Why do we Fail with Lifestyle Changes
Good morning everybody, let me ask you a question. What really stops us living a healthy and happy life? We've always, all of us have wanted us basically haven't we? We all desire to be healthier, happier, leaner. We always want it.
Speaker 1:But because we always want that that means we don't have it. Am I making sense? So can you see the contradiction there that we've lived in for like years and some of you decades? Now, when we look at the reality of our lives like the truth of it, we are basically slaves to our emotions. And the question really is, is can you have an emotion without the words, without the thought?
Speaker 1:As a question for you to think about, is it emotion first then thought or is it thought first then the emotion or is it thought the word emotion or is it that we try and word up what our emotions are and it's not accurate? Anyway, so basically we are slaves to our emotions, right? And our emotions are basically driven by things outside our control. They're driven by our automatic negative thoughts. We don't really control them.
Speaker 1:They're driven by the news, other people's opinions, family and friends, the conditioning of the culture we're in and all this stuff. So that's what essentially is the filter that we live by and it causes the emotions we have and then those emotions disturb us. Emotions mean to disturb. So we are disturbed by our emotions, right. So we're basically slaves to whatever disturbs our emotions.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? Are we making that logical step? So we are what disturbs our emotions. Marketing for one heavily disturbs your emotions, makes you feel like you're missing out. Formal, makes you feel bad, makes you think about stuff, makes you wanna buy something.
Speaker 1:The news is huge, obviously, social media, opinions. So we are slaves to things outside our control, most of us. And that's the truth of it, me, you, everyone. So we see that we're slaves to things outside our control. They impact us all the time.
Speaker 1:Right? So when we look at the when we look at losing fat, right, when we look at we want to lose fat, we don't actually look at the truth of our behavior. You know, we say, well, we don't eat that much, don't drink that much. We essentially cover our behavior in this mist of delusion, and we never deal with the truth of it. So you think of it like all the clouds in the sky and the blue sky is there, but the clouds are covering.
Speaker 1:So all we see is the gray clouds, but behind that is the blue sky is the truth of our behavior, but we can't see it because we're covering all this nonsense. So we can't deal with the reality of it. And when we work this way, we basically work in a delusionary state. We blame other things, we blame all sorts of stuff. And this is when exactly we're happy that the blame is external.
Speaker 1:And when someone comes along and tells you that the blame isn't you and it's external, like yours your hormones, take the hormone test to find the diet for your perfect, do the perfect diet for your hormones that's why you're not happy and healthy and losing weight. You go yeah, you're 100% it's gotta be that. And we just live in this constant loop of basically shit. And with that around us we are very, are prime prey. Prime prey for marketing tricks.
Speaker 1:Superficial goals, marketing tricks. And we desire things we don't even want. This is how we work as human beings. Like when we think about what you desire, do you think you desire because you wanted that thing? Do you think that's how it works?
Speaker 1:Because if we look at how desire works there is a theory called memetic desire, memetic theory and essentially we only desire really what other people desire. Right, think about this for a second. So we are typically prompted to desire something when we're made aware of someone, you know you go to the shop and there is a t shirt on a rack or a shirt or a dress and you look at it and go nah, then your friend's there. And your friend kind of dresses quite cool and she's had compliments before and people say she dresses cool and she picks that dress up and goes oh this is cool. You immediately now desire that dress.
Speaker 1:Right? But that desire wasn't there before. Right, so we've got like hunger, thirst, all this stuff, their needs I'd say. So their needs, so you don't need desire to tell you to eat when you're hungry. You don't need someone else's desire when you're thirsty to drink, you will just drink right?
Speaker 1:But this is what Rene Girard who came up with this theory says, he says about this romantic lie we tells of ourselves, the self delusion. So the story we all say that we make certain choices because it's you know, we make our personal choices, but they fit some of personal preferences. And we just saw him wanted it, but it's usually when someone else wants it. Now this is a passage from the book called Wanting about memetic desire. And this kind of explains it in a nutshell and we've all like don't lie to me guys, we've all thought like this.
Speaker 1:Let's have a look at the truth of it. So this is the example he uses. Consider an insecure guy who feels sparks on his first few dates with someone. They both decide to get more serious. The first thing he does is introduce her to all his friends because he desperately needs that approval.
Speaker 1:He's looking for some indication that at least one of them might want to be with her too. When none of them seem interested, he begins to doubt that he made the right choice. He seeks validation for his choices from his models, which is his friends or someone he looks up to. And there's a hard truth in that. You fancy someone for a while, okay, he drops off and then you see someone else is interested in them and then what happens?
