Much like the caterpillar becoming a butterfly, the process Lifestyle Transformation is not beautiful. It’s ugly, messy, and hard to see how this ugly process will amount to something beautiful.

For this reason I hate posts on social media that tell you to, “ THINK POSITIVE” because by golly if you think positive, then positive things will happen for you.

“All you need is another platitude and Meme to think POSITIVE THOUGHTS,” the motivational gurus proclaim.

“You need to want it bad enough to resist the cookies and chips,” the trainers preach.

“You need to have enough discipline to pay down your debts!” say the financial evangelists.

What’s the problem with all of these declarations??? They don’t produce lifestyle transformation.

What else doesn’t work for lifestyle transformation:

Posting artificially happy posts on social media about how happy you are because you hope if you say it enough times that it will come true.

Smugly posting motivational posts about going hard because this means you are not like the lazy people who are just posting about the yummy desserts they’re eating.

Listening to a motivational guru or preacher holler and scream for an hour and being FIRED UP afterward with no real plans to apply what you heard…but you feel good!

Is it really about Willpower?

Let’s focus on Willpower for a minute

It doesn’t work.

Let’s look at the definition of Willpower: According to Merriam-Webster Willpower is defined as: ENERGETIC DETERMINATION.

My experience with Energetic Determination is that it lasts about a week or until the first tough obstacle comes up…whichever comes first.

Energetic Determination is not enough.

Neither are artificially happy posts, motivational memes, seminars, happy clappy sermons, or any of the things we use to hype ourselves up.

None of that stuff works for actual Lifestyle Transformation.

It doesn’t work because it’s all external and superficial. It’s all about attempting to change from the outside in and on a surface level.

What Works: Change your Mindset

In order for you to make successful change you must make change from the inside out. You must start with changing your mindset by understanding what is holding you back, letting that go, getting your mind right, developing new habits that will lead to new behaviors.

My friends, THIS is what will lead to lifestyle transformation.

  1. Understand what is holding you back — All of us have a story. All of us have a past. That story and past have shaped our perspective on life, the world, and ourselves. You may have heard terrible things about yourself from people who were supposed to nurture and love you. You’ve carried that for years and it’s why you sabotage anything good that comes into your life because you believed those lies that you don’t deserve anything good and you’re unworthy. Maybe you have made some really bad decisions in your life and now you are punishing yourself for those decisions. You don’t allow yourself to win because you think you deserve to lose.
  2. Let it Go — If you’re going to be successful, then you must let all of that go. This is easier said than done but it must happen if you’re going to change your lifestyle. If you were told negative things about yourself, then it’s time to let it go. The people who told you those things were hurting themselves. That’s why they said it to you. It has less to do with you and more to do with the way they saw themselves and the world. I’ve never met someone who is a successful human being cutting down others or discouraging them. If anything, those people are running around trying to encourage everyone. If you’ve made mistakes, then rather than living in a self induced prison: Let it go. Realize that you learned a lesson and now use that experience to make better choices. When you let it go you will also have to let go of people, places, and things that are dragging you down. Hear me now: In order for you to let go…you must forgive yourself.
  3. Get Your Mind Right — This is not an overnight process. In fact it can take a very long time to let go of the old poisonous mindset and develop a new healthy mindset. You didn’t develop the old poisonous mindset overnight and it won’t go away overnight. I talked about letting go of people, places, and things that are dragging you down and that’s tough because as you embark upon a new path it can be lonely. Like our friend the caterpillar, you may need to go into a cocoon and be isolated for a minute in order to go through this process. You’ll be tempted to go back to the old path because it’s comfortable and familiar but if you’re serious about getting your mind right, then you’ve got to do something different. It’s time to start feeding your mind healthy nourishment instead of the junk. Start reading personal development books, join a personal development group, start hanging out with people who are doing better than you. Don’t hang out with people you don’t want to be like. Butterflies don’t hang out with caterpillars. Garbage In = Garbage Out
  4. Develop New Habits — THIS IS THE KEY. Our habits are either taking us on the way up or on the way down. Watching endless hours of TV? Eating junk food? Excess alcohol consumption? Hanging out with people you don’t want to be like (because you’re nice and don’t want to hurt people’s feelings)? Those seemingly harmless habits are what is driving your behavior and giving you your current lifestyle. This is why in my coaching practice, I stress Habit Change. It’s not about willpower and It’s not about motivational mumbo jumbo. It’s about examining which habits are taking you down and working on changing them one at a time. I celebrate clients when they begin to order salads instead of French Fries or they stop drinking a bottle of wine every night and decide to drink water. Over time These habit changes add up to big results.
  5. New Habits lead to Behavior Change — Swapping 3 hours of TV watching for 3 hours of exercise or 3 hours of reading will lead to behavior change. A personal example. This year I decided to start leaving my Credit Card at home because I wanted to do something about my debt. This simple habit changed my spending behavior. I became a lot more selective in how I spent my money.
  6. Can’t Stop! Won’t Stop! Embrace the Compound Effect — The habit of leaving my credit card at home produced a behavior change that added up to lifestyle transformation for me. I no longer spend frivolously and I started saving more money. That small habit change of leaving my credit card at home produced new behaviors that caused transformation in my financial lifestyle. The compound effect says that small habit changes will lead to bigger results over time. I’ve had clients who decide to cut down on alcohol consumption and as a result notice that they stop eating so much sugar and they start to exercise more. They also notice they sleep better and that produces even more positive change in their lives.
  7. Lifestyle Transformation is not about willpower, quick fixes, 90 day plans, and easy answers. It’s a process. — Most programs fail people because they lie and tell them that all they need to do is focus on the external and then they will accomplish all of their hopes and dreams. As Brian Grasso says, “Success is not about accomplishing. It’s figuring out why you are not. It’s figuring out what’s holding you back and letting go of that.”

That’s not popular because going through that process of discovery is ugly, messy, and involves telling the truth. Telling the truth is what people like to avoid at all costs but there won’t be REAL change until you address the REAL issues.

“Success is not about accomplishing. It’s figuring out why you are not. It’s figuring out what’s holding you back and letting go of that.” — Brian Grasso

So if you are ready to give up the willpower, artificially happy social media posts, superficial positivity post, or motivation mumbo jumbo, and all the fluff-o then embrace the process of Habit Change!