Welcome back, Intrepid Reader!  If you’ve been following along recently you know that we are in the midst of a multi-essay arc (of still indeterminate length) around personal growth—principally around making a change that will actually stick.  (If you need to catch up, read the first essay on Authenticity and second on Vulnerability.)  These musings began over the repetitive activity of chopping vegetables.  Some people think in the shower or on a “run”.  I think when chopping vegetables, although not deeply enough to cut off fingers.  It’s a balance.  The thinking began as I ruminated over my effort the last 8 months or so to lose weight.  I am successful this time (present tense purposeful, Trish, so do not change it) and was thinking through why.

The process of creating change that truly sticks is not an easy one, or we’d all be perfect creatures.  It requires true commitment based on honest priorities which in turn requires being truly authentic and vulnerable with yourself.  We’ve tackled Authenticity and Vulnerability.  It’s now time to discuss Priorities.

I will begin with a pet peeve.  If someone ever says to you, “I really wish I could [go somewhere, do something, donate to your cause], but I just don’t have enough [time, energy, money],” they are lying to you or themselves or both.  What they are really saying is, “I don’t place a high enough priority on that.”  People always always always ALWAYS have enough time/energy/money for those things they place at a high enough priority.  (OK, yes, there are always extreme situations.  I’m talking about normal everyday life.)  I had a friend who would constantly poke me about how I “threw my money around” going out to eat.  My love for Chinese food was a particular trigger for this person, for some reason.  I would go out to eat maybe once or twice a week with friends.  Let’s say I’d spend $50-75 a week going out.  This same person who loved to dig at me about throwing my money around at restaurants would go through at least a carton a week of cigarettes.  Similar expenditure, according to my research partner Google.  It wasn’t the money.  It was the relative priority she placed on going out to eat.  I placed a WAY higher priority on going out to eat than on buying cigarettes.  For her, going out to eat was a waste of money.  At least while there were cigarettes to be bought.  Regardless, we both had enough money to do what we wanted.  We just had different priorities.  I shouldn’t have been judged on my choice to spend money on restaurants any more than I should have judged her for spending money on smoking.  Where I draw the line is when people say that something is important to them, but their actions make it clear that whatever that something is, it’s not a high priority.  People don’t like to be confronted about where their priorities actually ARE versus where they would like to THINK they are.  And that goes for discussions with yourself as well.  In fact, we are probably most disingenuous with ourselves.

Since your actions tell you and everyone else around you what your priorities truly are, if you are not happy with your actions then you must change your priorities.  Do you understand, now, why we had to first dive into authenticity and vulnerability?  Being able to be honest with yourself about what your priorities truly are is a pre-requisite to being able to change them.  And stop beating yourself up!  Often, people label themselves as “bad” or “worthless” or even “irredeemable” because of some action they took based on screwed up priorities.  You are not fundamentally a bad person because you chose poor actions based on priorities that you didn’t realize you’d embraced.  Focus on the actions and priorities, not the fundamental human being.  (“I’m here to GET IT right, not to BE right.”  Remember who said that?) 

So let’s look at sustainable weight loss as an example.  I wanted to lose weight.  As I noted previously, my weight had been creeping up a pound or two a year for a couple of decades.  Losing weight is not rocket science: you simply need to consume fewer calories that your body burns for energy.  The devil is in the details of consumption.  We need food to survive, but food consumption is wrapped up in so many other things.  Food can be comfort.  Food can be a stress management tool.  Food can be something you simply enjoy a lot.  Food can be a boredom reliever.  And food can be deceptively caloric.  For me to lose weight, I had to understand why I was putting it on in the first place.  What were my priorities around food and eating that led to the weight gain?  What about my priorities needed to change?

My “why” around weight loss was simple.  Yes, I wanted to look slimmer and fitter but my real concern was that I was putting on a lot of belly fat.  I KNOW how unhealthy belly fat is.  I also have my Dad’s blood chemistry, which has had me taking statins for more than a decade already.  And my Dad had a triple bypass at just about my age now, barely avoiding a heart attack that would have killed him.  I was scared, but I was still gaining weight.  When I was really honest with myself, the issue was that I enjoyed food and simply didn’t want to put in the work.  I was scared of the medical repercussions, but apparently not enough to prioritize weight loss over laziness and not wanting to deprive myself.  This realization did not mean I was a bad person!  It meant my priorities were off.

I knew I ate a lot of healthy things, but I ate A LOT.  I enjoy food and portion control was a real issue.  And I snacked a lot.  If food was in front of me, I ate it.  I swear must have had a food insecurity issue in a previous life!  For me to lose weight, I needed to force myself to track what I put into my mouth—every morsel.  Some of my favorite foods needed to become occasional treats and not regular consumption.  And I needed better data to know where those hidden calories were.  I needed to fundamentally change the way I ate and change it for good.  That sounded like a lot of work and I didn’t want to do it.

Admitting that to myself was really hard.  At first, it was easier to just accept that “it is what it is”.  It took the better part of a year to go from “I understand what’s keeping me from losing weight” to actually taking action.  The reason for that is that taking action required commitment.  I understood what my priorities were and how they needed to change.  I’ve used the example of weight loss, which is a common frustration/goal, but this thought process can be applied to anything about your life that you are not happy with.  Begin, of course, with making sure you focus on things that you can control, but each of us controls a whole lot more than we think (see: Personal Accountability).  If you’re not happy in your job/relationship/home/whatever, what is keeping you from making a change?  If you truly do want a change (meaning that what you would have to give up to make the change happen is worth it), what about your priorities is keeping you from moving forward to commitment?  Getting to commitment is what we’ll tackle next time.