Ep. 030 - Redefining Willpower to Lose Weight and Get Healthy

SHOW NOTES

Are you tired of the vicious cycle of willpower-induced burnout and the accompanying shame that can derail your health and weight loss goals? 

What if I told you that there's a more sustainable, compassionate way to achieve success? 

Today we explore the role and limits of willpower, especially for men over 40. We'll peel back the layers on this seemingly helpful concept so you can  understand the triggers for impulsive behaviour and the shame that often follows.

In our journey together, we'll break away from the all-or-nothing approach that only leaves you frustrated. Instead, we'll focus on three powerful strategies - awareness, anticipation, and compassion - that promise to lead you towards long-term success. 

We'll guide you on how to practically apply these strategies in your everyday life, fostering not just a healthier physique, but a stronger, more positive relationship with yourself. 

It's not about just hitting those weight loss goals, it's about crafting a legacy of longevity.

TRANSCRIPT

Willpower is something we're taught to use to eat better, drink less and work out more, but it's a limited resource that often leads to a cycle of shame and ruined goals. Welcome to man in the Arena, your go-to podcast for all things related to health and weight loss for men over 40.

Here we discuss strategies that will get you off the sidelines and into the game so you can achieve your optimal health. It's time to lead a legacy of longevity. Hey guys, thanks for stopping by man in the Arena. My name is Craig Spear. I'm the founder of the Spear Method, which is a health and weight loss program designed for men over 40 to help them change the trajectory of their health. So if you're a man over 40 and you're wanting to change the trajectory of your health, or you're already doing that, then you are exactly where you need to be. And if you're not a man over 40, keep listening, because these concepts that I talk about on the podcast still apply to anyone who wants to better their health or better their life. Today I want to talk about Willpower, because it's the ugly cousin of all or nothing thinking. I see both of these characters show up often in my coaching. We often hear about the importance of Willpower in achieving our goals, but is it really the magical ingredient we think it is? Keep listening, because we're going to talk about the complexities of Willpower and its role in our pursuit of our health and weight loss goals in this episode today. So let's start by defining what Willpower is. Willpower refers to the ability to control our impulses and make choices that align with our long-term goals, even when faced with temptations or distractions. It's like a mental muscle that helps us resist immediate gratification for the sake of future rewards. In other words, willpower does have its merits. It's a necessary part of the success equation. But here's the thing Research has shown that Willpower is a limited resource. It can be depleted through the day as we make decisions, resist urges and navigate the different challenges we face. In fact, this phenomenon is often referred to as ego depletion. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this come up in my coaching and it goes like this I know what to do and I want to do it, but then I end up doing the thing I don't want to do and I have no idea why.

Whether it's overeating or snacking or overdrinking, grabbing your phone, we can all relate to this in some way. We all have moments in our lives when we do things out of integrity, and here's why we all have deeply conditioned and embedded impulses that take time and awareness to deconstruct. There are times when, no matter how much Willpower we have, it's not going to help us overcome these impulses. And what makes the matter worse of all is we're taught to believe that we should be able to rise up and overcome anything that comes in our way, especially if we want it bad enough. But here's the problem when we don't, we're often left with shame.

That's the biggest problem with Willpower. The shame we feel when we fail to overcome our impulses is so heavy. It's so heavy that we'll do anything to get away from it, including doing more of the thing that we don't actually want to do, because what we want in that moment is comfort. We want immediate comfort. So if Willpower isn't the answer, what else can help us achieve our goals? And I believe there's three things. There's a very simple approach that you can take. The three things are awareness, anticipation and compassion. So let's talk about awareness. You need to be keenly aware of the triggers that lead you to your impulsive behaviors. So here's an example Most impulsive behaviors and actions are preceded by an emotion, and emotions are preceded by thoughts, but these thoughts and emotions often lay underneath the surface, they're subconscious, that is until we raise our awareness and we start to see them play out in the repetitive cycles that we go through.

So there's an exercise that I've come across and it's called Walk the Cat, and Walking the Cat was developed by CIA agents as a way to review successful and unsuccessful missions, and basically, what you want to do is trace back all the different steps that led you to the impulse of action. So imagine you're standing in front of the refrigerator at about nine o'clock at night and you're overeating, you're snacking, you're eating off plan, something you clearly don't want to continue doing. You ate dinner just a few hours ago. You don't need the fuel. So what you want to do is ask what happened directly before you were standing in front of the fridge, and you just walk the cat back, just keep tracing your steps back. Well, I was sitting on the couch, and what were you thinking about on the couch? Well, I was thinking about how busy my day is going to be tomorrow. And then, how did that make you feel? Well, I was feeling overwhelmed. What happened before that? Well, I was putting the kids to bed. And what were you thinking about while you're putting the kids to bed? I was thinking about I just want to relax before my busy day tomorrow. And then how did that make you feel? I felt tired, I felt exhausted, and so on and so on. And so what you start to see with this awareness, you start to see the compounding effect that these thoughts and feelings have on you.

So bringing awareness can show you the triggers that eventually lead to the again, the impulse of action, whether it's overeating or snacking. So awareness is key. You've got to have awareness, because all of this lays in your subconscious and unless you bring awareness to it, it's just going to continue to repeat on autopilot. The second thing that you need is anticipation. So you have to have a plan for these moments and you have to develop different skills in order to feel the discomfort that often comes from the urges and impulses that show up. So you've got to have to anticipate the overwhelm and the fatigue and the exhaustion.

So not only do you have to anticipate that these things are going to come up, but you also have to anticipate that there are times when you will give in to the urge or the impulse will take over, and that's really important, because if we're all or nothing in our thinking, then we're not anticipating that there's going to be times when we give in and again, because of that, we think we're failing, we think we're doing the wrong thing and we start to beat ourselves up and we feel that shame. So this is the third thing that you need as part of this equation is you need compassion. You need compassion instead of shame, and I want you to access compassion for yourself in these moments, and I want you to remember that what you are trying to achieve new habits, new behaviors, overcoming old impulses that takes courage, that takes time, that takes energy to rewrite new neural pathways, to create new neural connections in your brain, and so, instead of beating yourself up when you do something that you've always done well, you have to understand that you're literally rewiring your brain and so give yourself more runway. And when you have this compassion, you're able to come from a place of curiosity and to ask questions. Like I said about that walking the cat exercise. You're able to ask questions about why you did certain things, but when you go into shame, you immediately shut down Okay.

You throw up walls, you're not able to gain new insight and better answers in order to overcome these things that are holding you back. So we want to get out of shame, we want to get out of all or nothing thinking, and we do that through awareness, anticipation and compassion. So, as we wrap up here, I want you to take notice of those moments where you're white-knuckling it and using only willpower to try to succeed. Give yourself more runway. Use awareness, anticipation and compassion, and move away from the shaming tendencies and the all or nothing approach. In doing so, you're going to find your way and you will ultimately succeed long-term.

That's what I have for you today. Thank you for joining me on this journey as we uncover the limits of willpower. And remember it's okay to ask for help, make adjustments and learn from your experiences. Reach out to me anytime if you want to talk about what your next steps are. Until then, keep leading a legacy of good health and longevity. If you're ready to step inside the arena and change the trajectory of your health, head on over to thespearmethod.com and download my free guide to learn simple and effective strategies on how to optimize your health today.