Episode Transcript
Hi, everybody, and welcome to The Arm Coach podcast, episode
#5.
Hello everyone. Welcome to today’s episode on indecision. I am
going to be talking about why you are experiencing indecision,
what it is costing you and how to move past it. I know that many
of you are still in a place where you are trying to decide if
following an arm exercise routine and nutrition formula is
something you want to do.
Now, it’s so common to be unsure. I know that I was in this
position for such a long time. I took my first step to sculpted arms
and losing weight when I was in my twenties and I tried different
workouts and really changed my diet and I actually dramatically
limited sugar and flour for a year. I started again and then I just
flip-flopped between workout philosophies and diets. I kept going
through my 20s and into a little bit of my early 30s where I just
didn’t know what to do and I would occasionally lift weights and
cut back on sugar but then I would start again and I was so
undecided. I had all this indecision about what I should be doing.
Here’s the problem with indecision. It zaps so much time and
energy. You are endlessly weighing the pros and cons. Often not
just the pros and cons of right now, but the pros and cons of a
future that you envision. And I will tell you that that future is
usually negative. And so you stay stuck. Nothing is changing. You
just keep repeating the same habits over and over again like you
are anguishing over what to do. But nothing is changing. It can
feel like you are being productive, because you are thinking about
it. It feels like you are doing something, but you are really not
being productive. You are really staying in place.
Here’s the problem. You are not moving any closer to sculpted
arms, to feeling better. In fact, I think for most people being stuck
in indecision is one of the most painful things. You have all this
energy that you are devoting to trying to figure out something in
your life, but nothing is changing. And that uncertainty and that
indecision, it doesn’t feel great. And I think a lot of people really
hate being in a place of indecision, but they don’t know how to get
out of it.
I am going to talk to you today about the four reasons why you get
stuck in indecision, why this happens and how to try to move
away from it. Because you can. And moving away from indecision
will be one of the best and most powerful things that you can do.
The very first reason that people are stuck in indecision is all
about the stories that they have about what it will mean to change
their habits, what it will mean to lift weights 3 days a week, what it
will mean to limit sugar and flour. And I will promise you that
those stories are negative, right? If the stories were positive, if
they were seeing a better future, they wouldn’t be stuck in
indecision. They would be making a decision. They would be
going after that future. But they are predicting a future that looks
kind of bleak. They are predicting a future where they are not
having fun, where they are always deprived, where they can’t join
in, right? They have a lot of negative stories and you may be able
to relate to this when you sort of think of a future when you are
changing your eating habits and exercising regularly. What does
that look like? Most people when I start working with them will
say that, “Well, it looks nice to see definition in my arms and not
to have extra weight and it looks nice to wake up without bloat
and not feel inflammation in my joints.” Right, and it looks good
to spend time and energy throughout the day and evenings on
something other than overeating. That looks good. But the whole
rest of it looks kind of bleak. People would tell me, I know that I
can lift weights and survive limiting sugar and flour, I don’t need
to eat sugar and flour, that’s not my problem. And I would say this
too. I didn’t need to have them. It’s just that the future didn’t look
like it was going to be any fun. And you have to pay attention to
this. If all your stories about what it means to lifts weights and
follow a nutrition formula are pointing you in a negative direction,
well then I promise you that you are going to continue to be stuck
in indecision. We also get stuck in this idea that we have to make a
decision for the rest of our life. That for me was so incredibly
daunting. It was really daunting to say at 32 years old, oh, gosh, I
am making a decision that is going to apply when I am 82 as well.
I think that is too daunting for people. I will tell you even today, I
have not made a decision about what I am doing for the rest of my
life. I know what I am doing right now. And right now, because I
have done this work, and I truly enjoy lifting weights and don’t
desire sugar and flour anymore, it doesn’t have that much appeal
to me. But I think this idea that you have to make a decision
forever that if you are going to stop, you have to stop forever, I
think it is too daunting for too many people.
I think a lot can be learned and a lot can be gained by committing
to a 12 week program, and just taking time where you are starting
to learn some different tools and not just time where you are just
counting days, not just ‘I am going to do this for 30 days or 90
days, right? Then your focus is totally on just making it through
day-to-day. But really thinking about I am going to do this
because I want to build muscle and slow bone loss, to gain
strength, because I want to be able to unwind without needing
sugar at the end of the day. I want to be able to feel content and
feel at ease without needing to have a tub of ice cream, right? So
paying attention to learning those tools. And that may help you
develop stories for what it will mean to take some time, what it
will mean to follow an arm exercise routine and nutrition formula
for a period in your future that maybe doesn’t look so bleak.
The second thing that holds people back and holds people or
keeps people stuck in indecision is looking to our past to predict
our future success, right? It’s this idea of well I failed before, I
have tried before and it didn’t work, so obviously I am going to fail
again. This is the absolute worst thing that you can do. To look at
your past for evidence of your future and for evidence of your
chances of success. It seems completely logical. It seems logical
that I would just look into the past to understand my future
capabilities. But here’s the problem. Most people see failure as a
sign that they cannot do something. Most people do not
understand failure for what it is, which is part of the learning
process. So we look at past attempts and we see that we didn’t
succeed and we make that mean that we won’t succeed. We make
that mean that we are going to fail again. Instead of
understanding failure as part of learning. Any skill that you want
to learn, any new skill, including how to decrease your desire, how
not to cover up your emotions, how our thoughts create our
emotions, but also any skill in the world, driving a car, riding a
bike, whatever it is, it takes practice. It takes practice. And what it
means is that you will not get it right on the first try. You will fail.
