Chris Powell's Choose More, Lose More for Life (5 page)

Think about it: You’ve got a lot going for you!

You might think our obese clients reach their weight-loss goals one meal or one mile or one pound at a time. But in fact, they get there
one promise at a time
. Sure, eating right and working out are the physical reasons that they lose 250 pounds, drop 20 sizes, and shed 100 inches off their measurements. Good habits are what take down their cholesterol levels and make them healthy from the inside out. But each of these habits started as a commitment to making a small change in their daily routine. The real reason our clients make these incredible achievements is that
when they make a promise to themselves, they keep it
.

How do they do it? Our clients’ promises have something in common: They become so strong that they’re
virtually unbreakable
. When they stand tall at the end of their year-long journey, chest out and chin high, our clients celebrate the self-love that they’ve discovered and nurtured month after month. They couldn’t care less about the fat-loss benefits of thirty minutes on the treadmill.

What they
do
care about is that they
promised
themselves thirty minutes, and completed the full thirty… maybe even an extra minute or two! They
never
stop at twenty-nine minutes. I repeat, NEVER. If they did, their self-esteem and self-belief would take huge body blows that could be devastating—and even spin them into a downward spiral.

But these fierce guys and gals weren’t always so tough. Like you, they had to start somewhere…. That somewhere was
integrity
. Integrity—honoring your word—is an ideal in every society. Throughout history “a man of his word” has earned respect and admiration. Because of this, most of us are terrific at keeping promises to others. If we give someone our word, gosh darn it, we’re going to keep our promise! But what about keeping your promises to the most valuable and important person in the world? What about
keeping your promises to you
?!

Listen up, because THIS IS THE KEY to transformation:
The more you honor your integrity, the more dignity you have
. Your promises to yourself must be so important and easily kept that you’ll reach out and grab them every single day—because
you
want what you’ve promised yourself!
Keeping each promise to yourself has to be your focus, because it shows you that you are
your own top priority
. Each promise made is another step toward valuing and loving yourself, and a brick in the foundation of your transformation. Each promise kept—your integrity—is the mortar that holds the bricks together, and the more promises you honor, the stronger the foundation gets.

Every time you make a promise to yourself, your self-esteem is on the line, so make only first-class promises you know you can keep. Give yourself the respect you deserve by making honest and authentic ones. How many times have you made wishy-washy, halfhearted promises like “The diet starts Monday,” or “I’ll work out when I have the time”? And how many times have you shelved these pledges? Yeah, over and over and over again. You’ve got to get serious about your integrity. Transformation happens when you honor your promises over your reasons. So look yourself in the mirror; make a solid, real promise; and then fulfill that promise. The outcome will be powerful beyond measure.

But the outcome of breaking a promise to yourself is devastating. When you promise yourself that you’ll lose weight, and then break that promise, you might think at first, “Oh, well, no harm done—I’ll try again.” Well, guess what?
A lot
of harm was done!

Your diet’s out the window. Another chance at transformation evaporates. But that’s not the crux of the issue. If you break a promise—any promise—to yourself, you’re
worse off
than if you’d never made that promise in the first place. When the day is over, the lights go out, and you’re all alone, you’re left with the shame of another failure. Either the negative self-talk begins or your bruised ego comes up with a million and one reasons why the diet didn’t work this time: “I don’t have time for breakfast!” “I broke a nail chopping vegetables!”

But the fact of the matter is that you broke a promise. It hurts, doesn’t it? It undermines your self-esteem, your self-love, and your self-will. You nosedive right back to where you started, except this time you crash a little bit farther from your goals! Once again you think, “I knew I couldn’t stick
with it. I don’t have what it takes.” So guess what happens to that first transformation secret—
believing in yourself
? Any glimmer of belief you had fades to black, and your possibility for transformation crumbles.

Right about now you’re probably wondering, “How can I possibly keep my promises to myself all the time?” Yeah, life is busy. Life happens. And life isn’t fair. You have to run the errands and pick the kids up from three different schools. Your spouse has to work late, so you’ve got to make sure the kids do their homework and their chores, and you’ve got your own chores to do. Before you know it, you’re exhausted and you’re ordering a pizza instead of prepping and steaming that batch of veggies. Oh yeah, and the thirty minutes of cardio you were going to do? Not going to happen today. Your promises to yourself have flown out the window.

Let me tell you: There are promises, and then there are
promises
. There are promises that can be kept, and ones that can’t. And it’s not because you’re lazy or weak or insincere. Heidi and I have seen our clients break thousands of promises to themselves, and it’s always painful, but we’ve discovered that most of those broken promises
were just out of whack
!

Some of the most out-of-whack promises our clients make are
inflated promises
. They make themselves a whole bunch of promises at once, or just one unnecessarily huge one. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard people promise to do thirty minutes of cardio every morning, or to eat five smaller meals every day, or to never eat pizza again. No way! A few of them might succeed, but the majority are destined to fail. These promises are way too big!

Come to think of it, nearly every diet book and weight-loss program—including this one!—is a compilation of potentially inflated promises. At some point, you’ve probably made the mistake of jumping into a new diet and exercise plan full-bore, trying to make radical changes in your lifestyle right away. It almost
guarantees
you’ll give up! Moving too fast and expecting too much of yourself, you end up breaking your promises to yourself. You might try to make yourself feel better by saying, “That diet’s no good.”
Maybe, maybe not. But that’s not why your promises broke: They popped because they were inflated!

Do yourself—and your self-esteem, and your transformation—a huge favor and take it easy! Within these pages I offer a whole series of promises in the form of nutrition guidelines and exercise schedules that will
absolutely
give you the body you want. Each one is sound and levelheaded, but if you roll them all up into one giant promise, you’ve got quite a load to carry—and you’re bound to drop it.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate your enthusiasm, vigor, and desire to take it all on! But making too many promises at once just doesn’t work. Believe me, you’ll reach your goals—if you keep your feet on the ground. Believe in yourself by making promises you can keep!

Why do
you
break your promises to yourself? Do you sabotage yourself by making inflated promises? Think about it and write down the answers to these questions.

What were my New Year’s resolutions last year? What other promises have I recently made to myself?

Did I keep any of them? Why or why not?

Did I make any progress on them? Why or why not?

Did I abandon them? Why or why not?

When I make a promise to myself, do I keep it? Why or why not?

When I make a promise, do I write it down? Post reminders everywhere?

Do I share my promises with anyone else? When I do, are they supportive, or do they doubt I’ll be able to keep them?