Happy {Half} Hour! How to stop procrastinating so you can lose weight!

Hey, hey, hey, good afternoon, Lux Ladies. What is going on? It is Friday, June 14th, and here I am. This is not exactly how I had planned to look for Happy Half Hour today, but instead of not going live or waiting, I was like, you know what, this is real life. Let's talk about it. So I am going to tell you guys exactly what happened to me this morning and why I am in my workout clothes. It is actually, you know, it is not a terrible story. So happens to all of us and sometimes, you know, sharing experiences can help you. Hey, Naisha, good to see you. Thanks for joining. So today's look, fresh off of my sprints at the track. I woke up this morning late, did not set my alarm clock last night and went to bed a little bit later than normal. So I ended up sleeping in a little bit longer than usual. And because I didn't set my alarm clock, I missed my designated workout time to go to the track and do my sprints, which only takes like half an hour. But because I didn't have my time block scheduled in my calendar, I was kind of like fiddling around this morning. Oh, can you hear me? All right. I don't think my microphone was on. So I was fiddling around this morning and just got behind schedule. Right. So you know how that is. Get behind schedule. And the last thing I was thinking about doing was like, oh, let me go work out. No, no, no, no. So I started, you know, doing my— thanks, Naisha. I started doing my normal morning stuff, getting ready, you know, getting into my day, doing my work. And but I had my workout clothes on, so it was in the back of my brain like, yeah, I'm going to go work out. But then I was looking at my afternoon schedule and I was like, crap, if I don't go like take a shower now, get dressed, and I am not going to have enough time to like prepare for the livestream, do all my afternoon stuff, and like forget about working out. So I made the decision because number 1, my identity statement, which I have right here on my desk, I am looking at it every day, reminded me that I am physically strong and mentally fit, and I am dedicated to becoming this person every day. And everything that I do. So I took a look at that. I saw some of my friends who had already finished their workout on Instagram today, and I was like, you know what, I just gotta clear my afternoon schedule. It's gonna take me 30 minutes to get to the track, run around 10 times, and get back home. Half an hour, right? So I decided that's what I was gonna do, and that's what I did. So about 2 o'clock, plus it's a gorgeous day here in Philly today. Went out and got my little workout in, and I am fulfilling my identity statement, right? I am that person. Normally I would have been like, workout, forget it, I got other stuff to do. But I got it in at 2:30, and now here I am in my workout gear, live and direct for Happy Half Hour. It happens that way sometimes, right? So you got to Sometimes you just have to make a decision about who do you want to become, right? And so thinking about my identity statement and the woman that I am becoming, this is exactly what I teach my clients, right? You make your decisions from that place. You don't make your decisions from the place where you are now because that's where you are right now and that's why you have the results that you are, that you have right now. So what I do, and I'm probably jumping ahead a little bit, but what I do with my clients is teach them how to think like the person they are becoming. And that is why we are going to talk about procrastination today. So I don't have my normal It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere wine glass, but I do have my beautiful Stop Dieting Forever mug that I like to use every day. Excuse me, I have something in my throat, but I would love to get one of these done, turned into a wine glass. Oh, the joy of being live. Naysha, if this ever happens to you when you do your live streams, just go with it. Got something caught in my throat, my nose is turning red, I have on no makeup. But hey, I am here, I have a message, and I hope you all receive it in the way that I would like to deliver it. So I want to talk about procrastination. We all suffer with procrastination. I was like hardcore procrastinator. If I knew I had X amount of time to get something done, guess what? I was going to wait until the last minute to do it. And it wasn't until probably in the past, I don't know, 10 months since I started following Brooke Castillo that I became more aware of my procrastinating ways. Because for a long time I just told myself like, well, I do my best work when I procrastinate. I do my best work when, you know, I'm against the deadline. But it's not really, from what I understood from her, it's not really that I am doing my best work. It's just that I'm getting it done. Which is what I was going to do at any point anyway, right? I was going to get it done. So why not wait until, you know, why wait for the last minute when you can just, you know, get it done earlier? But I want to talk about procrastination as it relates to weight loss. And again, right, how you do one thing is how you do everything. So if you procrastinate when it comes to like doing work stuff, you're probably procrastinating when it comes to your health. I talk to women all the time with— you used to say the same thing, Naisha. Yeah, yeah. See, we all procrastinate, right? So I talk to women all the time on these Stop Dieting Forever strategy calls, right? I spend an hour with each woman talking about their challenges. You know, what is keeping them from losing the weight? Why are they— why do they feel like they are struggling to lose the weight? The underlying theme in most of these calls is that they know what to do, they are just not doing it, right? There is a level of procrastination because if you know what to do to lose the weight, then why aren't you doing it? Well, a lot of the time, a lot of the times I hear excuses like, I am going to wait until, you know, I