating just three minutes a day.
Is it emotional eating? Commit to keeping a food journal for just ONE of your meals.
The most important thing here is to simply begin. Find the smallest step forward and take it!
Did you skim through the article, but not take action? Most of these things are not easy to do, because they involve looking at the root of the issues that are holding us back.
It can be uncomfortable to look at your issues, pay attention to your inner psychology, put some money on the line, reach out to someone or sign up for a new class.
But I’m not here to help you be comfortable. I’m here to help you make real transformation in your life. Be brave.
I believe in you. I know you can do it. Just take that one single next step. Take the one little action to move you forward.
And let me know in the comments: What is your one key action? What are you going to do right now to move forward with your health goals?
We will never sell your information or spam you, ever.
Matt Jager is a wellness activist, yogi and co-founder of True Wellth. His life mission is to transform the healthcare and food system in this country, so that every single person has access to the tools and support they need to look and feel their best, control their health, own their happiness and revolutionize their well-being.
Photo Credit: Natasia Causse
Last time we spoke, I revealed my oddball approach to losing weight. The best way to reach your goal weight and stay there?
Stop trying to lose weight. Instead, focus on getting healthy.
Are you rolling your eyes at such an ambiguous and non-sexy statement?
Did you already start frantically googling the Top 10 Diet Tips To Lose 5 Pounds In 24 Hours?
It may sound silly, but shifting the focus from losing weight to gaining health can completely change the game.
If your interest is piqued, take a look at the previous article where I share how this very mindset shift tipped the scales for Nora, catalyzing over 100 lbs lost to date.
Because today, I want to tackle a different beast; to answer the rather large question that we’ve yet to answer.
See, deciding to get healthy is all well and good. But…what the heck does that even mean?!
What does it mean to get healthy, and more importantly how do you do it? How do you become a healthy person?
So what does it take to creating lasting health? To lose weight and not have it creep back on?
Do we have to exercise an hour a day? Spend the rest of our lives counting carbs and being worried about what we eat? Is it never enjoying a delicious, indulgent meal ever again?
Far from it. When I took a long hard look at what separated those who are successful from those who continue to struggle, I came up with six differentiating factors.
And fascinating enough, only one has to do with diet. Exercise didn’t even make the list!
Let’s dive right in. The Six Pillars of Lasting Health and Accidental Weight Loss:
Were you surprised that only one of the pillars has to do with what you eat?
The right food is of course critical, but the place where most of us struggle is the follow through.
That is why the majority of the pillars have to do with building the foundations of a healthy lifestyle. This is the key to whole shebang.
Why? Because once we create the habits, patterns, programs, systems, and safeguards of health, they work automatically to keep us on track.
I just counted, and there are now 2.61 bazillion delicious, satisfying, and decadent whole food plant-based recipes on the internet.
If you eat these foods that are nutrient dense and low in caloric density over the long-term, you will get the results you are looking for.
You don’t have to try and lose weight; it will happen. The real challenge is to stay the course.
Rather than putting ourselves through deprivation and restriction diet after diet, we can invest that effort in putting the supports in place that will keep us on track.
Things like making friends with folks who share your same healthy values. Or getting organized so that healthy snacks are always readily available.
This is a process I call building your Lifestyle Support Systems.
For most of us, getting healthy is usually a bit of a bumpy journey. For me, it was like riding a camel over a waterfall.
Will you fall off the wagon? Have good days and bad days? Feel like giving up? Almost certainly.
But when your Lifestyle Support Systems are in place, you don’t have to rely on discipline and willpower — they work automatically to pull you forward when you experience the inevitable bumps along the way.
This is the real secret to long-term, sustainable, healthy weight loss.
Sigh! You probably wanted a six-week plan to look great in your bathing suit, and I turned it into a lifetime of building healthy habits!
Where do we even begin?!
Next article, I go into the Six Pillars in-depth, but today I want to simplify things.
I have a roadmap that can help you identify just one key action that you can take to move forward.
I call this the Health and Weight Loss Diagnostic.
Answering these six questions takes just a couple minutes, but it will allow you to get laser focused on which of the Six Pillars is the most important for you to focus on.
Fill it out now:
All done! Now leave a comment below and let me know: Which question did you score the highest on? Which question did you score the lowest on?
And next article, I help you get started on the one key action that can take to get the results you are looking for.
