EP. 43- THIS MISTAKE will keep you from reaching your goal weight this year: learn my ‘recipe’ for continued weight loss success.

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Happy New Year! I love nothing more than a brand new year. I love the idea of a blank, completely pristine white canvas. You’re the artist, the creator, the author of your life. You can do whatever you want with this canvas. Welcome to 2018.

I’m going to start the New Year off by talking about a subject you might not hear a lot of people talking about, especially at this time of the year: active learning. In order to achieve your goals, this needs to be discussed now! What’s active learning? My definition is failing and growing, failing and learning, failing again but continuing forward. You probably just set a big goal that seems very close to impossible. Anytime that anyone sets a big goal, there is going to be a lot of active learning.

Now along this journey of the podcast, you’ve equipped yourself with the tools for your weight loss journey, including how to manage your thoughts and feelings, your cravings and how to take action. Even with all of these tools, get prepared to fall. Get prepared to fail often and fall flat on your face. Why? Because that’s the part of building a new skill and this is necessary to reach a new goal.

Whenever people talk about goals, there’s a lot of talk about commitment and motivation. These are hugely helpful and you need to be fully committed and empowered to make something a reality in your life. However, what’s rarely discussed is the necessity of compassion. Failing is inevitable. You need choose compassion for yourself as you pursue a massive new goal. Choose compassion when you fall and learn from these mistakes, learn essential lessons that need to be learned. An important New Year recipe for achieving your goals is 1 cup commitment, 1 cup relentlessness AND 2 cups of compassion.

When most of us set up to achieve a big goal and we mess up or fail, we beat ourselves up, we feel ashamed, we feel like this isn’t possible. Instead, let it be a learning moment instead of beating yourself up. Being your own punching bag can lead you to feeling stressed and emotional, can lead to emotional eating and ends up in you eating more and staying farther away from achieving your goal. What if instead, you looked at these moments of failure instead as a learning moment. You extract what there is to be learned and administer a double dose of compassion, patience and continue to move forward.

Compassion was my biggest lessons of 2017. This is why I decided to make the topic of the first podcast of the year! In 2017, I was finally able to open my operate my own business, full-time. I quit my 9-5 job, 8 years after I decided I wanted to equip and empower women to maintain their weight without deprivation or sabotage. 8 years after I was able to successfully do so for myself. Finally, in March, I began operating my business! And I’ve had a hell of a time! I’ve never owned my own business. It has been a huge learning curve as I’ve gone through this process. I share this because although I am very confident about my coaching success, I’ve never owned a business! I needed a whole lot of compassion as I’ve fallen flat on my face and gone way out on a limb to build my baby business. It’s been scary and I’ve felt vulnerable. I can look at my mistakes as a learning curve instead of beating myself up. I am learning a new skill as I grow as a business owner.

Setting big goals needs true commitment. It can feel really scary. You feel very vulnerable but THAT is where the fruit is. Leaving my job needed courage, compassion, patience. When you’re going for something big, like your weight loss goal, you’re going to have to administer a whole lot of compassion for yourself as you’re actively learning. These big goals are you building new skills.

I’m so excited for this new year – I wish you a happy New Year. I hope you are excited about the blank canvas you now have. This week, I want you to acknowledge that you are pursuing a big goal, that you’re going full force into a future where you will no longer sabotage, you can open your closet and wear anything in it, you will no longer feel limited or restricted and you will achieve your goal weight. What I want you to acknowledge alongside your ambitions is that there will be active learning here. You will need commitment, motivation, inspiration AND compassion. Give yourself permission to create these for yourself every day.

I’m proud of myself as I am learning a new skill. I have courage for choosing to go out on a limb. And to do something, to create something, that I’ve never created before, even though it does feel scary. I want you to feel this way about yourself too.

Remember to feel compassion for yourself as you fall. Even if it looks like you fell right on your face. Compassion looks like giving yourself a hand and helping yourself up. The alternative, which is what most of us practice, is to beat yourself up. That looks like kicking yourself in the face when you’re down. Instead, you’re going to fiercely move forward, 100% committed to your goal. Failures are simply feedback and information that we can then interpret and extract something to learn about that. Failure is bound to happen, expect it but how to do you plan to respond to it? Failure is just the part of process of success. Don’t love yourself less, love yourself more. Admire yourself for having the courage to set out after your own dreams.

Have an amazing first week of 2018! Make sure to share this podcast with a friend who’s tackling an ambitious goal this year!

Brenda