Speaker 1:You want them again. And you think, maybe didn't give him a chance, you know it's bullshit. Only reason now you desire that person again is because someone else desires them. It doesn't come from your personal choices and this is how we live most of our lives. You know the jobs we go for, the career, where we live, what we wear, the person we want to be, all stems from the desire someone else has to be that type of person.
Speaker 1:Know, and then you might be like well what is the point in like learning all this? Why am I telling you Scott? Scott why are you talking nonsense to me about desire? Well the thing is you might be like how do I escape it? How do I stop it?
Speaker 1:And I don't think that is stopping this. And that's the first step. There's no escape from it, there's no running away from this, it's just who we are as human beings. Right? And I think it's important like we say observing the food and awareness is to aware be aware of our desires.
Speaker 1:Because this is these desires lead us down roads and this is what it takes our life wherever it goes. So we need to be aware of our desires and we need to be aware that most of our desires come from other people's desires, mimetic desire. But we don't judge ourselves on this, we just see it. Okay, in that awareness without judgment, don't want to accept a decline there, there's a new energy I believe of action. So in that awareness, that uncontrollable urge to desire something that popped into your head, it does melt away, it kind of dissolves and then you can make different decisions.
Speaker 1:So we don't want to wish it away as part of human thought, it is us. And you might be thinking like what's this got to do with fat loss? Well, the reason this has got to do with fat loss because if we desire to get leaner healthier because we've seen someone else do it and that's the main push is someone else has done it, they look good, they desire it, we look up to them or we want to be them so then we start doing a fat loss phase or getting to the gym. Because of our desires, the mimetic desires are very unstable. The next time we see someone we look up to that doesn't desire health and fitness and has like the, well, I'm just gonna live my life, the desire to go to the gym and be healthy drops off.
Speaker 1:And then you wonder a few days afterwards, you're like oh my god why am I like this? Why can I never stick to anything? What's wrong with me? It's because the reason you did it to start with wasn't a true reason you wanted to do it, it's because someone else decided it. Your friend started going to gym again leaner and then you want to do it.
Speaker 1:But you think that is a long term strategy for doing lifestyle change? You know, it's not. Or you see someone on Instagram looking lean, and you want to get lean quick. So you jump on some fitness plan in that moment, you buy that plan that that person recommends and you do it for two days and then some other desire pops in you don't want to. You know, that's how we live and we wonder why these things drop off.
Speaker 1:We wonder why we don't stick to things because we are ruled by desires of other people. And it's essentially the same with influencer marketing and all this stuff. And you may like, well it's called Louise and Ryan influencers. Yeah, they are influencers and people will desire what they desire which is to have the healthy life lifestyle, strong lean bodies is fine. But I'm trying to tell you is, this is a human condition.
Speaker 1:This is how we work. And we can't escape it, but we need to be aware of it. Because I don't want you to start thinking that like, all of a sudden your motivation drops off and you go why is it dropped off? Okay, well maybe you did come in from the desire someone else, but you can still decide well maybe health is something I want to do. Maybe health is something I don't want to just desire.
Speaker 1:Maybe health is what I want to be. That's the difference I think. The health is something you become, healthy is something you become and it's just part of you. Someone asked Arne Swachenegger on the podcast before like Arne, why are you still training in the gym? You're like 74 years old.
Speaker 1:Why are you training? He's like, why do you eat breakfast? Why do you eat? Why do you drink? That's what I see working out, he said.
Speaker 1:I see it as part of me. I eat, I drink, I work out. That's it. It's part of me. And there's no need for someone else to desire it for him to do it or someone else to look leaner for him to do it.
Speaker 1:It it is just him and he's doing it for the good of it. He does the working out because it's good for him, done. It's healthy for him, done. There's no external thing that I want to look this way that way, you know that's an added bonus, does it for the good of it and that's how we need to look at this entire lifestyle thing. We can't be letting it be dictated by an end result because there is no end until you die, basically.
Speaker 1:So we can't let it happen that way. You know, I've seen that memetic desire happen with me, like I'll go and watch a rugby game or go see the rugby boys and it's a class game on a weekend and they're all loving it, someone scores a last minute try and I'm like, oh, know, back in the day, played rugby, I wish it was me again, I desire it, I shouldn't have stopped playing, I could have been in that game. And you know, we get these automatic thoughts, desires because other people are desiring it and they do it and it's like, yeah, but then I observe it and sometimes you beat yourself up about it, you're like oh why did I stop doing it oh my god and use because you see those moments of glory or those like peak moments and stuff you wish you'd kept going or whatever, but if you see it without you know just observing it, it's ridiculous you know. It shouldn't make you feel bad just because you go and watch something at this peak. You know a lot of people desire to be entrepreneurs when they see like someone who is very successful and they see the end of it, like, you know, maybe the the the flashy car lapses driving or the awards they win.
