Are you lying to yourself?

I love the middle of the year. 

June and Dec are Reality Check time for me to see if my daily habits and behaviours are in alignment with the ambitions I've set for myself. 

DATA QUEEN 

For as long as I can remember I've been the kinda gal who loves to collect data. 

I've changed many things in my life and I've always collected some kind of data about the changes I was making. 

Unfortunately, I was tracking my results rather than my behaviours. 

BEHAVIOURS PRODUCE THE RESULTS 

Tracking results is a poor yardstick for creating change as it only shows success or failure. 

Results are either in favour or not in favour of a desired outcome. 

The easiest example I can give you is from my 25 years on the yo-yo dieting hamster wheel. 

I used to track my weight and measurements as well as keep food and exercise diaries. 

Weight and measurements were the result of how well I was doing on a diet, while my food and exercise diaries only showed the result of what I ate and what exercise I did. 

Results only told me if I was succeeding or failing at achieving my ambition of weighting less, but they never told me why I was succeeding or failing. 

HINDSIGHT IS A WONDERFUL THING 

What would've been more beneficial is what I do now, look at the results and then ask myself how I got that result and collect data from that to assist the transformation. 

• Result =X 
• What actions took me to that result? 
• What behaviours were behind those actions? 
• What thoughts, feelings or emotions were behind those behaviours? 
• How can I duplicate the ones that took me towards my desired outcome? 
• What strategy can I create to circumvent the ones that took me away from my desired outcome? 

How many times in your life have you said “In hindsight I can see (blank), if only I'd seen that sooner”. 

Keeping track of what you're doing, keeping the data about your thoughts, behaviours, and actions, is purposefully giving yourself that hindsight in advance. 

WHERE ARE YOU LYING TO YOURSELF?

We wonderful humans have a way of lying to ourselves about what we do. 

We don't do it on purpose, it's just how the brain works for most of us. 

We think it's only been 2 or 3 days since we did (or didn't do) something but the reality is it's usually more like a week, 10 days, or even longer. 

We tend to review things in our mind over the short period, say the last week or two, and that's how we lie to ourselves.  

It's the accumulation of data over weeks and months that tell the real story. 

MEASURE A HABIT, CHANGE YOUR LIFE 

If you've got ambitions to lose weight, feel more relaxed, confident, and build mental, emotional, and physical strength and endurance, you've got to have some way to measure your progress. 

You need a way to record what you do, so you can look over it regularly to see if you're on track with the change that you want to make. 

There are an endless array of apps and software programs these days that you can use to track anything and everything. Just make sure that if you're tracking results that you look at them and ask yourself how you got them. 

If you're not into tech, pen and paper is as good as anything. 

The purpose of collecting and reviewing data isn't to berate yourself when results aren't pleasing, the purpose is to discover for yourself what your behaviours are so you can re-design them to give you the results that you're looking for. 

Be honest with yourself. If you're not achieving your ambitions, track your behaviours, decide where you need to improve, work out a way to do it better and keep moving forward. 

Personal Health Leadership™ is about having the capacity to lead one's own life in such a way that your health and well-being are not compromised by work, family, or other responsibilities and the pressures and challenges of life.  

June is a great time to begin. Starting now means you are done by Christmas and ready to step into summer feeling lighter, brighter, healthier and happier. 

Give me a call, let’s get it started this week.   

You start here today by booking in for a private consultation session.