Do you have a weight problem?
What about work or business problems?
And how are your relationships? Do you have any issues there?
It’s quite common for people to have problems in several areas of their lives. However, most people believe that their problems are caused by their situation or circumstance. For example, they have problems that are related to their work; problems caused by difficult people in their life; and problems because they’re overweight.
The truth is, people don’t have weight problems, relationships problems, work problems or business problems, people have personal problems (Habits, mindset & beliefs) that reflect in their body, relationships, work and business. In other words, their personal problems are causing the other problems in their life. And unless they resolve these issues, then they will continue to experience problems in all areas of their lives.
So what’s the problem?
Whether you’re aware or not, most of what happens to us in life comes back to our habits.
To understand how food restriction leads to binge and emotional eating, read our blog Why food restriction, food rules and diets are making you overweight.
Habits are those unconscious thoughts, beliefs and behaviours that influence our lives more than we realise. Habits can work for us, or they can work against us, and they tend to have a snowball effect. (To fully understand the snowball effect and how it works, make sure you read our blog The snowball effect: Why small things add up to big weight loss.) Whether this snowball is positive or negative depends upon the type of habits that we have.
All of us have habits, including negative ones that lead to outcomes that are less than desirable. Once we develop a habit, we’ll always have it. While we can’t get rid of negative habits, we can replace them with stronger, more positive habits which will lead to more favourable outcomes in all areas of our life — including work, weight, and relationships.
In this blog, we’re going to examine the most common habits, or problems people have, and show you how they impact on their life.
People-pleasing
People who have trouble saying ‘no’ even when they want to, are people-pleasers. People-pleasers usually try to please everyone, even at the expense of themselves and their needs. A lot of people-pleasers say they’re just being nice, but their habit of trying to keep everyone happy is because they’re afraid of not being liked (or loved) and accepted. However, people pleasing affects your life in many ways.
How it affects weight: As a people-pleaser you will always put other people’s needs first. This may mean you’ll say ‘yes’ to going out drinking or eating fast food, even if you don’t want to. It might mean that you’ll skip your workout in favour of doing something your friends want to do. Or it might mean trying to live a ‘double life’ (i.e. doing one thing your coach says, but pretending to your friends that nothing is changing). None of these things will help you lose weight and keep it off.
How it affects work: Perhaps you give in to clients who continue to negotiate your prices. Maybe you put up with a boss who treats you unfairly, or maybe you agree to do most of the work on a group project, just to keep the team happy. Putting in extra hours at work just to keep others happy will increase your stress levels, make you feel unhappy, and eat into time you could spend with your family.
How it affects relationships: People-pleasers put up with toxic relationships, are often treated badly, and continue to hang out with people who just take from the relationship. If you’re a people-pleaser, you’ll never feel free to be yourself, and you’ll never have a group of people who truly love and support you for who you are.
Low self-worth
Many people suffer from a low self-worth. These people believe that they are unworthy, unlovable and bring no value to the world. People with low self-worth tend to avoid moving out of their comfort zone, putting in effort to change their situation, compare themselves with others and engage in people-pleasing behaviours.
How it affects weight: Those with low self-worth don’t put in their best efforts to lose weight because they don’t believe they’re worth it. They also don’t prioritise themselves, invest in working with a coach, nor will they surround themselves with people who’ll actively support them. In short, people with low self-worth will continue to struggle with their weight.
How it affects work: People with low self-worth often work more than other people because they place value in what they do and achieve, rather than in who they are. If they have their own business, they discount products and services which means they have to work longer to make as much money. If they’re employed they’ll keep doing the same job forever, or take on more responsibility for the same pay because they don’t know how to stand up for themselves.
How it affects relationships: Not feeling worthy leads to toxic relationships. If you suffer from low self-worth, you’ll put up with people abusing you, taking advantage of you or taking you for granted. You also won’t be a great friend or partner to someone else because you won’t believe you bring value to the relationship.