Talk soon,
Matt
We will never sell your information or spam you, ever.
Matt Jager is a wellness activist, yogi and co-founder of True Wellth. His life mission is to transform the healthcare and food system in this country, so that every single person has access to the tools and support they need to look and feel their best, control their health, own their happiness and revolutionize their well-being.
Photo Credit: Todd Chandler
It’s a typical Saturday night. The whole world is getting dressed up and ready to go out, but where am I?
Getting ready to settle into a fun-filled evening of…perusing holistic health and weight loss groups on facebook.
Ok, this may be a wee exaggeration, but I do spend an embarrassing amount of my free time browsing these groups.
Why?
I love reading the advice that people give, understanding what allows some people to succeed while others continue to struggle, and seeing how people support each other.
Anyway! While perusing one particularly interesting facebook group, I came across a post by a woman named Nora.
Nora had struggled to lose weight her whole life, trying one failed diet after another.
She had completely given up when she stumbled upon a life changing insight that made all the difference.
And it really worked! In Nora’s post, she shared that she has lost over 100 pounds to date!
Reading her story was so powerful that it honestly moved me to tears, but I also found it compelling for two specific reasons:
One of my great joys in writing this blog is making fun of our weird quirks — all the ways that human beings are irrational, divided and well…pretty much insane.
And I’m not just making this up!
Psychologists have identified 168 of these cognitive biases — systematic errors that every human mind has a tendency to make.
Einstein must have been familiar with this human weirdness when he offered this little gem of wisdom.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
It seems so obvious, yet this is exactly what the vast majority of us do when we try and lose weight.
We jump from diet to diet, expecting that this time it will be different. We somehow think that if we can only find just the right diet, recipe, tip, or trick, this time we’ll be successful.
So the next fad diet rolls around, and we decide that the grapefruit diet is the one!
We tell our friends, turn down the cupcakes, push away our plates at the right time.
We eat grapefruit till the cows come home, endure the pain and suffering, see some results, yo-yo a bit, and then the inevitable happens.
All the deprivation and restriction catch up with the fact that every human being is what psychologists call a cognitive miser.
This means that our willpower is, by nature, limited. You can’t live a life of constant restriction and deprivation. And so the unavoidable outcome is crash and burn.
Now I don’t have an issue with crash and burn. The path to optimal healthy isn’t of the straight and narrow variety, and we all face challenges.
In fact, this blog’s strange moniker is derived from my passionate belief that it doesn’t matter how many times we spill the milk as long as we don’t lose the cow.
Instead, the real heartbreak is this: Every diet has a beginning and an end. And post-diet we almost always end up right back where we started. Or worse!
All that effort and no progress.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to ride the merry go round of continual failure! We don’t have to star as Bill Murray in weight-loss Groundhog Day!
We don’t have to…insert some other terrible metaphor here!
Instead, we can make real sustainable progress towards health, happiness, and our goal weight, but it requires one little insight, one little twist of thinking that makes all the difference.
In fact, I found Nora’s story SO interesting, because this was the exact insight that ended up tipping the scale for her.
Drum roll please…
The best way to sustainable, long-term progress towards better health, well-being, reducing or eliminating meds, looking and feeling younger, AND reaching your goal weight?
Don’t try and lose weight. Focus on getting healthy.
That’s the key to the whole affair. Stop trying to lose weight. Instead, build the foundations of a healthy lifestyle; become a healthy person.
Now maybe this is revelatory new information.
More probable is that you are questioning why the tremendous power of the universe would conspire to have you read such obvious commentary.
But Yar Maties! Before you threaten mutiny, hear me out. More is at play here than we may think.
See, there are tremendous differences between these two goals. Losing weight is an outcome goal. Getting healthy is a process goal.
Trying to lose weight is like going on a camping trip and pitching a tent. You leave your normal routine, make a temporary change in order to get a specific result, and when vacation is over, it’s time to go back home.
Deciding to get healthy is like buying a piece of land, pouring a foundation, and building a house. It’s a change that lasts a lifetime.
Losing weight is about doing something. Getting healthy is about becoming something.
Click here to open a bigger version of the image in a new window.
Do you see the difference?
And on a more practical level, trying to lose weight brings so much worry and concern about eating.
Counting everything, deciding whether or not the extra serving is worth the calories, thinking about much time you’ll have to spend on the treadmill to make up the difference.
