“By endurance we conquer.”
- Sir Ernest Shackleton
The difference between success and failure at dieting can be boiled down to one, essential point: how you view the process.
Most people fail at dieting. It can be reasonably assumed, then, that they see dieting as a hard, painful task. Or to put it more precisely, they have an entirely negative view of the experience.
Unfortunately, if you feel this way about dieting, then you are almost certainly doomed to fail. The key to success is to view the experience optimistically, regardless of the symptoms.
Look at the US Navy SEALs. They have an infamous selection process known as ‘Hell Week’ – a week in which prospective SEALs must do countless thousands of calisthenics, undergo surf torture, and be pushed to their mental and physical limit practically non-stop. They get barely any sleep during this process, they are always cold, and get meagre rations.
Now, those prospective candidates are hard men. They come from other branches of the military, and have already proved themselves to be outstanding soldiers and athletes by just qualifying for the selection process. And yet, only a small minority actually make it through.
What is the difference? Well, it could be many things, but my feeling is that it is all to do with mindset. Those who just see the suffering in a negative light are doomed to quit. I recommend reading Richard Machowicz’s book “Unleash the Warrior Within” for an insight into how he qualified as a SEAL using a positive mindset.
Another example…
I used to smoke pretty heavily. I tried quitting on many occasions, but always found myself reaching for a cigarette sooner or later.
Then I came across a book by a man called Allen Carr (a miracle book – get it if you’re a smoker!) He had a reputation for making even the most die-hard of smokers manage to quit their habit easily and effortlessly.
I read the book and did exactly that. Here are two examples of how he changed my negative mindset into a positive one:
1. He said that it is not ‘giving up’, but rather stopping smoking. There was nothing to “give up”. That every time we extinguished a cigarette we had “stopped smoking” and become “non-smokers”. The only difference this time is to not light up again…to stay stopped.
2. He said that the ‘itch’ that smokers feel is like a monster in the stomach. The more you deprive this monster of nicotine (ie by not smoking), the smaller it will get and will eventually die. Suddenly, that ‘itch’ was no longer so terrible to me – it became a very nice feeling.
Can you see how this applies to dieting?
If you have stuck to your diet for the day, but you feel that ‘itch’ to eat a chocolate bar, or to snack on some junk food, then choose instead to revel in the feeling. Tell yourself that the itch represents your weight burning off, that it is the feeling of progress in action.
This is endurance. And it doesn’t have to be hard – it can be enormous fun, and immensely liberating.
