Getting perfectionism out of the way of your weight loss
Posted on May 03, 2011 by Shannon Ratliff, One of Thousands of Health and Fitness Coaches on Noomii.
If perfectionist tendencies have interfered with you getting started on your weight loss goals, there is hope.
Now, we’ve been in our house for a long time and have had plans to garden every year. Each year comes and goes without a garden. The reason—my perfectionism interferes every time. I wanted it in a certain place, to look a certain way, had babies…In the end there wasn’t really a reason I couldn’t have done something. I was letting my own perfectionism get in the way of what I really wanted.
Perfectionism can really get in the way of getting a job done. While working with clients on weight loss, I hear the same perfectionist tendencies. “This isn’t a good time to start exercise…I am going to start on Monday…After the holidays…I need to have x, y, z first…I’m going to search for a plan that has…” I was doing the same thing with making my garden. I needed to have the sun, stars and moon aligned perfectly to get it going. There was always something getting in the way and all that I ever got done was successfully not growing anything.
Have you ever found yourself paralyzed by all the details? Do you find that another year passes without you moving toward your goal?
In terms of my garden, I decided I just had to pull out the hoe and started tackling it. It wasn’t easy to keep going at times. I got some terrible blisters that could have made me stop, thinking “I will do it after they heal.” I was trying to juggle watching my kids and entertaining them, thinking “I should just go play with them in the sandbox instead.” Instead, I gave my kids some tools, made iced tea, turned up the radio, made quick lunches and dinners and plowed through. The result? I will have a garden this year. My whole family will be happy and enjoy the work and I will not spend another year thinking about it or feeling guilty.
Have you been putting off the task at hand because you’re overwhelmed by the details? Are you waiting for everything to be perfect to get started? If so, maybe you need a little get up and go, even if it’s just one step in the right direction. Often times the biggest contender in weight loss is intimidation. The game of making you feel like it isn’t the right time or that it can’t be done right now.
What if the sun, stars and moon are actually aligned and you just haven’t been paying attention because you were focused on the wrong thing?
This article was adapted from a post on my blog youvsweightloss.com