Speaker 1:And they go, I want it now. But it's like, yeah, but the reality of that is just the part that's just the nice part, know, the reality is seven days a day seven days week working. Or you look at professional athletes and go I wish I was a professional athlete didn't desire or whatever. And the truth is they wouldn't have given away their life from age 11 to 20 just training and not drinking and going out. Have you noticed this with yourself?
Speaker 1:Happens all the time. And if you rely on desire, if you don't see this, you are going to be ruled by it for the rest of your life. And then the years will go by and you'll be like I don't know what the hell I want. Because you've never really looked deeply enough because you've only wanted what other people want. That's the danger.
Speaker 1:That is the danger. So I think we need to become healthy And when we are healthy, that person is us, we are healthy, we do things for health, happiness, freedom. It becomes part of us and there is no need for desire to do it, we just do it. Like we brush our teeth, like we eat, we train, and we track, and we become curious about what we're putting in our bodies. Is that how we can see it?
Speaker 1:We do it for the goodness of it itself as in nothing else? So I think it's human nature, this memetic desire is ingrained in human nature. We cannot escape it. But let's be aware of it moving forward because otherwise you're gonna be blind, and you're gonna just be desiring mother desire without knowing it. And you're gonna be confused when you're always so chaotic in what you want.
Speaker 1:And how chaotic are we with what we want? We wanna be this, we wanna do that, we wanna do this, we wanna do that. Slow down. Look at the look at it. Look what's going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just look at it, what's going on, and you see it. And then you can decide other options. You don't have to go blindly down what other people desire all time, even though in the moment is such a powerful force. And that is why most people can't stick to any fat loss plan because they only do it when they see someone else in shape or they wanna look a certain way because they saw a picture on Instagram or it's a new in thing. And they're not actually doing it for the honest truth of it, which is the health, which is the freedom, which is the happiness that is the byproduct of being a healthy person.
Speaker 1:Because when you're healthy, when you're ill, all you wanna do is be healthy. You know, when we're injured, all we wanna do is not injured. You know, we take it for granted that we have where have no pain and health things and all that and the person that's ill or has health problems, the only thing they want is to just be back into a healthy state. Right, with all the money in the world doesn't matter, they want you to be healthy. So we need to look that, we need to look at this seriously.
Speaker 1:This living healthily is the pinnacle of human achievement essentially. If we can be healthy every day and to be healthy every day we need to focus one day at a time at healthy behaviours. That is it. That's amazing. You can have all the money you want.
Speaker 1:If you're not healthy you're gonna hate it. That's you know what's his phrase, health is wealth and all this stuff and you know a lot of people are like I'd rather be retchant. You wouldn't though. Even small stuff like a blocked nose you go oh my god I can't believe I didn't take advantage of the days I didn't have a blocked nose. I have a blocked nose, oh my god I can't believe those days I haven't got a blocked nose I'm gonna appreciate them so much but when it comes to those days you feel healthy again you just you don't appreciate it, do you?
Speaker 1:You just like, you just take it for granted and then someone else pops in and you go, oh my god, should have taken him off. I should have taken those days more because I could have walked. You have an injury, you're like, my god, I just wanna go for a walk. These basic things we overlook day to day are what we truly need to do to be healthy and happy I think. So today, if we focus one day at a time, we can always bring it back to a daily focus, which is much easier than looking at our lives as a whole.
Speaker 1:We do these basic stuff, we go for walks, we're to work out, we can work out, it's not that we have to work out, it's that we can do it. We got the luxury of being able to do focusing ourselves, journaling in the morning, in the evening, looking our own thoughts, doing an evening review of the day, being aware all the desires are popping and all the negative thoughts that can pop in the minds, but we don't take them seriously. Okay, we just observe them without judgment, same for food, all this stuff. And basically we live a day free. We're free living a day and we're being healthy and that is it.
Speaker 1:That's the ultimate goal I think from all this stuff. Once you reach your fat loss goal you will look back and be like how did I waste so much time and energy on losing pounds as opposed to living each day or living a healthy, happy life each day. I genuinely think once we reach that, we will look at those days bizarrely looking back. We're like, I can't believe that's how I used to my days to be run. So yeah, guys, if that makes sense, happy days.
Speaker 1:If it doesn't, happy days. But hopefully you have a good day. Have a nice walk. Get you one big thing done. Zoom back to one day at a time, and, all things will be well.
Speaker 1:So I'll speak to you soon.
