Welcome to Part 3 of hacking your habits for good! 

If you’re constantly wondering why you can’t stick to any diet or thinking your willpower must absolutely suck, in this series I’m teaching you why this simply isn’t the case!

In order to do this, we’re going deep into Dilts’ Hierarchy of Change pyramid to fully understand how we truly change our behaviors and stick to new habits in our lives. 

If you missed Part 1 and Part 2, make sure you go back and read those first. This is where I make sure you understand where we typically start when trying to change our habits to reach certain goals and why this has almost always failed us…over and over and over.

We also discussed why getting into the “capabilities” on the pyramid is such a GAME CHANGER for us. Having true knowledge and skills behind whatever it is we’re trying to achieve is absolutely necessary, especially with weight loss. You can’t lose weight for good unless you know HOW your metabolism actually works in the first place.

And yes, this means not blindly following the latest fad diet. Just because you’re a really good rule follower doesn’t mean you know the inside scoop on your biology.

Let’s go even higher on the pyramid today and tackle the concept of our beliefs and identity.

This is referring to what we actually think about ourselves and who we want to become. For example, how would you finish this sentence?: “I am ______:

I am a person who will never be able to lose weight.

I am a person who self-sabotages. 

I am unable to stick with any diet I try.

Do you see how influential these statements can be? How you think about yourself is going to trickle down and manifest into what kinds of decisions and actions you take your entire day. And you do it without thinking too much about it at all! That’s what makes it so significant.

Your mind needs to be in alignment with the outcomes you desire.

If you subconsciously think that you’re not going to actually be consistent, then it’s almost automatic that you go head-first into the chips and queso on Saturday night. You won’t think twice about it because that’s what’s aligned with your beliefs and identity about yourself.

But if you think along these lines instead:

I am a person who consistently follows through.

I am a person who prioritizes herself.

I am a person who eats to feel good physically and mentally.

If you truly thought in this way, I’m not saying you would never enjoy some chips and queso, but you would be a heck of a lot more likely to enjoy them in moderation. And this can’t come from a place of restricting yourself. It needs to be because you’re supporting the person you want to become and identify as. 

If these statements seem a little far-fetched to you right now, try swapping out “I am” for “I am becoming”:

I am becoming a person who consistently follows through. 

I am becoming a fit person.

I am becoming a person who prioritizes herself.

Do you see how that little switch makes these thoughts so much more approachable and easy to identify with? And can you imagine how much more inspiring this thinking would be for us in our day-to-day lives? 

Mindset

Our mindsets are arguably MORE important than everything we could ever know about losing weight. You could be the most knowledgeable person under the sun about weight loss, metabolism, nutrition, etc., but if you don’t truly believe you can become the person you want to grow into, FORGET IT.

Your mindset is everything. 

Your journey will be a constant mental battle between your conscious and your subconscious brain. If you have a goal to lose 20 pounds but think you’ll never really get there because your willpower always runs out, do you really expect yourself to be consistent? Heck no.

And the truth is, this is where the hard work is! It’s not about being told how to eat the best or what workouts to do for the fastest results (at least not with Metabolism Makeover). It’s doing the mindset work to dig into what it really is you want your life to look like. What kind of person do you strive to be and how does that person go about their day? The more detail the better with this kind of thinking, because surface-level goals do not have enough substance to carry us through.

Think of it this way: remember back in high school when you were self-conscious about your body and hated the way you looked in a crop top, but then 10 years later you’re like…why did I think I looked bad? I looked amazing! And then 5 more years go by and you wonder why you weren’t confident in those skinny jeans?

It’s almost never really about the weight or size we truly are vs. the mindset we have at that moment in time. 

I’m not saying you can’t have a goal to lose weight – you 100% can – but there has to be more of a why behind it. Solely focusing on seeing the number on the scale change isn’t enough to make it happen OR automatically make you happy when it happens. We have to have our minds in the right headspace and the rest will fall into place. 

This also helps us achieve happiness NOW! We can’t wait until we fit into a certain pair of pants to live the life we want because, in all honesty, it’s never really about that! It’s about the way we feel internally. We can’t wait on external factors to tell us how we feel.

If this all sounds a little uncomfortable to think about, that’s because it’s brand-new territory! When have you ever thought this extensively about a simple weight loss goal? My guess is never. And that’s why it’s critical if you want THIS time to click for you. You have to approach it differently. 

Stick around for Parts 4 and 5 where I’ll keep walking you through the Hierarchy of Change Pyramid and help you confidently understand how to apply this all to your life in a realistic way to help you hack your habits!

-MM Coach, Elle