That is part of learning. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be learning, right?
That’s really part of it. But most people take the failures and make
it mean that they won’t succeed, instead of seeing them as part of
the learning process. And I will tell you, I cannot even count the
number of times that I had tried to change my body and my eating
habits to lose weight. It was a lot. You know, for decades, I was
trying every new fad workout and diet. And if I had used the past
as an indicator of my success, I would have decided, well, it’s not
possible because I tried a lot and I failed a lot and my past is
telling me that I can’t do it. But you really have to shift away from
that mindset, and you really have to start to look at your failures
as part of the learning process. You have to start to expect them.
You have to expect that there is going to be struggle. There is
going to be setback. That is normal, that is part of learning.
The third piece that keeps people stuck in indecision is the idea
that you have to feel a 100% certain. A 100% certain that this is
what you want to do, this is the right decision and it’s going to be
the best thing you ever did, before you can actually test it out. I
think that keeps so many people stuck. This idea that, well, I have
to be completely certain that this is what I want to do. Because
here’s what’s happening. Most people are in a tug of war. Most
people feel like I really don’t like the consequences not lifting
weights, of consuming sugar and flour. I really don’t like the extra
weight, I don’t like how I look and feel, I don’t like waking up
bloated and regretting what I ate. I don’t like any of that. I am
embarrassed by my arms, I don’t like feeling out of control. There
are all these things that I don’t like. But on the other side, there
are a lot of things that you do like. You do like the way you feel
when you scroll on the phone or watch tv, when you eat sugar and
flour. You do like feeling that you can unwind. You do like feeling
more at ease. You do like feeling indulgent, right? So you have this
tug of war. And people say well, I can’t do anything until I am a
100% certain. And it’s not true. You can be in a place where you
are still feeling like you are not totally certain and still take action.
The problem is I think that people will tell themselves that they
can’t take any action, they can’t take any steps towards what they
want, until they feel a 100% certain. And that will keep you stuck.
So, the fourth piece that keeps people stuck in indecision, and this
one I think is so crucial and this is what held me back for so long,
is that you haven’t yet found a compelling reason. And that
compelling reason is what is going to sustain you when you’re
following an arm program and nutrition formula. And the reason
that you have not found a compelling reason is this. You are
ignoring the benefits that you get from zoning out in front of
screens or eating sugar and flour. I did this too for a long time. I
didn’t want to pay attention to the benefits, I didn’t want to look
at the benefits. I thought if I focused on the positive things, the
things that scrolling and overeating were helping me with, right,
and for me it was helping a lot with anxiety, it was helping with
insecurity, it was helping with a lot of the negative chatter that I
had in my mind. I thought if I focus on the positives that will be
bad. I shouldn’t think that there was anything positive. I should
only pay attention to all the bad things. I should only pay
attention to the regrets. I should only pay attention to the extra
weight. I should only pay attention to doing things I didn’t want to
do when I was out socially. That’s what I thought, but it doesn’t
work like that.
We can’t ignore that you are getting a benefit. You can’t ignore
that piece. And when you ignore that piece, you are going to really
struggle to come up with a compelling reason that’s going to
sustain you when you are lifting weights and limiting sugar and
flour. So, I would use all the negative effects. I would say, ‘well my
commitment is going to be fueled by cardigans and all the
negative effects that I get from sugar and flour. That’s what’s
going to fuel my commitment. And it might work for a little bit
because sure I would enjoy wearing tank tops, waking up and
seeing the scale went down, and I would enjoy feeling lighter and I
would enjoy that I didn’t have to worry about what I ate the night
before. But there was no break from me, right?
That’s what scrolling and overeating was for me. It was a break
from myself. It was a break from my insecurity and my anxiety
and feeling like I didn’t fit in. It was a break from all the chatter in
my head that told me I wasn’t smart enough or good enough or
pretty enough, right? It was a break from all of that and I had no
break from that. And so after a while, I just wanted my nights to
go back to being an excuse to cut loose with pizza and ice cream
and stop feeling stressed out and stop feeling so unsure of myself
and just have peace. And the problem was I kept thinking that not
having a bloated tummy, wearing tank tops, not having any
regrets, not worrying about what I ate, I kept thinking that that
was going to be the compelling reason. But the other piece of it
was that scrolling and overeating was helping me tune out this
really negative self-critic.
