My wife handed me a Ladies Home Journal this afternoon to point out an interesting article on weight loss.
Basically, the article featured five women who had all lost over 100 pounds each and kept it off for over a year.
Some started at over 300 pounds and had lost an amazing 140+ pounds.
I always love to see success stories like these. I enjoy looking at the before and after pictures. I could do that all day in fact. I find it inspiring seeing the good guys and gals winning for a change.
Photo by Henning Buchholz
What stood out to me in this article was two specific questions all of the women answered. One was “what got you here?” And the other was What was your turning point? (when you started losing weight.) The first question implies that whatever we seek to get rid of such as weight, drinking alcohol, quitting smoking or other bad habits had an origin somewhere.
What got you here?
One woman discussed having an alcoholic father and having to share food with 10 other siblings. Since food wasn’t abundant, she felt like she was starving all the time. When she grew up and could eat more, she ate more.
Whatever your bad habit might be, it has an origin.
What is it? Why are you doing this to yourself? You might ask.
What was the turning point?
Two women revealed that what turned them around was the death of someone close to them. A father who died due to heart disease warns against overeating like no other warning – ask me I know…
Another participant said she compared her weight to her husband who was 7 inches taller than her and found out she weighed more than him. The embarrassment of walking with him and imagining other people feeling sorry for him for having such a “fat wife” was more than she could take.
I like knowing someone’s turning point because it tells what she is thinking. Being able to see the thought process goes straight to the heart of what we can adopt to fight our own battles.
In other words, if you could adopt either their humiliation or fear when it was helpful to stop a destructive habit wouldn’t it make habit busting easier? We are all motivated in similar ways. Getting someone else’s thought process as they turned the corner is very powerful.
What to do with your answers
In asking what got you here and what was (or could be) your turning point, you’ll have two important answers.
So if you’d permit me to push your buttons for a few minutes…
Think about what got you in the place you are right now. Whether you want or need to lose 100 lbs or if you want to eliminate your financial debt. There was a certain pattern or habit that got you here. What was it? When did it start?
When you know what got you here, you can think about how you’ve matured since that time. Consider the price you are paying to hang on to that which was from long ago. Are you still willing to pay it? Can you give it to someone else?
And then, seek out your turning point. What tragedy would have to take place before you’d take your goal seriously? Who would have to die? What loss would you have to endure in order for you to put your all into your goal?
Maybe, just maybe you won’t need a tragedy or major humiliation to turn the corner. Perhaps you can do some visualization where you allow yourself to feel what would happen if you don’t turn the corner.
What would happen anyway? If you don’t follow though, who will you let down? How long will you suffer? What price will you ultimately pay?
I think they are all good questions to think about, especially when what we are doing causes us pain.
