Posts Tagged Self esteem
What Do You Believe About Yourself?
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on October 13th, 2010
Have you ever wondered why similar things seem to happen over and over in your life? Let’s take weight loss for example. Why do so many of us do really well on our program only to fall off track at the slightest set-back and sometimes even success?
The answer is relatively simple. We draw on past experiences and beliefs. If in our past we have comforted ourselves with food, naturally we will want to continue to do so unless we change our beliefs. Our beliefs dictate our results. When we walk around telling ourselves that we will never be fit, or never be able to get control of our lives, we will take actions that back up that belief.
Although we may not realize it, many of our patterns stem directly from the way we see ourselves and what we believe about ourselves. If we constantly wait to fail at our endeavors, we will most definitely fail at some point. The great thing is that with practice we can change our beliefs.
In order to begin to change our beliefs we need to think about who we want to become and then begin to act like that person. If we want to be successful we need to act like a success. The old saying “Fake it until you make it” actually is quite powerful when it comes to changing our beliefs.
To become happy, we need to act happy. To become more fit we need to act like a fit person. The more we practice, that more it becomes habit. Another powerful tool is using positive self talk. Rather than telling ourselves how miserable we are doing and how “This is how it always goes for me.” we need to commit to being positive. We need to learn how to accept praise from ourselves. We need to let ourselves appreciate small victories.
As we learn to appreciate the small victories, we will begin to see the big picture. You will never appreciate losing 100 pounds if you can’t appreciate losing the first ten. Although it may be overwhelming, we must always look for the positives in a situation.
The only way that we can become the success that we want to become is to change our beliefs in our selves. Start small by telling yourself how good your are doing. Begin to act like the person you want to become and don’t look back. We have all experienced failures in life. The important thing is not to dwell on our failures but our successes.
If you want to change your life, change your beliefs about your self!
It’s Nothing Personal….
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on February 4th, 2010
Yesterday I wrote something that really got me thinking. The question was: What are you suppose do when the person you love doesn’t love themselves? Today I am going to try and give a reasonable answer to this question. More specifically, I am going to answer a question that I have received at every speaking engagement I have done over the past four years. How do I get my spouse to workout and make changes?
Let me start by saying this. You can’t! The cold hard truth is that the only one capable of changing ourselves is us. We can nag and push and berate, but what it all boils down to is that none of that is going to make a peson take action. When I was at my heaviest weight and lowest in life, there was nothing anyone could say to motivate me. My friends and family knew that I had the ability to do so much more but I wasn’t willing to do what they new I could.
People called me names and poked fun thinking that maybe that would do it. My mom would talk to me about my drinking and let me know she was concerned. My brother, who lost his weight as I was gaining mine would offer encouragement in his brotherly way. I heard them but I didn’t listen.
It wasn’t until I was laying on the couch all alone one night watching The Biggest Loser that I began to take action to change. What was my motivation? It was the little bit of pride that I had left inside me. “I wrestled at The University of Iowa. I have carried people on my back up the stairs of Carver Hawkeye Arena. I should be on that show. I would win.”
It was after saying those exact words that I rolled off the couch and started the process of applying to be on the show. Even at my worst I had some pride left in me. We all do. Unfortunatley, some of us use that pride in the wrong way by saying we don’t need to change. We are too prideful to realize that we are hurting ourselves.
That moment of having enough good pride to take action and yet being able to swallow the bad pride changed me for ever. The thing is that I had to do it.
So what do you do when the person you care about doesn’t want to make changes that will benefit them? First, we need to look at ourselves before we even begin to open our mouths. You can not ask someone to do something that you aren’t first willing to do yourself. If I am overweight, how can I ask the person I care about to lose weight while I sit on the couch?
After that self examination, proceed with caution. Today we will use weight loss for an example. Start by getting more active yourself and encouraging the person you want to include to come along. Maybe it’s just a short walk down the block at first. Don’t take them out and beat the snot out of them to prove to them just how out of shape they are.
Many wives ask me how to get their husband to eat better. Not to sound old fashioned, although that is exactly what happens when someone says something like that, but start cooking healthier food. So many people who are trying to get healthy cook one way for themselves and another for the others in the house. Stop doing that.
When someone tells me that the others in the house won’t eat the way they do, I say let them go hungry. Remember earlier when I said take care of yourself first? This is a prime example. If you start preparing healthy meals other members in your house have two options. Eat it or go hungry. Right here is where I could go off on a tangent about how we have become a nation of people pleasers but I won’t.
It is not cruel to ask members of your own household to eat healthy. In fact, you are doing them a favor! Make no mistake, it may take some time to unlearn old habits and embrace or tolerate the new ones so give it some time. If your family is use to eating McDonald’s every night don’t expect them to jump for joy when you start off a meal with a salad. Stay with it and don’t give in. We will continue this discussion tomorrow.
See you tomorrow!
What I See When I Look In The Mirror…
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on February 3rd, 2010
There is a strange phenomenon that occurs when you lose weight with someone close to you. When Suzy and I were on the show neither of us really noticed the changes that were happening physically. It seems like when we see a person everyday we are less likely to notice the changes in appearance that are taking place.
It seems like the last person to see the change in us when we lose weight is us. When I got home from the ranch everyone was telling me how good I looked but when I saw myself in the mirror I saw the old me. In the same way that we may not notice a weight loss in a person close to us, the opposite is also true. It may not be immediately obvious when the same person we saw lose the weight starts to gain it back.
After Jax was born Suzy said she was going to take six weeks and then get back to working out. At the six week mark she started working out again. By this time I had gotten pretty lazy. Suzy would ask if I wanted to go for a walk and I would go begrudgingly. When I saw Suzy working out everyday, I didn’t see her as someone who needed to lose weight. I saw her as someone who was suggesting that I needed to lose weight.
There hasn’t been a day that has gone by that I haven’t thought my wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. When she said she was unhappy with her weight I couldn’t figure it out. I seriously thought she was crazy. That is when I realized that I was being an enabler. Not just for my wife, but for myself as well.
By not being supportive of her feelings I was basically telling her that her feelings about herself weren’t valid. By telling her she didn’t have to work out I was giving myself permission to not work out as well. Although I was trying to show her that I loved her “just they way she is” I was doing more harm than good. Of course we love the ones closest to us just the way they are. What are you suppose to do when you love them but they don’t necessarily love themselves?
I’m not saying Suzy didn’t love herself, she didn’t love the way she looked. Not supporting her was like nonverbally saying everyday “It’s fine with me if you aren’t happy just don’t bother me with it because I think you look just fine.” Unfortunately that type thinking was more of a reflection upon myself than it was on my wife.
If I could just get Suzy to be happy with not working out and just carrying some extra weight, maybe I could do the same. It is a little sad but a lot of times in relationships if one person decides they need to make a change the other person takes it personal. As if them wanting to improve themselves somehow means that we are lacking.
For me it was “If Suzy wants to lose weight, she must really mean that she wants me to lose weight.” Oh whoas me! How could she be so selfish as to want something better for herself. There must be something wrong with me. Suzy wanted to be healthy and be an example for our kids like we had talked about since before they were born. I wanted to somehow be healthy but not have to put so much effort into it.
In 14 months my wife had 2 babies and I was the one feeling sorry for myself when I looked in the mirror. Selfishness not only sabatoges the ones we love but ourselves as well. When I finally took a good long look in the mirror I realized that I did in fact need to make some changes. Changes in the way I really saw myself, not how I thought others saw me or how my wife saw me but in the person I saw staring back at me in that mirror everyday.
See you tomorrow!