Lack of confidence
A lot of people lack confidence. While it’s closely linked to low self-worth, it is different. Lack of confidence is not believing in your abilities and skills, rather than your intrinsic value as a person. People who lack confidence often say things like “I can’t…”, “I don’t know…”, “I’ve never been able to…”, etc. Lack of confidence is about doubting yourself and doubting yourself affects all areas of your life.
How it affects weight: People who lack confidence will continue to struggle with their weight because they don’t believe that they have what it takes to lose weight and change their body shape. They doubt themselves and often doubt the people who are trying to help them. They’re also more likely to give into peer pressure and do what others want them to do, rather than what they need to do.
How it affects work: People who doubt their abilities never achieve anything worth mentioning because they don’t have the confidence to try. In work and business this equates to settling for jobs they don’t like, having trouble making decisions, or not taking risks to grow their business. People with low confidence earn less than those with more confidence, and therefore have to work harder or longer.
How it affects relationships: Not having confidence means you’ll always go along with the pack. You won’t have the confidence to stand up and be seen. You’ll constantly worry about what other people think of you, so you’ll end up engaging in behaviours like people-pleasing, just to keep the peace.
Perfectionist mindset
Perfectionists have a hard time in life because they’re always searching for the impossible — perfection! Perfectionists put pressure on themselves to continually meet impossibly high standards. They also tend to judge their worthiness on their ability to achieve these unrelenting standards.
How it affects weight: Perfectionists have an ‘all or nothing’ diet mindset which means they’re never willing to make mistakes. They think that if they can’t get it right, then it’s not worth doing. However, this approach prevents them from learning new skills which will help them lose weight. They also believe that they need to eat perfectly and exercise perfectly. But following food rules only leads to emotional eating. Trying to get everything perfect also creates stress (which makes weight loss difficult).
How it affects work: Because perfectionists are afraid to make mistakes, they’re never willing to try new things or new ways of work. They don’t take risks and tend to play it safe. They also find value in being perfect, so if something goes wrong (like it always does in business or at work), they will take this personally, and be even more afraid to take risks. But playing it safe and waiting until things are ‘perfect’ to take action never leads to success.
How it affects relationships: Perfectionists often expect other people to be perfect too. They’re usually not accommodating to other people’s faults which can cause stress and tension in relationships. They’re also afraid to be vulnerable and be seen as ‘less than perfect’, which can mean less authentic relationships.
Being a control freak
People who need to feel in control have a hard time enjoying life! Their need to control things tends to take over their life and they often assume the worst. These people are afraid that if they can’t control everything in their life, their life will spiral out of control and they won’t be able to handle it.
How it affects weight: People who need to control everything are more likely to be dieters. They believe that controlling and restricting food is the best way to lose weight. However, this only increases the chances of binge eating. Control freaks also use food or alcohol as a way to calm them, when they feel that things are out of control, and they often have trouble sleeping due to their constant worrying. Of course, this makes it hard to lose weight, and can even lead to weight gain.
How it affects work: Those who value control often overthink things, dramatise their situation, or dwell on the worst-case scenario. In business, a bad review or negative feedback can mean the end of the world and prompt a control-freak to play it safe and not take risks. These people also find it hard to focus on their work, which means as an employee, they’re more likely to lose their job. As a business owner, they’re more likely to go out of business. People who like to feel in control also have a hard time delegating to other people which means they’re more likely to do more work and work longer hours.
How it affects relationships: People who need to feel in control often want to control other people in their life. For example, they need to know what they’re doing, where they’re going, and who they’re seeing. Controllers often feel stressed due to constantly worrying about things outside of their control, which can cause them to lash out and get angry at other people. Of course, this doesn’t bode well for happy relationships.
Comparing yourself
A lot of people compare themselves to others, but the problem is, most of the time they compare themselves unfavourably to other people. This leads to lower confidence, less conviction about what they want to do, confusion and low self-worth.
