Learn how to be really bad at things

The harder a new habit is, the more motivation it takes to change. And motivation and determination don't work for long. Sorry. 

I got so fed up with myself at how much weight I had gained after my third child was born that I decided to lose 50 pounds. I knew my "why" and was super motivated. A friend of mine had had a heart attack, and I really wanted to live to see my great-grandchildren and be able to play with them. I bought the calorie-counting app, I bought exercise attire, I bought a bike, I read articles, I made plans. And it was overwhelming. I gained a few more pounds.

That's where being bad at things becomes a super-power. Because unfortunately, the part of the brain that wants great things is not the same part of the brain that handles the day-to-day getting up off the couch. The year that I did lose 20 pounds and felt much healthier and could move more easily was because I didn't try all that hard or do anything that required motivation.

It happened because of burned popcorn.

I had brought my son and his buddies a big bowl of freshly stove-popped popcorn. My son told his friends, "My mom LOVES burned popcorn!" And he excitedly explained to them that he knew I loved it because I always gobbled up the burnt pieces before handing him the rest of the bowl. 

Ouch!! It hit me that I was regularly eating disgusting food. There was this false belief stuck in there that I should serve good food to other family members and serve the cheap, rotten, burned, etc food to myself. How many times had I eaten something I didn't even want to eat, just because I didn't want someone else to eat it? 

So, my grandiose weight-loss "plan" was - don't eat gross food off the kids' plates. Throw it away if it would not taste good to you.

OK, so that was embarrassing. 

What habit changes do you want to make in your life? Maybe you aren't motivated enough to maintain a grandiose marketing plan, but you could send one email telling someone how excited you are to be coaching. Maybe you don't have the oomph to clean the whole bathroom, but you could put on a podcast and wipe down the mirror. What is the smallest, easiest, most ridiculously "permission to do it badly" change you could make? 

With love,