have a couple of events coming up and I am going to wait to get through those events, which means I am going to eat and drink whatever I want to eat, and then I will start with weight loss. Weight loss program. Or I get this one a lot from teachers, right? You all know who you are, who feel like during the school year they can't do anything else, right? They cannot focus on anything else, but once school is out and the summertime is here, then they have, ooh, less stress, they can think about losing weight, it's, you know, all bells and whistles in the summertime. But I always say to my teachers, like, look, the time that you really need the support is when you're in the school year, when you're the most stressed out, when you're the most busy, because that's clearly when you're not following any type of plan. So that's where you need the support, not in the summertime where you have free time and you can work out and you can do all these things because it's, huh, summer break. Right? So people make these excuses. Maybe there is one that is in your brain that you have said before, you thought before, like, you know what, I am just going to wait until Monday, or I am just going to wait until after the family reunion, right? Or I am just going to wait until whatever. Fill in the blank. Right. But you know what to do to get started to lose weight. So why do you procrastinate and put that start date off? Until later, right? You know, if you were able to start to lose the weight and you can get the weight off of your body, you know that you would feel so much better. You know that you would be sleeping better. You know that you would be sliding into those size 6 clothes or whatever your goal size is, right? Single digit size. Get your butt outta Lane Bryant. You know that you would be so much happier if you were able to lose the weight. You know you wouldn't be as hot carrying around an extra 50, 60 lbs. in the summertime. You know you wouldn't have to be wearing those big maxi dresses all the time to cover up your bulges. You know this. You know that if you just lost the weight, all of those challenges and mind drama, all of that would just disappear. Disappear. So why do you keep putting off the start date? I am going to tell you why. I am going to tell you why. Lean in and listen closely. The reason why you keep procrastinating when it comes to your weight loss is this. It is very, very simple. It is so much easier to have an instant gratification of eating something or the instant gratification of just experiencing something and not having the "pain" of taking away food or drink than it is to experience the pain of taking away food or drink, right? So we rather have instant gratification and short-term pleasure. It's much easier to think about going to get ice cream with the kids after dessert than it is to put on your sneakers and go for a run or go for a walk after dinner because you're not going to see the results of that walk after dinner until months down the line when you keep doing it consistently, right? So it's much easier to to say, "Yeah, girl, let's go get a drink at happy hour tonight," than it is to say, "You know what? No, thank you. I am working on this weight thing. Let's, you know, postpone or let's do something else," right? It is easier to go for that self-gratification, the instant pleasure, right? But when it comes to weight loss, a lot of us think it is going to be fast, fast, fast. And for those of us who have been dieting for a very long time, you know that weight loss does not come fast, fast, fast. And you know, the older you get, hey, Linda, the older you get, it seems like the slower the weight comes off, right? And so we don't have the patience, right? We don't have the patience or the aptitude to be like, you know what, I'm going to be patient and wait for the weight loss to come off. We don't want to wait 6 months. To lose 10 lbs. We don't want to wait 8 months to lose 20 lbs., right? I remember it took me 6 months, I think 7 months to lose 20 lbs., right? We want that to happen fast. So rather than like going through the drudgery of waiting for the weight loss to come and all the things that we know that we have to do when it comes to losing weight, We'd rather just say, you know what, forget that. Girl, pass me the donut. Pass me the Alize, right? Pass me the Moscato. Pass me something that's gonna make me feel good right now. And we'd rather just go for instant gratification. All right, so also, you know, think about that in terms of other areas of your life where you procrastinate. It's much easier to pick up your phone and start you know, going through social media and get lost in social media than it is to sit down and finish a task you have to do for work. Or it's much easier to lay in the bed and watch TV and see what's on all these different channels that we have access to than it is to get up, put on our sneakers, put on our workout clothes, and go out for a walk in the morning, right? It's much easier to Even like people, so people who work from home like me, it's much easier to like busy myself going to do laundry or cleaning up the kitchen than it is to sit down and like focus on a task for a period of time. All right. So isn't that funny? How we do one thing is how we do everything. So if you find yourself procrastinating when it comes to starting the weight loss process, chances are you are probably procrastinating in some other area of your life as well. So, one of the things that I work with all my Clients with is just like identifying all those areas, right? Because our weight is just an outward manifestation of everything that is unbalanced and not right in our lives, right? Very, very simple. Our weight is just an outward manifestation of everything else that is not right in our lives because a lot of us use food to feel better. A lot of us use food and alcohol for that instant gratification. We'd rather much sit down and drink a bottle of wine or go through a bag of chips or both together than deal with the crap that's happening at