What Happens when you Do?

more thoughts on goal achievement

A sort of part two from last week.

Generally, people forget that they are living in a body that strives to be healthy. A body that is incredible, and in many ways not understood by science. There are mysteries of the human body that even doctors can’t rightly understand. Luckily- and perhaps purposefully - those mysteries don’t all need to be understood by us. Neil deGrasse Tyson said “The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” We could say the same thing about the body.

That said, we do get clear messages from our bodies when we need to change behavior or attend to something of importance: fatigue, thirst, hunger, fullness, discomfort and pain are important communications - not unlike an engine light going on in a car.

Part of the problem with culture today is it strives to teach us that it knows better than we do about our own selves and instincts. TikTok and other forms of social media seek to exploit self-doubt and disconnect. The weight-loss industry, for example —according to Chat GPT, is valued at approximately $142.58 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach $298.66 billion by 2030.

Staying with the concept of weight loss for a moment…check it out: a calorie is simply a measure of energy. Our bodies need energy in order to do anything and everything. All living actions, even breathing, burns calories. The amount of calories we need to ingest from food is dependent on how many calories we burn through activity. That’s why active people need more calories than sedentary people.

Excluding those with more uncommon medical conditions - for most people, if you are trying to lose weight, the goal is to ultimately burn more calories than you take in. That’s how you burn fat (fat = “extra” calories stored in your body.)

Using a pill to take off weight may work in the same way that using make-up might cover up dark circles under the eyes. In such instances, we miss the journey of self-connection: the process by which we listen and respond naturally to ourselves and our body’s communications. We miss out on understanding why we are overweight, or constantly fatigued, or whatever the symptom may be. Our culture supports this trading of curiosity and personal journey for a quick fix.

We want results without the work. We want an athletic body without having to train like an athlete. We want to control our eating without seeking the understanding of why we eat too much (or too little.) We are awesome at coming up with excuses for why we are not feeling our best. For instance, I can’t tell you how many times people comment to me that they are “too tight to do yoga.” Ummm….that’s like saying you’re too thirsty to drink water.

A new client asked me asked me the other day how many times much she should exercise per week. Tell me your goals, I asked her. (I would never answer for a client “how much” without understanding what exactly it is they want to achieve.) After a client tells me their goals, I can tell them with assuredness how often they need to workout in order to achieve that goal. Often though, it turns out for the client that there’s a time factor issue and then the excuses come rolling in…the kids, work schedule, etc. Can you get up an hour earlier a few times a week? I’ll ask. Simple. (Not easy.)

This morning I’m going for a swim because I want to be a better swimmer. The more I allow the unease, the more I face the challenge, the more I learn about myself. Each run, each swim, the closer I get to myself. The closer I get to myself, the healthier I become. The healthier I become, the more I can tolerate my own difficulties as well as have more bandwidth to understand others who may be struggling in their lives. These are the benefits to following through with long-term goals or commitments even when it’s hard.

Are you tight? Does it bother you? Then stretch! The answer is not complicated. The actually doing it, the setting aside the time, the willingness to be the tightest person in the yoga class, the getting up an hour earlier to go to the gym, the planning of healthy meals, that’s where the work comes in, the journey starts, and life gets a lot more interesting.

One day, many sessions in, a tight client says to me: Hey, look! I can touch my fingers to my toes! I’ve never been able to do that! He says it with disbelief, shock and awe, as if there is sort of some magic involved. No magic. You just showed up and did the work. I have never seen someone more proud than a tight dude the day he touches his toes.

So.
What are YOUR goals? (They could be anything.)
What happens when you try and take the easy way out?
What happens when you don’t?