Dieters worry incessantly about eating, and this makes it much harder to develop a healthy relationship with food.
Healthy people eat when they are hungry, enjoy as much healthy, nutritious food as they need to feel satisfied, and don’t really sweat the rest.
I used to groan and roll my eyes at the concept, but there really is an important distinction between a plant-based diet and a plant-based lifestyle.
But where it really gets fun is how this one little mindset shift cascades into other fundamental life changes.
Since going on a diet is temporary, it will always take motivation and willpower to sustain. But when you decide to get healthy, your energy goes towards creating healthy habits.
And once these habits are in place, they no longer require willpower or discipline to maintain.
And this, dear friend, is the key to getting off the diet merry go-round and creating long-term, sustainable health and weight loss.
Ok, deciding to ditch dieting and instead focus your efforts on building healthy habits is all well and good. But there is one HUGE question that we’ve yet to answer.
How!
What does it mean to get healthy, and more importantly, how do you do it? What are the these healthy habits and how to create them? How do you become a healthy person?
Seriously, I have no idea. Please tell me how!
Just kidding 😉
In this article, I get minutely practical and share with you the six elements that almost all healthy people have in common.
I also share a little tool with you that I use to determine the single most important step that you can take to build (or improve) your healthy lifestyle.
I’d bet my finest grapefruit that you’ll find it simple and intuitive.
Until then, leave me a comment and let me know the following:
Do you think there is a meaningful difference between going on a diet and deciding to get healthy?
Has a mindset shift played an important role in meeting your health goals? I’ll read and respond to every one.
We will never sell your information or spam you, ever.
Matt Jager is a wellness activist, yogi and co-founder of True Wellth. His life mission is to transform the healthcare and food system in this country, so that every single person has access to the tools and support they need to look and feel their best, control their health, own their happiness and revolutionize their well-being.
Photo Credit: Vinoth Chandar
Life doesn’t always go as planned.
My grandpa passed away last week and so Regan and I ended up traveling to Salt Lake City for the services.
It was of course a sad and difficult event for our family and friends, and I’ve greatly appreciated the many condolences.
Grandpa lived a long, successful life and his unconditional support was the foundation of our family. His memory and legacy lives on.
And while heartbreaking, I think these difficult events also offer us a special opportunity. And that’s what I wanted to share with you today.
Life is a precious and fleeting affair, and the silver lining is the perspective that these events bring.
Sometimes we need a bit of jolt to shake us out of our routines and help us remember what really matters.
Times of tumult require deep reflection. And that crystallizes our deeper purpose and motivates us to make changes that we might not have made otherwise.
These moments help us discover or reinforce our Why.
It can be anything from watching an inspiring film, to stepping on a scale and saying enough is enough.
Sadly it’s often watching a loved one struggle with or even lose the battle to a serious health challenge.
Or a personal diagnosis, sitting in the Doctor’s office and hearing those words that you dreaded, wondering, “How did I get here?”
Whatever the situation, in an instant a decision is made, a new direction is taken, and behind that life altering action is the Why.
So today, I want to give you an opportunity to reconnect with your Why without the catalyst of an unfortunate life event.
Take a moment and remember what sparked you to make the decision to get healthy. Why did you make the decision to change your lifestyle?
Do you want to be around for your kids and grandkids and have enough energy to play with and take care of them?
Do you want to lead by example and leave a legacy of health and wellbeing for those who follow you?
Do you want a happy, healthy, and quality second half of life without the chronic health conditions that other loved ones have struggled with?
Are there items on your bucket list that you’ve yet to accomplish? Do you want to learn to play the piano, travel to Ecuador, or do life life changing, world-saving work?
Put it on the fridge or on the bathroom mirror.
Remind yourself daily why you have set a course for healthier living. Deep purpose is a powerful anchor when we are tempted to stray from the path.
If you don’t yet have a Why, take a moment and reflect.
Why do you want to get healthy? Why do you want to embrace a plant strong lifestyle?
Personal health goals? Compassion for all beings? Leaving the planet better than you found it?
Personal goals are great, but when we make the decision for a reason beyond ourselves the motivation is often even more powerful.
Connect your Why to your deepest values, the kind of life you want to live and the legacy you want to live behind.
I haven’t written out my own Why before this, and so I thought I’d take the opportunity and share it with you.