work, the crap that's happening in our households, or deal with the crap that's happening with our finances, right? It's much easier to ignore all that stuff, but oh yes, Give me the bag of Ruffles and give me a bottle of wine and I am good to go, right? Instant gratification. So in that sense, you are procrastinating dealing with whatever you have to deal with. And so what I want to do, what I do do as a life coach, is give you the tools and the strategies that you need to be able to manage all of those procrastinating thoughts, right? The thoughts that you have in your brain where you're like, okay, tomorrow I'm going to set my alarm clock, I'm going to wake up early, I'm going to put on my sneakers and put on my workout clothes, and I'm going to go to the gym, and I'm going to eat a healthy breakfast, and all these things that you know you should be doing, all these healthy habits you know you should be doing. To lose weight, but yet you are not doing it, right? Because your thought process is not right. You think that the process to lose weight is going to be terrible. You feel deprived. You feel hangry. You feel just like it is not a feel-good thing, right? So, it is much easier to be like, well, I am going to wait to start that later because you don't want to walk into not feeling well. You rather just, you know, let me just eat what I want to eat. Let me go to this event today and we will deal with the whole weight thing later, right? But what if you could shift your perception about your weight-loss journey? Stay with me here. What if you could shift your perception about your weight-loss journey? So traditionally, your diets before have come with feelings of deprivation, feelings of lack, the cravings, the overwhelming of like white knuckling it or gritting your teeth like through the evening where all you really want is a chocolate bar, all you really want to eat is some ice cream and you are like fighting with yourself to avoid eating these things. What if you could experience weight loss in a completely different way? Beginning with how you think about it. Hey, Mr. Kevin Horn, what if you could think about weight loss in a completely different way? So instead of feeling like you are deprived or you are white-knuckling it, what if you could think like, you know what, I am feeling really good right now because I know that I am becoming the woman that I want to become. That is what I talked about in the beginning, part of your identity statement. I walk my Clients through this whole process. Of who do they want to become and what steps are they going to be doing every day to get them to that person that they want to become, including what they want to weigh. So what if you could flip your perspective, flip the script, as I like to say, in your brain and think about the weight-loss process as one that is nurturing and good for you? Right? But how do you do that? You do that by a very specific process that I teach my clients of like how to pick and choose new thoughts. And this is what gets the successful people over the hump, over the procrastination hump, right? So all of us have that default tendency to want to procrastinate and wait till the last minute. But what do the successful people do? What are they thinking? What are they feeling? What are they doing to get them over the procrastination hump? It's because they think about the end result in a different way than you are right now. Right? You're thinking about the end result as something that is going to be hard to do, it's painful, and you're not going to feel good. And so it's easier for you to go for the instant gratification and the short-term pleasure. However, the successful people who get over the hump, get through the plateau, who were able to get to their goal weight, they are thinking like, OK, this is just part of the journey. Yeah, this kind of sucks right now, but this is what I have to do to get to that part. This is what I have to, like, you know, pull out my inner Beyoncé or my inner fire or whoever, right, gets you motivated. Y'all know I love Beyoncé. Whoever gets you motivated and get you over that mental hump that you're experiencing and understand that mental hump is temporary. It will go away, right? Your identity statement that you create with me as my client in the very beginning is not going to be the same identity statement in 6 months, right? Because you may have already reached some of those pinnacles. And so then in 6 months, we take a look at it and say, okay, all right, where are we aiming for now? Right? So if you are able to, remember, flip the switch and think about your long-term pleasure versus your short-term pleasure and make the choice to go for the long-term pleasure, which will get you ultimately to your results, you can overcome your procrastination. If you have questions, if you have a specific scenario you need help with, Go ahead and type it in the chat. Even if you're watching the replay, go ahead and type it in and tag me and I will come back and answer you because it's really, really important that you understand. Brooke Castillo, my mentor, she explains procrastination as this: procrastination ensures that we're reacting to a life rather than creating a life that we can only dream of. So you are procrastinating because you are just in reaction mode. You are not thinking long term. You are not thinking about what you really want to accomplish, what your goal weight really is. You are just thinking in the short term right now. You are like, I don't want to wait. Give me a donut. I don't want to wait. Let's go to Starbucks. I don't want to wait. Give me the ice cream. So you are thinking in short-term increments. Rather than in long-term increments. So instead of reacting to your life and being like, oh, I had a crappy day at work, pass me the Alize, right? Or my boss really got on my nerves today, I'm gonna eat a bowl of pasta because it makes me feel better, right? Instead of reacting in those ways and going for short-term pleasure because you don't know how to manage