How it affects weight: People who compare themselves with others are often confused about their own goals because they’re too busy looking at other people. Because they’re watching what other people are doing, they’re more likely to do what they’re doing, instead of what they need to do for their own personal situation. This means they won’t focus on the right actions that will lead to weight loss. Instead, they’ll try to do what everyone else is doing and end up feeling overwhelmed, burned out and disillusioned, which will cause them to quit. They also won’t celebrate their own wins, because they’ll be comparing them to other people. And of course, other people’s wins will seem much more impressive than their own.
How it affects work: By comparing yourself to other people, you’re never free to run your own race (or business). You’ll continue to second-guess yourself and will be forever copying what other businesses do, without asking yourself if doing so will help your business. Comparing yourself with others will also mean you’ll feel less confident about yourself and your abilities, which will mean you’ll play small and never take risks that could propel your business or career into a new-found success.
How it affects relationships: Comparing can lead to a lot of tension in relationships. First of all, comparing yourself to friends can lead to feelings of resentment and jealousy. When you compare your relationship (whether friendship or romantic) to someone else’s you won’t be investing in your own relationship — you’ll be investing time and energy watching someone else’s. And this will cause your relationships to fracture and break down.
Complacency
On the surface, complacent people seem happy. But they’re really just settling for what they can have. This can be one of the most dangerous things because it’s easy to believe that ‘being happy’ means you don’t have to change anything. However, if you’re not careful, complacency can ruin your whole life.
How it affects weight: If you’re not continually improving, then you’re really going backwards. By telling yourself that “you’re not that bad for your age”, or “you weigh less than someone else” you’re setting yourself up for weight gain. Complacency means you’ll revert back to your old habits and never think that you need to develop new habits or skills. Doing the same thing year after year will lead to weight gain, because if nothing changes, nothing changes.
How it affects work: When you’re complacent, you settle. In business, this means you’ll continue to do the same things that you’ve always done. Eventually, you’ll go out of business, because you won’t be able to compete with other businesses doing business in new, more effective ways. As an employee, you’ll never make the effort to learn new things, or to improve your skills, so you’ll be looked over when it comes to promotions or new job opportunities.
How it affects relationships: Being complacent means that your relationships will only ever be average. You’ll put up with a partner who doesn’t meet your needs, or friends who don’t give you the support that you want, all because you’ll tell yourself “It’s not that bad”. You’ll also tend to gravitate to people-pleasers who will tell you what you want to hear, instead of what you need to hear. While these relationships won’t challenge you, they also won’t fulfil you.
Change your habits to change your life — including weight, work and relationships
Hopefully, after reading this, you can see just how much a role habits have in all areas of your life. The truth is you don’t just have work problems, weight problems and relationship problems. You have personal problems that show up in different areas of your life.
Most people tend to blame external factors when they have problems. For example, my boss is a bully; or my friends don’t understand me; or I can’t lose weight when I have to travel for work. However, the reality is that it’s your habits that are contributing or even causing your problems, not other external factors.
If you had more self-worth or felt more confident, you wouldn’t put up with a boss who bullied you. If you weren’t a people-pleaser you would seek out friends who supported you and understood you. If you weren’t a perfectionist, you’d be willing to learn new skills to manage weight loss and travel.
Do you see how your habits contribute to the problems you have in your life?
We know that it’s hard to change habits but that’s what we specialise in and we’re ready to help.
We can work with you to identify the habits that are impacting your life the most. We then come up with a personalised, action plan to help you overcome this habit and develop a new one that will serve you better. One that will improve your weight, work and relationships. The good news is that we only work on one thing at a time, so the process is achievable and not overwhelming.
Through our Diet Antidote Transformation System (DATSTM Program) The Not-Diet-diet for people who are sick of diets and want more than a good body — we can help you focus on changing the habits that are causing the most pain and problems in your life.
DATSTM will give you the knowledge, systems, tools and skills to help you change your habits one by one, and deal with any situation effectively, so you can rid your life of problems and replace them with opportunities. Opportunities for weight loss, better relationships, and more fulfilling work.
If you’re ready to get started, we’re ready to help.