I choose to live in a way that uplifts the entire web of life on the planet, that nourishes my body, that supports the health of the planet and the ecology, and that helps me feel connected to all of life.
I choose a plant-based lifestyle for my own health and to lead by example, to support all people in living a life of health, harmony, and happiness.
I’d be so honored if you would share your Why with me in the comments below. I promise to read and respond to every one.
We will never sell your information or spam you, ever.
Matt Jager is a wellness activist, yogi and co-founder of True Wellth. His life mission is to transform the healthcare and food system in this country, so that every single person has access to the tools and support they need to look and feel their best, control their health, own their happiness and revolutionize their well-being.
Photo Credit: Matt Biddulph
If you ever want to take a deep dive into the weirdness that is the human mind, there is a surefire way: try to get healthy or lose weight.
Last week, I shared the story of one gnarly craving that I struggled with for months! I then asked what kind of cravings you struggle with.
I received some fantastic responses (thank you!) and want to share a few with you.
My biggest challenge with living 100% plant-based is “cravings”, especially when I’m bored or tired. I work from home and the kitchen is only 10 feet away! I eat great for breakfast and lunch — green smoothie, fruit, salad, veggies. But when I hit a mid-afternoon slump of boredom or getting sleepy, I crave sweets! This leads me to some cookies or cereal. After that, it’s all “down hill”! – Joni H
My biggest problem is staying away from chocolate. ..sweets…never had a sweet tooth until going plant based 2 yrs ago…can’t lose weight but got off blood pressure meds etc…originally lost 50 gained 20 back and struggle daily. – Kathy F.
I think my biggest problem with food and alcohol is that I use it as a stress relief from our busy sometimes overwhelming lives & am constantly working on the principle of starting again on Monday! – Jane E.
Many of you confirmed when I myself have found to be true — that even when we are painfully aware of what throws us off track, we still seem powerless to stop it.
When my craving hit, I knew that it was only a matter of time before I found myself in the checkout line at the local health food store, ready to tear the tops off the miracle tart container(s) and dig in.
It is so frustratingly painful to experience the sense of helplessness, the lack of control, the guilt and shame of being at the mercy of a chocolate bar.
Especially when we truly, truly want to get healthy, lose weight, address a medical condition, etc, and we know that we are setting ourselves back.
The cycle is brutal, but the absolute worst part?
The experience of failure, overall sense of guilt, not feeling good enough, and the negative self-talk that accompanies it.
“Why can’t I do this?” “Why aren’t I good enough?”
It’s honestly nothing short of internal psychological warfare.
Well today I have a different message for you.
Even if you never buy one of my premium programs, unsubscribe from my mailing list right now, read this article and never come back to my site, I would be absolutely elated if you take this one message with you:
It’s not you. You are not a failure. You don’t struggle because you aren’t good enough. There is no inherent flaw, nothing missing in you that others have.
These feelings of guilt, shame, remorse, repression, deprivation, and so on do not support your journey, and it’s time to banish these feelings for good!
You, my friend, are not broken.
You are, however, quite human. And since you are proud owner of a human brain (whether you like it or not) with all its quirks and idiosyncrasies, it pays to revisit the instruction manual.
(And take a moment to laugh at this comic which sums up the whole affair.)
Photo credit: Dog House Diaries
Let’s take a step back and look at some super interesting psychological findings that might help us better understand just what exactly is going on between our earlobes.
I love this, because rather than blaming ourselves, we can better understand the mechanisms at play and how to tame them, knowing that it isn’t our fault.
Ready to end the psychological warfare and get the upper hand on our cravings?
Step one in understanding cravings is acknowledging the elephant.
On my About Page I share this quote from my friend Stephen in the midst of a cleanse. Please excuse his language.
“I feel like I have a split personality. The healthy one who knows better and the other one who doesn’t give a shit.”
Wow! Can you relate? Does the healthy you commit to getting healthy and then watch in utter shock as the other one:
…eats an entire pie after three days of perfectly following a new diet? (been there!)
…hits snooze fourteen times instead of getting up to go to the gym?
…justifies eating another slice of that double chocolate ganache pie “just this once” while committing to do better tomorrow?
If this stuff wasn’t so painful, it would be hilarious. How very weird are we?
I sometimes call this split personality syndrome the “Evil Twin.” Author and psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls it something different.
