Backing Out of The Right Decision

It's amazing how much we second-guess ourselves. And what's really sad is how much we second-guess doing the right thing.

You know which thing. That thing that you know will totally pay off down the road, but because it's not the most comfortable thing to do now, or that it'll be annoying to see through, or is kind of expensive, so it's gonna mentally hurt to make that transaction for a little while.

Yeah. That one. We all have them.

I was reading a chapter in this one book, "Overcoming Underearning" by Barbara Stanny, and came upon a part in a chapter that talked about behaviors that point to resistance.

In the context of the book, it was referring to sticking with the decision of making more income, but it is definitely applicable to people that want to choose a healthier lifestyle but "can't."

So I'm going to write down the 12 things from her list, edited just slightly for context, from page 102, just to share it with you. Though if this topic is interesting to you, I definitely recommend reading it, and I'm only halfway through!

12 Signs of Resistance (to a good change)

1. "I'm too busy."

2. You procrastinate and put it off.

3. You're scared into inaction. ("What if ______?" So you don't do it.)

4. You defer decisions ("I don't care, you decide.")

5. You lose interest (or pretend/convince yourself to).

6. You tend to forget about it.

7. You're disorganized (Say you want the change, but are scattered in your plan).

8. You fog up and space out ("What was I talking about?" and it distracts you out of thinking/talking about the change.)

9. You feel paralyzed. (After trying to sort it out in your head, you get frustrated and just think "I can't/won't think about this anymore.")

10. You find reasons not to act. ("I can't because...")

11. You're impatient and not willing to have the change take the time it needs to.

12. You keep running into naysayers. These are the people who think your idea is impossible and don't hold back telling you so.

This was a really insightful list, so thanks to the author, Barbara Stanny, for the inspiration for this post today.

Though the context for it is definitely about personal finanaces, I truly believe these are the conversations we have with ourselves about trying to live a healthier lifestyle and shed some pounds.

It's not comfortable to do the new changes (it's not our normal habit), so we go through conversations of resistance and end up talking ourselves out of it.

And this is why it's SO HARD to lose weight

SO HARD to keep it off

SO HARD to have sustainable results

Because we might go through the motions for awhile, but it's these thoughts that keep us back.

Does this sound like you? Send me a message. It's exactly this that I focus on when helping clients. Let's talk about it.