Unlimited: How to Build an Exceptional Life (33 page)

For several weeks he was doing all his tasks, from cooking healthy food to counting calories to getting his sleep to taking his vitamins. He was the perfect contestant. Then without warning he developed a massive toothache. The next thing he knew, he was in the dentist’s chair for most of a week getting oral surgery on two root canals. So he missed tons of workout time. He was put on antibiotics, which is not great for the metabolism. He could eat only mushy foods and wasn’t able to stay on the diet I had recommended. Sure enough, at that week’s weigh-in, he fell below the line and got sent home.

Back at home, my determined former contestant was in tears with me on the phone. “Why did this happen to me? Every time I start something in my life, it falls apart. No matter what I do, I’m cursed with bad luck.” On and on. What he failed to see was the enormous part that
his own choices
played in his current situation. When I said on the previous page that simple daily decisions like whether to brush your teeth can affect your life, I wasn’t kidding! If my contestant had taken better care of his teeth, flossed, invested twenty-two dollars in a power toothbrush, and eaten slightly better, his chances of having all those dental issues would have been drastically reduced, and he might not have sabotaged his
Biggest Loser
journey. He might actually have gone on to win the whole show and been not only healthy but $250,000 richer.

Every action we do, every choice we make, has a direct and dramatic impact on our lives. Unfortunately, many of these seemingly little decisions are made unconsciously, and that is where the sabotage takes root. My contestant wasn’t thinking about the future when he was brushing his teeth. He was probably half asleep, going through the motions, and rushing to get out the door for work, or rushing to get to bed. Years later, he paid the price for his absence of thought.

THE BEST PATH ISN’T ALWAYS THE EASIEST ONE

I’m going to give you one more example to really drive my point home. You go through life eating processed fast food because you reckon it’s easy and cheap, and because maybe it’s what you ate growing up. We don’t really think about the longer term when we’re making the grab for fast food. At that moment, we’re usually thinking about something else, some other matter in our busy lives. Fast food is convenient and comfortable, and the last thing we need is more work. Or so we think.

But one day you’re diagnosed with heart disease, or cancer, or diabetes, or some other horrible illness brought on by poor nutrition and lifestyle choices. The medical bills practically and perhaps literally bankrupt you and your family. You start to feel victimized, persecuted.
Why did this have to happen to me?
You throw a pity party, invite yourself, and never leave.

Sure, this is a heavy scenario to contemplate, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility, far from it. In fact, heart disease is the number-one killer in this country. Every twenty seconds an American has a heart attack. Every thirty-four seconds one of us dies from heart disease. The cancer statistics are equally scary. Sadly, this is more likely your reality than not, and if you would just wake the hell up, chances are you could cut down your risk of all this misery significantly.

If you had thought through your choices when you were making them, your situation would most likely be very different. What if you had swapped out the fries for a side salad? What if you had asked for your food grilled instead of accepting it sautéed and fried? What if you had invested that extra twenty dollars a week in healthy groceries instead of gossip rags, crappuccinos, or whatever? What if you had taken the time to bring healthy food from home to work instead of hitting the drive-through or buying the nearest processed food at hand? What if you had taken the time to exercise thirty minutes a day instead of watching
The Backstabbing Housewives from God Knows Where?
I’ll tell you what! There’s a 99 percent chance you wouldn’t have gotten sick or have bankrupted yourself treating a preventable disease. You’d probably be happy, healthy, and looking at many more quality years to come.

My goal isn’t to make you obsess over everything you do, or to trap you in a game of “what if.” It’s not to make you feel bad about the choices you’ve made in the past, or the choices you are currently making. The point, again, is to be present. The fact is you’re here, now, ready to start bringing more awareness to the things you do every day. We want to bring mindfulness into your daily
routine so you’re firing on all cylinders and exponentially enhancing your chances of success and a high-quality life.

You are in control!

Life doesn’t happen to you—you happen to it.

You can’t foresee everything that might come at you, and you can’t micromanage your life to setback-free perfection. But you
can
control your choices, actions, and reactions. And that’s all it takes to build happiness, no matter what life serves up.

By now you have realized the tremendous importance of the power of choice, a recurring theme in this book. Here we will practice exercises for
how
to make powerful, positive choices to effect powerful, positive change.

Start by becoming aware of your unconscious decisions. Then you can bring your best intentions to those choices, to help direct your life toward your desired result. Remember, mindlessness is often the root of self-destruction. We go numb, we check out, and we’re unable to think through our actions and choices. Before long, we’re reacting unconsciously and/or subconsciously to life in ways that blow us way off course.

WORKING IT OUT

Here are a few exercises to help you take control of your destiny!

PRESS THE PAUSE BUTTON

Stop and question what you’re doing before you take action. This tactic works well for managing impulsivity and building willpower, but it also brings a basic thoughtfulness into your daily life, allowing you control over your fate. Take a brief pause before every action, and ask yourself the following questions:

What am I doing in this moment?

Is there a choice to be made here? If so, what choice am I making?

Will this choice bring me happiness and bring me closer to my long-term goals?

