How many times have you set goals and developed plans, only to find that things falter, fall over or fall apart in the implementation phase?
Like anyone else I’ve had my fair share of failed experiments. I recently completed a health management and weight loss program, which went fantastically well. I got the best results I could ever have hoped for and this article explains why.
In a few short months I had made a profound shift, from a state of complete burnout to a whole new level of optimal health, as evidenced by my blood test results, weight, fitness and energy levels, to an extent that has amazed my own GP, my family and friends. This new state has maintained itself for another 3 months since and continues to offer new benefits and insights. I am also inspired to create more boldly and aim for even more juicy goals!
Looking back, I realised there were 3 key ingredients that made all the difference. These can enhance, speed up and strengthen your capacity to make the changes that you want to make in any area of your life and work.
1. Consistency
In any change program you undertake, the planning is critical to your success and I’ve written about this elsewhere. You need to be already in a positive relationship with your goal, to the extent that you can say to yourself “I CAN do this I WANT to and I WILL do this”.
Making the new habits that need to be developed into a set of simple, daily decisions and activities done consistently worked really well because:
- It was easy, constantly reinforcing the idea that I CAN. In this program, the whole process had already been chunked down to elements known to lead to great results, if done consistently.
- Daily tracking demonstrated clearly that things were changing – even on the days where the weight had plateaued, I was still noticing other benefits across a number of variables and could create charts to prove that progress was happening.
- It was motivating to see the change, feel competent and in control.
- It was fun looking at the overall positive changes, even tiny increments, celebrating all the successes.
Consistency gives you the information and perspective to recover quickly from and reframe the slip ups and the setbacks that inevitably happen. You can see that, yes, there’s a little blip here, but it’s not the end of the world. I’m going to keep going, keep following through & I’m going to do this. And the positives eventually outweigh the negatives.
2. Cumulative-ness
Taking it up a notch is Cumulative-ness or increasing the force (power) of something by successively adding elements to it. Before the program began, I had already spent almost a year trying to understand why I was always so tired and achy.
By then I had formed a team of trusted professionals, through much trial and error. We are now solid – aligned, aware and respectful of one another’s contribution.
A chiropractor, massage therapist, acupuncturist, GP and naturopath are each contributing towards my health & well-being, supporting my whole physical, energetic and emotional and mental well-being. Each modality in its own way, producing a cumulative effect.
Altogether my whole body-mind-energy system was learning to operate more naturally, efficiently and powerfully. All learning is a cumulative process whereby the outcome of the collective inputs is greater than the sum of effects of individual parts.
3. Compounding Growth to Greater Outcomes
As I progressed with my consistent actions and tracking results, consistently receiving the supports of my practitioner-team and my consistent practices in dance and meditation, the cumulative effect reached a magical tipping point, about 2 months into the program. That was when my doctor ran the next set of tests and was struck by the quality and speed of my recovery.
My whole system was learning and adapting, integrating all of the essential, nourishing components. A new level of adaptation had begun, knitting together all the threads of positive change, to form what felt like a new substrate – with its own energy-generating capacity.
The foundation that had formed began to compound – building upon itself like an energetic growth-investment. Interest is calculated daily (in fact moment-by moment) and applied to the ever-growing balance in the account. Once the momentum begins, compounding creates dramatic, high-growth, fast. And the accelerated growth comes from what is already growing. You only need to maintain it.
This is how sustainable growth really happens. Your change process can become so much easier. There’s less effort going in because you’re already at a new level of performance. What used to seem hard, now feels easy.
Everything is helping everything else and the whole just keeps lifting. You are going to end up in a place where you could not imagine the sort of results you’re getting. You’ll soon be setting challenges that you couldn’t have thought of in the past.
It’s very, very exciting.
In summary you take a simple commitment applied with consistency and a group of congruent supporting practises. That cohesion begins to form a solid foundation. And that foundation in itself becomes a long term and sustainable support system that compounds and grows. And when you get to that stage, you start to get real velocity into the project that you’re doing.
If you would like further details about the methods I’ve used or to work through and optimise a project plan of your own, please reach out for a conversation; I’d be happy to help!.
