Have you ever stopped and thought about how adults lied to you when you were younger?
It’s fascinating, if not entirely amusing altogether.
Opening your eyes to these little white lies also means you may never be the same again.
How often have you heard an interview of ______ big-name actor that goes something like this, “What advice would you give to someone who wants to get six pack abs like you did for your role?”
His answer: “My number one piece of advice to people is to get a good Personal Trainer.”
Think about this advice for a second. On its face, it sounds logical, right?
Get a great personal trainer, workout consistently, eat your veggies…
…but if you dig deeper, you’ll notice all the things he didn’t say:
- He never watches TV
- Every Sunday morning, he spends 3 hours in the kitchen weighing and preparing his meals for the upcoming week
- He’s always hungry and thinking about his next meal. In the shower, while getting his car washed, and yes, even while eating
- He trains 20+ hours every week
Now, why didn’t he say all of this stuff?
The truth is, most people don’t want to hear about the hours he puts into training and meal prep every single week. That sounds hard! It’s much easier to drop a soundbyte or push a product that people can feel good about–even if it’s not true.
Most people want to hear glossy version about success. They don’t want to hear the truth about what it takes to be successful.
When we start listening for these little white lies, we hear it all around us, all the time:
- Fit mom of three kids: “Oh, I just walk a lot and watch what I eat.”
- The MVP of your college football team: “I just got lucky!”
- Friend who’s really good with public speaking: “Just be yourself.”
I’ve seen it myself: People want me to tell them they can lose 50 pounds in three months with their ridiculous detox diets. It’s not true. You have to workout and eat healthy consistently. But when you start talking about the work required, their eyes glaze over.
As Ramit Sethi often says, “People don’t want to see how the sausage is made.”
But successful people do.
Those who succeed know it’s an important part of the process to recognize the lies and find out what it really takes be victorious.
Otherwise, we believe everything is supposed to be easy, whether it’s fitness or getting a touchdown or public speaking. And when it’s NOT easy, we rationalize our failures with our own lies.
Most people won’t even recognize what’s holding them back, much less pin point them. As Ramit says, “The world wants you to be vanilla. The world is pushing you to be mediocre, because it’s safe and makes everyone else feel better about themselves.”
But not me. Today, I’m calling out the two biggest lies we tell ourselves.
Lie #1. “I don’t have enough money”
Everyone can save money if they want. EVERYONE. But instead, we try to justify ourselves with excuses.
Examples:
- “People on minimum wage can save?”
- “Sometimes saving as a single mom is impossible”
I once had a woman who kept nagging me about her inability to save for my online coaching. Finally, I offered her FREE coaching for three months, but she had to promise to do everything I instructed. Everything.
Her response?
*crickets*
Once their excuses are taken away, whiners don’t know how to respond, so they disappear like a fart in the wind.
You know how my brother made hundreds of dollars selling candy bars in high school out of his backpack? It started with putting with 50 cents in a jar.
I LOVE this. My brother, Jeff, started with just 50 cents in a jar and slowly, candy bar by candy bar, built his little business.
How much we save is irrelevant. It’s not even about the saving! It doesn’t matter if you’re saving a dollar a week or automatically saving 10% of every paycheck. What matters is the belief that we CAN save and then work towards building the habit.
Lie #2: “I’ve tried everything, but I can’t lose weight”
This is one of the most self-destructive lies of all-time.
As a girl who used to think I was “just born with a slow metabolism” and I couldn’t change it, I understand how it feels to be stuck. That no matter what diet you try or what training plan you follow, nothing is ever going to change. When you believe the lie, it becomes your reality.
However, I also learned that you can change your body. There are no secrets, no tricks. And most of it is developing a new perspective.
And while there are occasionally (rarely) medical conditions, there are things anyone can do to change.
People will get bent out of shape: “What about people with adrenal fatigue or insulin sensitivity?” (Look no further for those feel-good outlier exceptions in the comments section of my Instagram account.)
“They don’t need to lose weight, they need to learn to accept themselves.” (Rationalizing the lack of desire and tools for true change.)
Look, if someone wants to exclusively work on body acceptance, that’s totally up to them. I support that.
But there are also people, like me, who want MORE. They want to fit into their favorite pair of jeans and walk up a flight of stairs without losing their breath. If you’re one of these people, the good news is changing our bodies is something we control.
I’ve worked with clients who have struggled with their weight for most of their lives. They’ve tried eating better, lifting weights, running marathons…but nothing helped.
As we dive into their behavior, it’s my job to show them that many of their challenges exist solely in their mind.
For example:
- Melissa always needed to “clean her plate.” “My Mom grew up on a farm; because food was limited in her house she was taught to always clean her plate. That’s what I was taught, too.”
- If Matt was with friends, he was eating. “Now that I think of it, hanging out with friends is always done with food and alcohol.”
- Amanda ate for comfort. “One thing that stuck in my mind after the call was the thought of just finding a new hobby in the evenings instead of eating. I had never considered that before.”
When you better understand your self-limiting barriers, the easier it becomes to transform your body.
Society would have told my clients that some people can’t lose weight. That it’s probably your thyroid, or your metabolism, and you should just accept your body. But some clients are prepared to confront their own mental obstacles–the lies they tell themselves–and change their body. Permanently.
The world wants you to be mediocre
We live in a time where mediocrity is celebrated because it makes other people feel warm and fuzzy: “It’s okay, some people are just born poor/overweight. It’s not your fault. Just learn to accept it!”
We’d rather continue lying to ourselves–sometimes for decades–rather than acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that maybe we’ve been wrong this entire time.
I did this. I was more comfortable accepting that I was just a broke single Mom rather than actually learning how to save money by cooking from home.
But over time, I guess I decided I’d rather look the truth in the eyes–painful as it may be–than live under a dark cloud of hopelessness.
This can be a hard pill to swallow. It means that you may have been wrong about things for the last 35 years of your life. It also means you have a lot more work to do.
I love that we have the power, though.
I love that we can improve our minds, our bodies, and our relationships, but I want to know how people really do it–not the photoshopped version that society wants us to believe.
If you’re here reading this, then I think you’re like that too. I respect that.
Losing weight isn’t easy. If you want to get into the best shape of your life, you’ll work harder than you’ve ever worked. But I’ll always show you how and I’ll cut through the misleading crap to get you there.
Now I have a question for you:
What lies have you noticed that society tells you?
Is it about when you should be married? How skinny your thighs should be? What car you should drive? How much money you should be making?
Email me. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