Screens and overeating sugar and flour for me for a long time was
a perfect remedy to fix how I felt on the inside. And I didn’t realize
this because I wasn’t looking at my reason for why I wanted to
watch tv, keep overeating, and why I wanted to limit sugar and
flour, I wasn’t looking at those reasons side-by-side. Because
when I put them down on paper and I looked at them side-by-
side, all of a sudden it made sense. It made sense why the reason I
wanted to lift weights and limit sugar and flour could not stand up
to the reason that I wanted to numb in front of a screen and keep
overeating sugar and flour. And it was because my reason to
change my habits was just focusing on the negatives. It was, I am
sick of the long sleeves, sick of extra weight and being
embarrassed about how I look.
Now that seems like a pretty good reason on the face of it, it
doesn’t seem bad; it seems like it could be compelling, but it
wasn’t paying any attention to the reason why I wanted to keep
scrolling and overeating. And for me the reason why I wanted to
keep scrolling and overeating was because I wanted to drown out
the hateful thoughts about myself in my brain. And I thought that
screens and overeating sugar and flour allowed me to do that
because it was a perfect remedy to fix how I felt on the inside.
When I looked at my answers head-to-head, it all of a sudden
made sense to me. It made sense why my commitment was so
flimsy. My motivation seemed pretty good because I truly didn’t
like how I felt, I truly didn’t like how I looked, but it could not
compete with my reason to keep scrolling and overeating. Because
for me, distracting myself from the self loathing was the most
important; it really was. It was something that I had struggled
with for so long in my life and feeling like I was unworthy and I
didn’t belong and I didn’t fit in and I was just kind of weird. And
so the idea that when I watched a show and ate pizza and ice
cream, I would feel peace and I was normal and I didn’t have to
listen to any of those thoughts, why do I want to let go of that.
When push came to shove, that compelling reason to keep
scrolling and overeating would always win. And so my
commitment to change my habits for so long in my past was really
flimsy and I just had no idea because I had never looked at these
two reasons side-by-side. I would ultimately choose peace in my
brain over long sleeves and being regretful. It seems crazy to me
now but back then it made a lot of sense in my mind.
So the strength of your motivation and commitment comes down
to this, can your reason for following the Arm Program compete
with your reason for keeping the status quo? And it works like this
for everything. It’s not just our decision to sculpt our arms. It
really is our commitment for anything. We have to look at the
reason for why we are doing it versus the reason why we are
keeping things the same. And if that reason to change your habits
can’t stand up to the reason for continuing to scroll and overeat,
then it’s going to be very difficult to stick with your commitment
because it won’t be important enough to you.
You have to believe that you are getting more from changing your
habits than from keeping things the same. And that is why when I
work with people, I really encourage people not to focus on just
counting days. I think that is such a fallacy this idea of I just need
to get a certain number of days. The problem is that most people
after a while, the days are not motivating, right? You get a certain
number of days and you are just saying, okay, just one day to the
next, one day to the next. There has to be something bigger
fueling it. After a while, it is not exciting to cross days off a
calendar.
For me, when I finally put these two reasons, the reason that I
want to keep scrolling and overeating and the reason why I want
to change my habit, when I finally put them on paper and I looked
at them side-by-side and I realized that my reason for changing
my habits just couldn’t stand up, I started to really have to search
and really have to dig and brainstorm and figure out, okay, what is
it going to be? What will it be for me that is going to be compelling
enough?And what I finally landed on, what worked for me, is that
I really wanted to be proud of who I was. That was actually very
important for me. And I felt like learning these skills, learning
how to consistently lift weights and not to use sugar and flour as a
crutch, learning how to rely on myself instead of covering up my
emotions, that felt very connected to being proud about who I
was. And that actually felt compelling.
Now, the reason for you is probably going to be totally different
and the reasons for all of my clients are usually very different. It
might be that they are really interested in improving bone density.
It might be that their compelling reason to change their habits is
that they want to start to model the behaviors that they want to
teach their children and grandchildren.
For some people, they really feel like they have a spiritual
connection that they want to deepen. They want to deepen a
spiritual connection with themselves. It doesn’t matter what it is,
it just has to be compelling to you. If it’s not compelling to you, if
it’s not more compelling than to continue scrolling and
overeating, then guess what? You are going to keep scrolling and
overeating.
Okay, I know that was a lot today on indecision. I just want to
recap. The very best thing that you can do is make a decision
either way. Really. Make a decision that you are going to follow
the arm program and nutrition formula or make a decision that
you are not. And that’s fine too, but if you make a decision either
way, I promise you it will just save you so much mental energy.
Really. You can just stop going back and forth and stop doing the
pros and cons and just use that mental energy for something else.
Also stop using your past to predict your future. It really is a
terrible, terrible way to predict your capabilities in the future.
Especially because so many of us have a really unfortunate
interpretation of what failure means. We think it means that we
are not going to succeed and actually failure is part of the process,
setbacks are part of the process.
Also stop waiting to take action by telling yourself that you need to
be a 100% certain. You can take action before you are 100%
certain. Waiting to be 100% certain will keep you stuck. But the
biggest thing is really be honest about how scrolling and sugar is
helping you. What is it doing for you? What are the benefits?
What are you getting from it? Because when you are really honest
about how your habit is helping you, then and only then can you
find a truly compelling reason for why you might want to take
some time and try learning something new. Only then.
Ok friends! That’s it for today! Let me know your compelling
reason! See you all next week!
