In the earlier article by my buddy Paramjit, “Video – Oprah & being overweight – How did I let this happen?”, Oprah had said that she was “Talking the talk and Not walking the walk”. Oprah obviously is not the only person facing this challenge, as I have observed a lot of people who consistently stop or sabotage their own progress.

There are a whole range of issues why these individuals behave in this way, some of which I have covered in my earlier articles.

The external issues such as lack of knowhow is easier to overcome and one of the objectives of this blog is to provide such external knowhow. However once that is achieved, like in the case of Oprah, (however I still think she has not taken full responsibility for herself and are relying on personal coaches & other so called experts to take the responsibility of thought and she just does the activity mindlessly which will never solve the problem because unless you take total responsibility with you mind, body, heart & soul, you cannot be free of the problem), the internal issues must also be addressed.

I read recently that information (external knowhow) is psychologically cheap but transformation (internal change & taking full responsibility) is psychologically arduous.

So what makes transformation so tricky. Well there are many reasons and below are two of them:

Your Story

Steve Chandler in this book Your Story explains how we all have our own limiting stories which we have spent our entire life investing in. These stories provide anchoring to our sense of identity, and our egos will fight tooth and nail to prevent anything from destroying these stories no matter how limiting there are.

For example, most so called self proclaimed deeper individuals, individuals who take pride in portraying to the world & especially to themselves that they are intellectually or character wise superior to the rest, probably have a false idea of how people like them are NOT supposed to look. They probably believe they are not supposed to have bodies like Beyonce or Brad Pitt because they probably have linked these images to shallowness. As such it might destroy their lifelong limiting story of who they think they are and that is a huge investment to sacrifice.

So every time they start closing in on these types of bodies they sabotage themselves just to protect their silly life long investment which is basically false in the first place because it is just a limiting story the have been telling themselves. The same may be the case for people who think that they are not athletic and therefore find ways to sabotage any athletic endeavour they begin again just to protect their limiting stories.

So the first thing to do is to honestly look within and accept if it is indeed a self limiting story that is sabotaging your weight loss efforts. I know this is tough because being totally honest to one self is the one of the toughest things to do but the rewards are definitely worth it. Besides acceptance of any self limiting story is half the transformation but unfortunately most people go on denying their limiting stories and as such never transcend them. You do not overcome a problem by running away from it or denying the reality of it, you overcome a problem by initially accepting the reality of the problem (which needs a little courage) and than working through that reality.

The Analogy

This probably needs an analogy to best illustrate the concept.

Once there was uneducated tribal person wondering through the jungle and came across a small rectangular item on the ground. He picked it up, smelled it and thought it looked like a bunch of leaves but could not eat it and as such threw it down again. About an hour later, a regular high school drop out came across the same rectangular object and immediately recognized it as a book. He flipped through the book but found it to be full of weird paradoxical statements and incomprehensible mathematical equations. He also threw the book down and moved on. Another hour later, another individual came by, picked up the same book and declared that the book was full of truth and kept the book. He was a theoretical physicist and the book was on quantum mechanics.

The perceived level of truth has nothing to do with the object but everything to do with the subject. At the lowest level, it is a leaf like object that you cannot eat. At the next level it is that and a book full of weird paradoxical statements. At the next level it is both the former as well as a book full of truth.

But more importantly the corresponding actions deferred significantly based on the level of perceived truth. The tribal person wanted to eat the book, the high school drop out was confused, did not appreciate the book and threw it away and the physicist fully appreciated the book and kept it.

Basically the action of the individual is determined by the level of understanding. So although two people can talk the same talk, they walk different walks because their actual understanding differs. This is one of the main reasons we spend so much time providing all the readers with different perspective about Correct Weight Loss in the hope that some of these perspective would assist in increasing understanding by matching the reader’s current level of understanding of the subject matter.

Another point is different individuals understand via different paths or learning styles, with some appreciating the mental approach, some the emotional approach and some the physical approach. However that is another topic for another time.