These questions are all you need to decipher whether something will hurt you or help you in the long run. Keep them in the forefront of your mind, and they can serve as your internal compass, your GPS, helping you stay on track throughout your day, week, month, year, and life
.

A contestant on season ten named Jesse was feeling lost and out of control, so one day we sat down, and I asked him to identify a few key long-term goals. One of them, it turns out, was wearing a tie. He said he couldn’t wear a tie because he was “too big and didn’t have a neck.” Not being able to wear a tie hindered him on job interviews, he thought, and kept him from dressing nicely at events or on dates. Long story short, wearing a tie was the symbol of everything he felt was out of reach because of his weight. So I told him that before he made every choice that day, he should ask himself whether the end result of that choice would get him closer to wearing a tie. If the answer was yes, then go for it. If no, then make a different choice
.

That morning Jesse skipped the almond butter toast for breakfast and opted for an egg-white veggie omelet instead. Then he decided to give up his chance to sleep an extra hour in order to squeeze in some cardio before his day began. He wrapped his ankle before his second afternoon hike to make sure he didn’t injure himself on the trail. That night he skipped the game-playing gossip and shenanigans that the contestants do behind closed doors before bed, and he opted for an early night’s sleep to help speed his metabolism. Having his goal in his mind at all times brought focus to his actions, even to the small ones that we often don’t think about
.

Use this strategy to map out a clear course of action that puts you back in the game instead of walking on the sidelines. Oh, and by the way, Jesse was beaming from ear to ear at the
Biggest Loser
finale in his dapper bow tie
.

TILT AT WINDMILLS

See every choice and action as a moral quest or a personally defining moment. Don’t brush off the smaller moments in life, as they add up to our ultimate happiness. Give every decision and action the respect it deserves. This doesn’t have to be overwhelmingly time-consuming. Many choices you make repeat themselves throughout your life, like brushing your teeth. Once you think a choice through, you don’t have to contemplate it each time. (That said, it’s important not to rush through brushing! Did you know that using the proper toothbrush and toothpaste, and spending the proper amount of time brushing, can help prevent heart disease and save you thousands in dental work?)

Again, this choice is so simple, but it can make a big difference
.

LISTEN TO YOUR GUT

Literally. Often when you are about to make a bad choice, your body lets you know. Think of it as a built-in survival mechanism that warns you away from crappy choices that lead you down a crappy path. There’s also some actual science behind this theory. Your gut intuition is basically the act of tapping into your subconscious mind, the place where you store information that you don’t necessarily remember at a conscious level. So your gut instinct will register as a physical “feeling” that you can’t quite articulate. But just because you can’t articulate it doesn’t mean it’s not valid. If contemplating a possible option or decision makes you feel uneasy in your heart, pressure on your chest, or sick in your gut, don’t do it! Or take a step back and revisit the “press pause” advice
.

Conversely, if a feeling of calm comes over you, it could be a sign to move forward or explore the choice in more depth. I’m telling you, there is something to this listen-to-your-gut stuff. It works. Respect it!

Conscious choice-making is an empowering art form that takes time to perfect, but it’s an integral tool in controlling your destiny
,
so be patient and stick with it. Practice the exercises, and I guarantee you your life will improve dramatically
.

Remember, don’t let life happen to you. Make it happen for you
.

You now have all the tools you need to start building the life you want and deserve. It’s time to throw down, lay it on the line, and “go for it.” But there’s just one more thing I want to leave you with …

OUTRO

WHEN TO LET GO, HOW TO STAY OPEN

W
e’re at the end, or the beginning, depending on your point of view, and this is my final message, my parting shot. Let’s say you follow every bit of advice I have doled out in this book to the letter. You give the steps a reasonable amount of time to sink in, take hold, and become real in your life. But one of your dreams still hasn’t come true. What then?

Now, you know me, I’m not one to ever say die. The very mention of the word
quit
makes my stomach turn. That said, there
is
a time to let go. There’s a
huge
difference between quitting in the sense of surrendering and letting go but staying open to alternative outcomes. To quit means to stop trying, and to surrender means you accept defeat. “Screw that!”

This said, there are some things you’ll never be able to change. The solutions to your problems don’t lie in defying the laws of nature, but in accepting them, and changing your actions to adapt accordingly.

Patience, diligence, and resilience are eventually rewarded with success. We are meant to chase our dreams with zeal and fervor until we catch them. We’re supposed to exhaust every option, try every avenue, in pursuit of the life we want. In fact, a huge
part of success is a simple matter of showing up and refusing to give up. There may well come a point, however, when you have done all that you can, yet success continues to elude you.

At this point it becomes a matter not of quitting but of letting go and staying open to an outcome you may not yet have in mind. This is about trusting yourself, and trusting in the universe/God/fate/whatever you believe in that’s bigger than you, to do right by you and your intentions.

This principle holds true for every level of the journey, including the point at which you have done everything possible but still come up short. To continue pursuing the same goal in the same way unsuccessfully is madness, right? We want to
avoid
making the same mistakes, and concurrently make sure that we are staying open to “divine intervention,” whatever that might mean to you personally.

When you trust in yourself and the universe, you open your life to infinite possibilities that you may never have thought of. And the more open you are, the greater your ability to receive happiness.