those emotions, Let's figure out how to manage those emotions so we're not face down in a bowl of pasta or bottoms up tossing back the Manhattans on Friday at happy hour after work. Right? Yeah, Linda, it's good. So again, procrastination is, you know, if you're aware of the fact that you procrastinate, that is like the very first step to making a change. I always say becoming aware of the things that don't serve you and those thoughts and those actions and those habits that you have that don't serve you is the very first micro step to transformation and becoming the person you want to become and to getting into your size 6 jeans, right? So when you are not even aware that you are having these messed up thoughts, then you can't even change them. Phone. But once you're aware, you're like, ah, dang, right? I know I need to be getting this done right now. I know I should be going to the gym right now. I know I should be cooking dinner instead of ordering Grubhub, right? You become aware of those things, then you have the option to make a different choice, right? So another one of my quotes I have on my desk is is my belief. All of my thoughts are 100% optional and changeable. So when you become aware of these thoughts, you have an option to change them every single time. Yes, Mr. Warren, I am still very passionate about transformation, life transformation. Thank you very much for the encouragement. I appreciate it. Yeah, ladies, we gotta get this weight off, right? Not even just the physical weight, but the emotional weight too, right? Your physical weight is just an outward manifestation of the emotional weight and baggage you are carrying around up here. So this is why I am a Life Coach. All right, so questions? If anybody has questions, go ahead and type them in. But I want to give you hope, right? If you feel like you have done everything to lose weight and you have not yet been successful, you have not yet done this, right? This means this, right? Most of us, when we are trying to lose weight, we are always working from what I call the A-line. We are doing all these actions, right? We are buying new workout clothes, hiring a trainer, we are going to spin class, we are cutting out entire food groups, right? We are drinking water. We are doing all of these things that we think is, that is going to get us the result. But ultimately, what gets us the result of our goal weight is not only the things that we are doing, but it is mainly the things that we are thinking and how we are thinking about it, right? So, going back to why you procrastinate is because you are looking for short-term pleasure. If you can If you can look, if your number one priority can be the long-term result over the short-term pleasure, then guess what? You will get to the long-term result, right? Same thing with spending money and saving money, right? If we stop going for the instant gratification of buy, buy, buy, buy, buy all this stuff right now and just say, you know what, I really, really, really want to save save $10,000, I understand that delaying my short-term pleasure right now is going to give me long-term satisfaction, then that's what we do. That makes us feel better. That's what we do. And guess what? You're going to have 10 grand in the bank, right? How you do one thing is how you do everything. Lots of times the women that I talk to who are struggling with their weight are also struggling with their finances. Girl, we talk about it all. We talk about it all. Because what I teach as a Life Coach affects everything. Strategies and tools that I teach you to lose weight are also applicable for you to get your financial situation right, right? To find a new career. I have Clients who are beginning and looking for new jobs, starting new careers, interested in coaching, becoming entrepreneurs, getting out of a crapload of debt, right? In addition to losing weight. It is all the same. All the same. All right. So where are we? Woo-hoo! 5:29 PM. I am like always right at 5:30 PM. So again, if you are watching the replay, go ahead and type replay in the comments so I know that you came by. If you have any questions, go ahead. If anybody knows where I can get like a custom wine glass made with this logo, let me know. I'm sure it's probably somewhere on Etsy. I'm going to look, but I would love to have a wine glass with my tagline on it. Wouldn't that be fun for Happy Half Hour? All right. So that is procrastination. If you feel like you're ready to stop procrastinating and you really want support in, in, in, in dropping the procrastination characteristic about yourself, that procrastination muscle that you have strengthened so much in your life. Let's talk about it. Just send me a private message. We will schedule a time. We will do a Stop Dieting Forever strategy call. I will spend an hour with you on the phone figuring out what your biggest challenges are. Now, lots of us have a lot of challenges, but we are going to talk about your biggest challenges, why you haven't been able to lose the weight, And then I'm going to talk to you about what would be a good next step for you. And that might be working with me one-on-one in my 7 Month Weight Loss Coaching Program. Now, not everybody is a good fit for my coaching program because I can tell you're not really ready, right? 7 months is a long time. And the reason why it's 7 months is because it takes a long time to get this right and to, like, change all of those, the mindset and the thinking that you've had for decades when it comes to food, when it comes to emotions, when it comes to your life. So it takes a lot of intense work, and some of y'all ain't ready. But for those of you who are ready, let's do it. Just send me a message and we'll figure out some good times to connect on the phone, and we'll, we'll get to talking. All right, another happy half-hour episode in books. I want you all to have a luxe weekend. I will see you all next— back here next week, and I'm gonna go get out of my workout clothes and take a shower. Alright y'all, have a good one. Bye!