Have you ever heard the saying, “If you want things to change, You have to change. If you want things to be better, You have to be better.” It’s attributed to Jim Rohn, a business man and motivational speaker. I believe in this philosophy 100%. A lot of people seem to know what they want; they have set goals and created a vision for their life. My question to you becomes what are you willing to change to get those results?

Are you willing to change?

One of my coaching clients was sharing her frustration around feeling stuck and uninspired. We discovered one of the root causes was her nutrition. She didn’t like what she was eating and couldn’t find any recipes she liked. 

The truth is what she was doing, the foods she was eating, is what brought her to this place. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’re getting. Sometimes in life, we have to do things that we don't necessarily like. My client was worried she’d have to live on chicken and broccoli. I knew we needed to work on some mindset as well as her nutrition. 

I designed Self Care for Female Leaders  to be a program without sacrifice, and I would never advocate for someone to live on only chicken and broccoli. I want you to have variety; I want you to flavor and taste and all the yummy things. I even wrote a cookbook of my favorite recipes so my clients wouldn't have to waste time searching the interwebs hoping something they found looked good, tasted good, and got them results.

The catch is that you have to find the happy medium. It’s not a carte blanche to eat whatever you like all the time, because that's what we've been doing. That's what got us here. Eating whatever, whenever you wanted is what led to your lack of energy, lack of focus, poor sleep, poor digestion, and extra pounds that prompted you to follow me. 

If you want to change something, you have to change something. 

As humans, we tend not to like change. We find our comfort zone, and we plant our heels in. So change becomes uncomfortable. In my years as a coach, I hear the pushback: your families don’t like different food, you don’t want to cook, the default becomes fast food. 

Did you know there’s a scientific reason that McDonald's french fries are everyone's favorite? McDonald's fries have 19 ingredients! In my opinion, if it's a french fry, shouldn't it just be a potato? The reality is, if they just fried potatoes, they wouldn’t be as addictive. And you and millions of other people around the world wouldn't keep coming back for more. The secret? Added sugar and the added fat on top of what's already in the potato. In fact, they remove the natural sugar and then replace it with processed sugar! 

What in the world?!? 

It doesn’t make sense, until you understand the effect certain ingredients have on your brain. There is a reason we love fast food and can’t get enough of our drive-through burgers and fries. It actually creates a chemical reaction in your brain. You're getting high, it's releasing dopamine. I shared more about this phenomenon is my article about sugar addiction. In a nutshell, dopamine is the feel good chemical your brain releases when you are engaging in pleasurable activities whether listening to music, spending time with friends, exercising (it’s true!), or eating. So when those 19-ingredient french fries hit your senses, your brain lights up like a slot machine! All the lights, all the buzzers, demanding you take n more and more. When you’re hungry, your brain puts in an order for those golden 19-ingredient fries so it can have all the sugar and all the good things in them. 

I know it’s a battle, but it’s one you can win. The key is consistency. You must be consistent with eating whole foods, real foods, and not foods that have 19 ingredients including added sugar and fat. 

How do you know which foods to choose? A simple test you can ask yourself is (1) do they have one ingredient, and (2) is the ingredient also the name of the food? My client was right that “broccoli” and “chicken” were good choices, but they aren’t her only choices. Think of all the other awesome veggies and fruits that have one ingredient and one name.

An update on my client: She's doing great. She's on a great journey. That conversation was one that we needed to have in the middle of one of those points in the journey where you kind of dip. 

Tips to move through the discomfort of change: 

If you are struggling with this, here are a few things that you need to do. 

1.Don't do everything at once. 

Don't change everything at once, you will fail. Pick one thing, pick one battle at a time, defeat that monster and then do a victory dance. If you focus on one problem at a time, you don't try to fix all the things and you celebrate the wins. The wins will build upon one another, and you’ll accomplish amazing things. But know you can’t fight all the monsters at once; it has to be one at a time. 

2. Celebrate your wins. 

Every time my client has a victory, we celebrate. We high five, virtually. We celebrate because if you tell your brain, “ding ding, ding ding, I like celebrating my wins!,” guess what it's going to want you to do? It's going to send you that way instead of toward the french fries. There's a very specific system in Self Care for Female Leaders. I designed it exactly for this reason: we tackle one monster at a time, one challenge at a time. We celebrate the victories and it's very, very specific and strategic. If you go in that order, if you follow the system, it works. 

I share more tips on making your lifestyle change sustainable here.

If you are struggling, if you are feeling like she was frustrated, stuck, or defeated, I invite you to schedule a call with me so we can make your battle plan - and have your victory party - together.