In his book The Happiness Hypothesis, Haidt uses the metaphor of the Elephant and the Rider to explain this divisive aspect of our psychology.
The Rider is analytical, rational, deliberates and makes decisions about the future.
It is the Rider who thinks a 30-day juice fast will be great for our health and 5 am is a wonderful time for a mild thirteen mile jog.
The Elephant on the other hand is emotional and cares only about its own pleasure, NOW.
*Please note, that I’m not speaking about the nature, character, or intelligence of elephants here. As a kind reader pointed out, they are magnificent beings, affectionate and incredible parents to their young. I agree wholeheartedly, and the elephant analogy is used solely so that we can better understand our inner-pscyhology for the purpose of improving. I think elephants are awesome!
The Rider sets the alarm for the 5am run, and the Elephant turns it off, sleeps until 10am, and then eats a pint of ice cream for breakfast.
The Rider sets the alarm for the 5am run, and the Elephant turns it off, sleeps until 10am, and then eats a pint of ice cream for breakfast.
If you ever feel like you are two people, this is why.
The key to cravings begins with understanding that you’ve got an emotional elephant to tame, and it is a powerful beast!
But there are ways to rein in the elephant. Yes it’s big and cumbersome, but not the sharpest pencil in the box. Turns out that you can trick it.
Sometimes I dream about buying a bullhorn, positioning myself on a busy street corner, and “sharing” this truth with the passersby:
“It is through psychology, not willpower, that you will be saved!”
Ok, I admit the slogan could use some work. (But then again I did name this website Don’t Lose The Cow, so…par for the course?)
When we struggle with cravings, we almost always think that willpower is the answer.
When the post-indulgence dust has settled, we are often embarrassed and feel guilty and ashamed.
We think, “what kind of undisciplined, out of control human being am I?”
And so we resolve to try harder next time, thinking that we just need to be more disciplined.
But may I remind you that you’ve got an emotional freakin elephant that you are trying to reign in! If you and an elephant go head to head, who do you think is going to win out?
See, willpower is the amount of energy that we can devote to controlling our elephant.
You can only fight the elephant for so long before you reach the point of exhaustion and the elephant gets its way and takes you on a wild ride.
And it seems the ride only gets wilder the longer we hold out!
Willpower is limited. And not only is it limited, but every single decision and act of self-control depletes our precious reserves.
For example in a study cited by the American Psychological Association, researchers placed a plate of cookies and a bowl of radishes in front of students before asking them to solve an impossible puzzle.
Some students were asked to help themselves to the radishes, but to please leave the cookies for another group that was coming in. Other students were given leave to help themselves to the cookies if they wished.
The students that resisted the cookies struggled with the impossible puzzle for just 8 minutes before giving up.
The students who ate the cookies on the other hand worked tirelessly for an average of 19 minutes before calling it quits.
Every decision from what to wear for the day, to prioritizing work and projects and saying no to temptation all deplete our willpower reserve.
In the book Mindless Eating, author Brian Wansink reveals that the average person makes 200 food related decisions a day! And that’s just food!
Now, this doesn’t take you off the hook for personal responsibility. Just like a muscle, willpower is something that you can and should build.
But what we need to understand is that the Rider has a limited reserve of willpower to devote to controlling the Elephant.
And when Rider and Elephant go head to head, it might not be the wisest decision to bet the farm on the Rider.
Willpower is important to develop, but it is also fickle and unreliable. And there is a much better strategy to use in controlling our cravings.
If willpower is not the answer, what is? What is the best way to tame the beast? To give our inner-elephant some self-restraint?
In his book the Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg explains how we can harness the science of habits to use our Elephant’s might to take us where we want to go.
He explains that habits have three parts:
1. The Cue
The cue is what triggers the craving. For me, the cue was feeling a bit sluggish after lunch, and not being excited about heading back to the office.
When I asked you how you felt as the craving hit, you were identifying your own cue.
For many it was boredom, feeling tired and sluggish, or having an emotional day.
2. The Routine or Behavior
The above examples are cues that then kick off the behavior, which in our case is indulging in the craving.
My routine was driving down to the local health food store and chowing down on a couple miracle tarts!
3. The Reward
The reward is how we feel afterwards. My reward was a bit of a sugar and caffeine rush from the chocolate, and experiencing a pleasurable break from the drudgery of a long hard day at work.
