Question:
How do you squash that little voice – the one that whispers: “Just one bite!” or “You’ll never do it” or “this diet is so boring”?
Answer:
By having a strong incentive.
What’s The Best Type of Incentive?
The best incentives are SPECIFIC, SELFISH and TIME-RELATED.
For example:
– “My husband has promised me a 22 carat diamond for every 10 pounds I lose.”
– “My best friend is getting married in 8 weeks and I can’t wait to upstage her!”
– “I’m meeting my ex- at the end of the month.”
– “I’m going on a beach holiday in 3 months and I need serious body sculpture!”
– “I want to lower my cholesterol to xyz inside three months.”
These answers are specific, selfish and mostly time-related. So they are MUCH more likely to keep you on track. (I’m sure you can think of tons of other suggestions)
Example of How an Incentive Works
Meet Ivana. She is 38 years old, weighs 185 pounds and wants to be 140.
When asked why she wants to be 140 pounds, she replies: [pointing to her belly] “Because I don’t want to drag this along the beach in June!”
So when Ivana stands in front of her refrigerator and eyeballs the ice-cream, all she needs to do is imagine walking along the hot tropical sand in her bikini with a fat stomach bulging out in front of her!
As soon as she sees this terrible scene, she grabs the ice cream and dumps it in the garbage can.
Her selfish desire to look good, outweighs her desire to eat the ice cream.
Note: if Ivana’s incentive was something less selfish or less specific, like “I want to improve my health”, or “my doctor says I should lose weight”, the ice cream would have won!
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