Ep: #8 - Take Control Of Your Life & Weight Loss Through Self Coaching

Faye Casement Author

May 05, 2024 |

I have been spending a lot of time on Instagram lately as well as various weight loss groups  (Come follow me on Instagram by the way and tell your friends :) LINK)

Not going to lie but it gets me so upset seeing some of the posts and the torment and mental suffering the ladies are going through with their weight loss.

There was one lady who listed a whole bunch of wins she had had for the week but the scale didn't match her expectations and so she was declaring herself a failure and giving herself a huge beat down.

Another lady disappointed with a 0.5lb gain even though she had been poorly all week.

Another who had gone face down in the fridge as a result of a weight gain and was now wondering how she could CLAW BACK the week like her life depended on it.

This is needless suffering that does not have to be there.

Regrettably I don’t have a magic wand to make all of this go away but I do have life and weight loss coaching tools that can help you to work on getting this kind of needless suffering out of your life.

Ultimately at its core, the Triple-A-Way is an holistic coaching program that combines life coaching, weight loss coaching and lifestyle changes to help you reach your life, weight loss and well being goals.

What I want to talk about today is my Mind Nijary module where you take what you have have learnt and gathered in previous blogs and take your life and weight loss to the next level.

What is Mind Ninjary

Mind Ninjary is all about taking control of your life and weight loss through self coaching. This means working on your mindset to make sustainable changes in the way you live the whole of your life.

Using the skills and techniques you learn, you can achieve your life and weight loss goals and reach your full potential.

Why Mind Ninjary?

Well for starters our brains can be very sneaky like a ninja! 

You will have thoughts that come up when you are least expecting it, they come out of nowhere cloaked in black and carry big swords that drive right into your heart!

Sound extreme?

I don't think so.

If you have never had a disparaging, judgemental thought about yourself you are a very lucky person and as dieters you will have your fair share more than most I wager whether that be about how you look, act, eat, move, your progress etc?

However, you can train your brain to be an elite, agile athlete just like a ninja through self coaching and by getting coached so you are moving forward towards a more positive and fulfilling human experience.

The importance of working on a mindfulness and developing a growth mindset when trying to lose weight

When you are trying to lose weight, it is important to work on having a mindful mindset and a growth mindset. I touched on this a little when I talked about GATHERING AWARENESS as we incorporate some basic Mind Ninjary in the Curious and Kind Daily Assessment.

As I said in that blog, as humans we move away from things that cause us pain and move towards things that give us pleasure. It is typically why we end up with our face in the snacks after a difficult day at work.

Most dieting is typically approached with a restrictive, demanding, pressurised mindset and that is ultimately going to lead to suffering and quitting in the long run as you are not losing it how you want to live.

Over years of dieting and being bombarded with messages from the media, social media, government even (not to get political - I don't do politics).

You will be full of "shoulds", "musts", "need tos" and "have tos" but these all put unnecessary pressure and judgement into the process and on you which leads to demotivation, avoidance, lack of momentum and yo-yo dieting because you don't like/feel comfortable with the process.

Have you noticed I have deliberately not said you need a 'positive mindset'?

The reason for this is that a positive mindset is mostly about trying to turn bad to good. Now this has its place it can be a quick fix but it is not always a lasting fix and in some cases can be more harmful than good if it does not solve the root of the issue.

What you need is a mindfulness mindset which is more about being present rather than reactive by gaining awareness, acceptance and compassion for your thoughts and self.

You then also want to cultivate a growth mindset which is about being prepared to learn and evolve.

Both of these can really help you on your life and weight loss journey if you are willing to explore them.

When you look for and focus on acceptance, wins and start to see failure as learning you will feel more empowered.

Empowerment + Consistency (achieved from gathering awareness and action) = Motivation, Momentum & Stamina.

So the mindset work works alongside the sustainable changes you are working on in previous modules and making the process easier on the mind and soul too.  Soul being things that feel good and bring you joy.

Tips for how to cultivate mindfulness

Mindfulness is about becoming the best version of you through awareness, acceptance and compassion. There are a few things that you can do to cultivate mindfulness:

Gratitude practices - this could be as simple as a one a day line or 3 wins in a journal.