Now that we understand the component parts, let’s put the pieces together. Here is my own example below.
So now that we’ve got our craving charted, we are ready to reveal the real key to changing our habits and therefore controlling our cravings.
Drumroll please…
As we’ve all learned the hard way, totally eliminating a bad habit is extremely difficult.
And this is exactly what most of us try and do when we decide we just need to be more disciplined.
But if the Elephant is used to a post-lunch miracle tart bonanza, it’s going to get upset if lunch comes and goes with no special treat!
It makes sense after all, because habits form actual neural patterns in the brain. The behavior almost becomes hard wired.
So instead of quitting a craving cold turkey, the golden rule of habit change is as follows.
Our triggers often come from the external environment, and we often don’t have much control over them.
There wasn’t much that I could do to prevent the post lunch sluggishness that I was experiencing.
And we have trained ourselves to expect the reward. The fix is what would have me driving to the grocery store against my own best interests!
And so it is in the behavior or routine where we have the most power to affect change.
Which leads us to this magic question for rewriting the program and kicking the habit. Tak a moment and ask yourself this:
When I experience my cravings trigger, what constructive activity or food choice could I make to give myself the same reward?
This requires some real introspection and likely some trial and error as well.
Our first guess at the reward might not be totally accurate, and it may take some digging to get to the real root of what we are seeking.
In my case, I made a list of possible activities that would give me the reward I was seeking — a little post-lunch energy burst and pleasurable break from the stresses of work.
Here’s what I came up with:
And when the post lunch craving hit, I started experimenting with some of these alternatives.
Voila! It turned out that a walk or some yoga sometimes satisfied the craving, but usually the most effective bet was choosing a different sweet treat.
And varying both the treat and the activity seemed to loosen the hold that the craving had on me.
After a couple weeks the miracle tart craving was totally gone!
Here’s your homework.
Share your results in the comments below. I’ll read and respond to every single one.
We will never sell your information or spam you, ever.
Matt Jager is a wellness activist, yogi and co-founder of True Wellth. His life mission is to transform the healthcare and food system in this country, so that every single person has access to the tools and support they need to look and feel their best, control their health, own their happiness and revolutionize their well-being.
Photo credit: Moyan Brenn
If you haven’t tried it, you’ve at least heard about it — this simple technique whose advocates range from monks to psychologists to business men.
The practice is supported by a continually growing body of research and can significantly reduce stress, counter depression, make you feel better about yourself and your life, and is of course an integral part of many important spiritual traditions.
If those aren’t enough accolades for you, check out this quote from bestselling author and award winning psychologist Jonathan Haidt as he compares meditation to prozac.
Suppose you read about a pill that you could take once a day to reduce anxiety and increase your contentment. Would you take it? Suppose further that the pill has a great variety of side effects, all of them good: increased self-esteem, empathy, and trust; it even improves memory. Suppose, finally, that the pill is all natural and costs nothing. Now would you take it? The pill exists. It’s called meditation.
~ Jonathan Haidt from The Happiness Hypothesis
Ok, lets say Dr. Haidt convinces you. You know the benefits. You’re intrigued by the Dalai Llama’s invitation to give it a try. You decide to go for it.
After all, it’s easy right? You just sit quietly, close your eyes, and do…nothing. Your mind quiets right down, you feel relaxed and drift gently into transcendental experience after transcendental experience where you instantly find inner peace and happiness…for about 30 seconds.
Then all of the sudden you find yourself thinking about the facebook status you are going to post about how much you rock at this meditation thing. You bring your attention back to your breath and this makes you anxious, which leads you to breath funny, which makes you more anxious.
Then you remember that jerk that cut you off earlier and you feel a surge of anger, followed by the terrible realization that you haven’t mopped the kitchen floor and it could really use a good mopping! Logically, the thought that follows that one is about teletubbies. Yes, teletubbies.
You realize you ‘re clenching your fists, and go back to focusing on your breath. This makes you more anxious.
After seven minutes and 20 seconds your inner state more closely resembles mild panic than inner peace and you decide, “Um, I don’t think this is for me.”
While the story above is a touch dramatic, the truth is that the vast majority of us struggle with meditation. I tried to meditate for years before finally experiencing that ‘ah ha moment’ where I got a glimpse of what all these crazy folks were talking about.
