How To Lose Weight!

Keep a pit bull in the kitchen!Other weight-loss Funnies Here…

influences…

This series continues, the last blog on this was: What’s Our ‘Immunity To Change’?.

According to Kerry Patterson, who’s written other classics like Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, it’s six sources of influence that impact us even when don’t know it. And because we don’t know how they are impacting us on a constant basis, we’re unable to make changes that we desire. These sources of influence overrule sheer will-power all the time, which is why most of our New Year Resolutions languish soon enough!

Here they are, there are 3 ways we’re motivated and 3 areas in which we must learn the skills appropriately. I’ve listed some detail below to illustrate the example of wanting to exercise for better health and lose weight:

Influence Matrix Motivation Skill
Personal Do we have the right personal motivation to approach any change? How do we improve our motivation? If it’s exercise how do we motivate ourselves to want to exercise and actually enjoy it? Do we know what kind of exercise to undertake so as to get the biggest bang for our time? Interval Training for example is far more effective than just running or doing anything else. Unless we know what works we won’t be successful in our effort to want to keep exercising.
Social Who’s motivating or demotivating us? Is a friend or spouse holding us accountable for our exercise goals? Are they contributing or are they derailing our efforts? What specific skills can we use to take advantage of our social network?
Structural What happens if you have to pay $10 to a charity you hate for each exercise session that you miss? Or for each dessert we can’t say no to? What around us, for example the right or wrong kind of foods, is helping or hurting our motivation to exercise and therefore lose weight?

the steps

Once we understand and know how to leverage these ‘influences’ we can follow these steps to ‘Change Anything’:

  1. Identify Crucial Moments: Under what conditions and circumstances are we tempted most not to exercise and to eat foods that we shouldn’t? Understanding these is crucial to our success.
  2. Create Vital Behaviors: These are proven behaviors that work under trying circumstances. We must decide on these behaviors before temptation hits.
  3. Engage all 6 sources of Influence: As above, have a plan and follow it.
  4. Turn Bad Days Into Good Data: Each human is unique and any approach that we build is subject to improvement. When we fail in our efforts, let’s use that information to improve our plan and re-apply!

Daily Affirmation: Today I AM a change master!

Recommendation: Change Anything by Kerry Patterson

Change Anything: The New Science of Personal SuccessKindle Wireless Reading Device, Wi-Fi, 6

3 thoughts on “How To Lose Weight!”

  1. Great review. I read the book and went to the companion website, http://www.changeanything.com, and started my own weight loss change plan. My progress has been up and down, but so far I’m down 15 lbs. In the process I’ve learned a lot about myself and what is influencing me to make bad eating choices. I look forward to increasing my skills and motivations to lose the last 25 lbs. I highly recommend the book and the website which helps you implement the things you learn in the book.

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