Challenge thoughts that do not serve you - seek to accept they exist and then shift the thoughts that do not serve you.

Visualization - I covered this before and you can grab the lesson as well as the vision board templates here. This is about working on the fact you will succeed, imagine what success will look like for you

Self compassion exercises - I will cover this in more next week.

Other mindfulness techniques include things, such as, meditation, breathing techniques, body scans, mindful movement, mindful eating.

Some may dismiss all of these as being soft flowery woo woo but it does actually have some proven results so don’t dismiss it too quickly.

The mind is an incredibly powerful thing and if you feed it the right stuff that's what it will keep doing. Feed it only negativity and it will win out.

Ultimately, the key here as in all I teach is make it work for you. If you want to do something daily fab, want to use it when you need it also fine this is about having tools you can use when you want/need to.

Tips for how to cultivate a growth mindset

A growth mindset is a way of thinking that encourages people to embrace challenges and see failure as a learning opportunity. People with a growth mindset believe that they can learn to change over time the opposite is a fixed mindset which believes nothing will change.

The difference for life and weight loss - the person with a growth mindset will keep going and try. The person with a fixed mindset won't. 

So who is going to achieve their goals in the end? 

The person with the growth mindset of course.

Over the years and many knock downs you are likely to have a number of fixed mindset beliefs these usually include the words "can't"; "won't", "always" and "never". 

These words/thoughts have a tendency to close off your goals and creativity before you have event started. Examples would be "I will never lose weight it is in my genes"; " I can't exercise I don't have the time"; "I never stick to my plan".

The other derailleur to progress is judgement as mentioned briefly already. If you judge yourself, the process, others in a way that does not serve you bring on suffering. In coaching this is called judgment stacking where you start with a problem but then due to the judgement you apply you end up with multiple problems and suffering which can be avoided with self compassion so tune in next week.

How do you develop a growth mindset?

Channel curiosity - Links heavily to mindfulness but out of curiosity comes opportunity, solutions and growth. Rather than saying "I can't". Say "What if I just tried...".

Work on accepting imperfection - Life is not perfect, accepting we cannot always be the best at something but doing it anyway is powerful work. You actually do not need to be perfect in your weight loss plans to still succeed. This is why it often does not makes sense when you step on the scale. Had a 'good' week scale is up. Have what you thought is a 'bad' week the scales is down but what if you just had a week, no pressure or judgement how would that feel but just commit to keeping figuring it out.

Value the process don't just focus on the end goal - I talked about this last week. Whatever you want in life you likely wanted it yesterday but if you had it all without doing the work would you be any happier? Possibly not. It is coming through adversity that creates the most grit and pride in ourselves.

Work on thinking of failure and challenge as something to learn from - Links to imperfection and valuing the process but out of failure and challenge is where you grow the most. Getting knocked down, learning and doing it again anyway makes you super resilient and when you commit to figuring it out, level up everything shifts!

Get ok with asking for help/sharing with others - From others you can learn too and they can help you to see things you are unable to see yourself. Just chose wisely and makes sure they can help not hinder you in your journey. Sometimes we need to work on boundaries in this regard.

What's in the Membership

In the membership there is a growing suite of tools to help you navigate your life and weight loss from thought modelling, rewriting the old stories, decision making, buffering and how to overcome scale drama to name a few.

Recap

In order to tap into the power of your mind, you need to first understand how it works. 

By learning how develop a mindful mindset and growth mindset with self coaching you can learn how to stay in the present and to value failures as a learning experience so you can move forward not back towards your goals. 

he key is curiosity and accepting imperfection valuing the process over the end goal. 

Finally, ask for help when needed and be open to learning from others.

Work on these areas with me they will set you up for inevitable success!

Thats it folks.

Don’t forget the membership is also open. The #1 focus is weight loss but you will also have access to life coaching, it’s like having a life coach in your pocket so what else would you like to work on?  Check out the Triple-A-Way Membership HERE.

Come join the Wellness4Women Facebook Group where you can watch the live video to accompany this blog plus catch other free training, resources, useful tips and to connect to a community of women just like you!.

Categories: : growth, mindfullness, mindset, Weight loss