Ep. 035 - Part 2: A Powerful Mindset Shift to Lose Weight and Transform Your Health

SHOW NOTES

The Rent is Due!

Today, I'm sharing a new mindset shift to help you overcome inconsistency - the concept of revisiting and reshaping your thoughts daily, creating a compelling connection with your goals, and maintaining a positive direction. 

Particularly for those seeking weight loss, this episode highlights the importance of connecting with  your goal every day. We also talk about the significance of a daily routine for success, encouraging you to develop five new thoughts each day that align with your goals, set a consistent daily baseline, and avoid overextending yourself. 

Get ready to shift your mindset towards success and create a lasting legacy of good health and longevity.

TRANSCRIPT

Your rent is due. It's time for another episode on Mindset.

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.

Hello and welcome to the Arena. I want to start this episode by offering my sincere expression of gratitude to you for not only listening to this episode, but for your ongoing support of the man in the Arena podcast. I can see the number of downloads each week and it's so inspiring to see those numbers tick up after every episode that I post. So if you're enjoying these podcasts episodes, please share this with your network. Share it on social media. Let other people know all the good stuff that they can find here.

Now, with that, today is another episode about Mindset. More specifically, I want to follow up on a previous episode, episode number seven, where I talked about three Mindset shifts, and those three shifts explained the power of having a growth Mindset over a fixed Mindset, a progressive Mindset over an all-or-nothing Mindset and an infinite Mindset over a finite Mindset. So if you haven't heard that episode, go back to number seven and check it out. And today I'm going to talk about another Mindset that sort of embodies all three of these together. Now, before I dive into that, I went to Google and I asked what is a Mindset? And here's what Google said A Mindset refers to a set of beliefs, attitudes and thoughts that shape one's perceptions and behaviors. It's a mental framework that influences how one interprets and responds to situations, challenges and opportunities. And Mindsets can be deeply ingrained and can impact various aspects of life, including learning, problem-solving, resilience and interpersonal relationships. So there's a lot there and I kind of want to break this down.

So there's three parts to this Mindset. Number one a Mindset is what we believe and what we think. Now, a belief is just a thought that we have thought over and over again until it becomes deeply ingrained in our mind. As I've discussed on many episodes before, our thoughts are central to the outcomes in our life. So if you want to make changes in your life, you have to be keenly aware of the underlying thinking, and when you do this you start to shift your Mindset. So I want you to identify the thoughts that lead to the outcomes you want in your life and then rehearse those over and over and over again. One exercise I have my clients perform is they identify five to ten thoughts that their future self thinks, in other words, thoughts that are different than the way they think now. So, for example, they might have new thoughts like I plan my meals and decide what I'm eating ahead of time they might think I eat until my hunger cues are gone, rather than eating because there's food left on the table. I have other ways to manage stress that don't require food and alcohol. So these are all kind of future self thoughts. Now, once you identify your new thoughts, then you go to work and rehearse these daily and imagine what would happen in your life if you committed to that practice. It's kind of like an actor who prepares for a role, and they rehearse their lines and they become that character. They start to embody that character. That's what I want you to do in order to create a new personal reality with respect to your health and weight loss. The second part of the mindset definition states that a mindset is a framework that influences our interpretation of situations, challenges, opportunities. So, in other words, a mindset is a perspective builder or it's a filter we use to see the world. Wayne Dyer said that when we change the way that we look at things, the things we look at change, and this might sound like a fancy play on words, but there's a ton of truth in this. The final breakdown of the mindset definition is that mindsets can be deeply ingrained and impact various aspects of our lives. So, in other words, we have to be careful because our mind, if it's left unattended, it will steer you in unwanted directions. But the flip side of that coin is, with the proper nurturing effort, we can influence the direction of our lives by really changing our mindset. All this is to say that I deeply believe that we need to be consciously cultivating our inner, internal thoughts and beliefs and our mindsets on a daily basis. So it requires intention, consistency and practice. So the newest mindset shift I want to offer to you today is the mindset that our results are rented. I spoke about this in my recent Supercall that I have every month and it really hit hard. The weight you want to lose, the body you want to transform into the way you want to eat, the exercise you want to start doing, is not a destination. This is the opposite of the mindset that I'm talking about, and I see a lot of guys show up with this in my coaching. They think that once I get to a certain weight, then I'll be happy. Once I get stronger, then I'll be happy. Okay, but what happens once you achieve these things? You have to keep working for them, just like getting married. You don't get married, and then that's it. You need to keep showing up every day for your spouse in order to stay married. Rent is due every day. You have to pay your dues every damn day. Now here's why, if you don't show up with intention and connect to your goal, you resort to default mode. And default mode is the mode where you do what you've always done. You do what you've been conditioned to do, you do what's easy, you avoid pain and you seek pleasure. You don't plan meals, you don't fast, you eat impulsively, you make emotionally-based decisions and you get caught in this vicious cycle, rather than this virtuous cycle. So if weight loss is your goal, it needs to be one of the top three things you think about every day. You need to connect with your weight loss goal and you need to set an intention. And then you need to go execute. And you need to go, execute and take action every day. Now I want to be clear here. I'm not saying you need to sprint every day. It's not all or nothing. I'm saying you need to be connected.

Every day, you need to take inventory of your goals, your priorities and your intentions and you need to set a baseline for that every day. So weight loss is your number one goal. You have to do something each day that is connected to that, and here are some examples of weight loss baselines. One you can decide on the meals for that day, you can create your protocol, you can weigh in, you can do a fast, you can get to bed earlier and prioritize your sleep, you can focus on staying hydrated and set a water goal. Then, once you reach your goal once you reach your weight loss goal or your fitness objective, you keep paying rent. That's the mindset. Rent is due every day. That's why I don't adhere to quick fixes or diets or fad workouts. I adhere to fundamentals, habits, thoughts and tools that you use and then you iterate and you keep using to keep the weight off or to continue to improve your fitness. I love this quote by Mike Tomlin and I might have used it before on another episode, but tedious repetition of routine actions make us great. Now the flip side of this, and a key part of this mindset, is it can't be overwhelming. You get the importance of showing up and being consistent every day. That's what this is about. But what often limits the effectiveness of this mindset is we try to do too much Instead of focusing on one or two things that will help us progress.

We try to do 10 things. In other words, we're trying to pay the rent all at once, and when the rent is too high we can't sustain it and inevitably we start missing payments and we give up altogether. If and when you notice that part of you that wants to do more, just remember that less is more. Stick to your baseline. Pay the rent when it's due and when you reach a new level, then maybe you consider upgrading to a higher rent, as long as you know you'll be able to continue paying those dues every day. So there you have it. This is another mindset shift that you can add to your toolbox. I challenge you to execute based on this information. So what does that look like?

Find five new thoughts that you can rehearse every day that are aligned with the way that your future self thinks. It's a great exercise. Number two decide on your daily baseline. This is the rent that you're going to pay daily. Number three go to work and consistently pay those dues. And finally, number four don't overextend. Pay the rent that you know that you can pay consistently every day. That's what I have for you today. Thank you so much for listening. I look forward to connecting with you again next week and, in the meantime, keep leading the legacy of good health and longevity.