Meditation is now a tool that I use on a daily basis to relieve stress, get centered, reconnect, and just spend a few quiet moments enjoying a heightened experience of life.
It’s beautiful just to sit and feel the sun on my skin, hear the birds chirping, noticing the rise and fall of my breath.
While the experience doesn’t always leave me happy (sometimes when you get clear, you get a fuller taste of the challenges you are facing that need to be addressed), it has without a doubt made me a happier person.
And every now again I get a glimmer of that elusive inner peace.
My many attempts, and subsequent failures, gave me insight into what exactly the problem was when I finally had the break through…that first time that I got up thinking, “Oh this is meditation!”
If I could go back and counsel the restless minded me, here is what I would have said.
Looking back at my struggles, I realize that I had three major problems. You might have them too:
Meditation is not about experiences. Meditation is not about quieting the mind. Meditation is about being present with whatever is happening to you. Right now. Moment to moment.
All these other shiny benefits that people talk about are side effects. Yes it relieves stress, yes the mind gets quieter, yes you’ll experience more peace and happiness. But the weird part is that you can’t try to do this.
When you begin to meditate, you quickly learn that you have no control whatsoever over whether or not thoughts pop into your head.
You cannot learn to quiet your mind. The mind becomes quiet when you stop trying to control it, and start observing it. Stop trying to quiet it because the more you try, the more you will fail.
When you understand that meditation is about being present, aware, or mindful of whatever it is that you are experiencing then you cannot do it wrong. If you sit down to meditate and think about Oprah for 2 hours, then as long as you noticed at some point that you were thinking about Oprah, your meditation was a resounding success.
The not so sexy truth is that meditation serves to get you in touch with what is going on in your head, what is going on in your body, what is going on around you. You learn to watch it, and eventually you learn not to be so judgemental of those thoughts or feelings.
Whatever happens will happen. When you sit down to meditate you might feel quite sad. You might get angry. You might get frustrated. You might have terrible thoughts about the people you love (been there!). You might see parts of yourself that scare you very much.
In fact, let me share another dirty little secret: meditation probably won’t be fun for quite some time. It can be difficult and scary to get in touch with these aspects of yourself that you don’t necessarily want to see.
However, this is where the real benefit comes in. Through meditation we get more in touch with our own humanity, we get to know ourselves on a deeper level. We learn about ourselves. And eventually we become more accepting of ourselves and others.
As we become comfortable with looking at the totality of who we are, including the darker aspects of ourselves, our compassion and acceptance of others grows. As this self-discovery deepens we realize that we are more than our petty problems. They come and go. We are more than our thoughts. They also come and go.
And beneath all the transient stuff is some strange, permanent source of peace, happiness, and contentment. I’ll leave it up to the thousands of spiritual and religious texts to talk about that.
So now that you have more (or perhaps less) of an understanding of meditation, lets talk about how you get there.
Unless you have discovered a secret that most of us haven’t, your life is probably a bit stressful. You have lots of responsibilities. Maybe kids? A job that doesn’t go just the way you want it to 100% of the time?
You have to drive around with other people who suck at driving, and talk to lots of people who think differently than you do.
And you have to somehow get a lot of this stuff called money so that you can buy the stuff that you need to stay alive! Pretty wild.
My point is that our modern way of life is not in any way, shape or form conducive to meditation. In fact, it would be miraculous if you sat down and went right into meditation.
This is why most of us need to use a gateway into meditation.
You see our minds follow patterns, and these patterns have a certain amount of inertia. If you’ve been at work for 8 hours, your mind is stuck in work mode and, just like a generator that has just been unplugged, it keeps spinning in work mode for a while until it slows down or you change the station.
The good news is that there are a few ways that can help you to slow down the motor so that you can more easily change the channel and prepare yourself for meditation. In fact, this is the way that I eventually found myself meditating.
At one point in my life I had written off meditation and instead started doing yoga. After a few months of steady yoga practice, I found myself sitting quietly for longer and longer periods when I was finished stretching.
Eureka! Accidental meditation!
Gateways to meditation:
Before you sit down to meditate, spend some time with one of the above activities. Don’t expect yourself to be able to jump from being immersed in life’s important activities directly into a quiet mind.
Start with a gateway, and you’ll find yourself naturally drawn into meditation.
Ok, we’ve covered the what and the why. So now about that how:
Unfortunately most of the advice about starting a meditation practice can be boiled down to the slogan of the world’s most popular shoe company.
While just doing it works for some, we fascinating human beings have this inherent gap between what we want to do and what we actually do. Yes of course you want to get up at 4 a.m. and meditate, but will you actually do it? More importantly, will you actually do it long term?
Fortunately, the blossoming field of behavioral psychology has given us a few extremely practical ways to get the upper hand on our inner psychology and actually follow through.
Here is how you can make getting started as pain free as possible.
For the next 7 days I’m inviting you to make a small commitment to meditate just once per day for a total of 3 minutes. Thats right, just three minutes. Whenever is most convenient to you (right after waking or right before bed works best for some), set a timer for three minutes, find a comfortable place, and sit quietly until the timer goes off.
If you’d like to continue to sit quietly after the timer goes off you may do so, but when your three minutes are up you have fulfilled your obligation and may continue on with your day guilt free.
Now this may sound trivial or insignificant, but there is some sound science behind the recommendation.
Here are three reasons why this works:
Agreeing to meditate for just three minutes makes it much more likely that you’ll get started.
Getting started is often more arduous than simply continuing a difficult task. This technique, called Shrinking the Change, is outlined in the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. By giving ourselves a clear and easily reachable goal, we are able to overcome the inertia and take the most important step — to simply begin.
99% is a bitch, 100% is a breeze.
In Jack Canfield’s book Success Principles he states that “Successful people adhere to the ‘no exceptions rule’ when it comes to their daily disciplines. Once you make a 100% commitment to something, there are no exceptions.” It can be much harder to make a loose commitment than to go 100% all in.
Our wonderful minds are experts in justification and can easily generate a million excuses to not meditate today and instead meditate tomorrow — unless you draw a hard line.
It may seem counterintuitive, but make that commitment and it will be much easier to follow through.
Give Yourself A Head Start
A car wash once ran a promotion using loyalty cards. Every time customers bought a car wash, they got a stamp on their cards, and when they filled up their cards, they got a free wash.
The fascinating thing is that the car wash was able to significantly increase the number of customers who followed through with the promotion by using a simple trick: Some customers received a card with eight washes to be completed. Another set of customers received a card with ten washes, but were given a “head start” with two stamps already added to their card.
By giving ourselves a small yet significant goal — meditating every day and seeing it through for 7 days — we engineer an initial success that we can then build on. We give ourselves a head start, two stamps of progress on the meditation card which makes it much more likely that we will continue.
Psychologist Karl Weick sums it up best: “A small win reduces importance (this is no big deal), reduces demands (that is all that needs to be done) and raises perceived skill levels (I can do at least that). All three of these factors will tend to make change easier and more self-sustaining.”
There are many different meditation techniques, and they likely all work. Rather than getting caught up in the details, the most important thing is to actually do the practice.
If you already have a technique that works for you, great! If you are brand new, the technique below is a good one to get started. As time goes on you may be exposed to other techniques that you like better. Feel free to explore and find the one that suits you the best.
The technique:
It is so exciting for me to share this information with you because this practice has had such a positive impact in the quality of my life.
I hope very much that you will take this first step, give meditation a try, and see this through for the next 7 days.
Like anything else, meditation is a practice. It is like a muscle that you can build.
When you are just beginning, it’s easy to become overwhelmed, to feel like you are doing it wrong, or wonder if you have the right technique.
Don’t worry about it. Just take a little bit of time each day to sit quietly with yourself. No goal, no purpose, just some quality you time doing absolutely nothing. Things will become more refined as you go.
Most importantly you’ve taken a step towards developing a practice that is endorsed by the great wisdom traditions and modern science a like.
You’ll have a free, all-natural, wonderfully effective technique in your wellness toolkit that you can use to deal with stress, improve your mental and physical health, and develop a deeper connection with yourself and your life.
Happy trails and enjoy!
P.S. Did this work for you? I’d love to hear your story. Send me an email and let me know.
Have you tried meditating? What have you struggled with? Leave your question or comment below. I’ll read every one.
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Matt Jager is a wellness activist, yogi and co-founder of True Wellth. His life mission is to transform the healthcare and food system in this country, so that every single person has access to the tools and support they need to look and feel their best, control their health, own their happiness and revolutionize their well-being.
