Discipline and Perseverance Beats Talent...Pondering The Way Forward

Discipline beats talent...words I heard spoken on a training call last week.  The speaker was explaining that discipline, steadfast adherence to your plan will win over raw talent.  This got me to thinking...especially over this past weekend while I was doing another two day cleanse.

How many of us, myself included tend to fail, not because we do not have the talent to succeed, but because we find ourselves lacking the discipline to persevere when the going gets tough...especially when it comes to dieting, losing weight?  It was not like I woke up one day and said, "I want to be fat".  It was a process, and being honest with myself, a process that involved "lack of discipline" on my part...despite my ever expanding gut, despite the lack of energy and the lethargic reality of my life, I did what it was that I wanted to do, ate and drank what I wanted do, exhibiting zero SELF CONTROL...another way of saying I was exhibiting no self discipline.

My own journey of self reclamation is teaching me self self discipline...but what if there is more to the word, and the concept of discipline?  Why was I succeeding in my dieting this time, when I had failed so many times before...the clue's to my answer could be found in looking up the word online.

Discipline as defined is systematic instruction intended to train a person in a craft, trade or other activity, or to follow a particular code of conduct or "order".

But then I read further...

Often, the phrase "to discipline" carries a negative connotation. This is because enforcement of order–that is, ensuring instructions are carried out is often regulated through punishment.

I was ALWAYS TAUGHT and TOLD, that successful dieting requires self control and discipline...what if subconsciously we fail at our diets because of our interpretation of that phrase, ""Successful dieting requires self control and discipline"?  Could it be, that we see dieting AS PUNISHMENT for years of no self control? Could it be we resent dieting because it is seen as a PUNISHMENT, and could it be that I am actually succeeding this time around because I have seen my Isagenix program, the products the company has created not as dieting, but instead as a means to getting healthy?  Like the old adage says, change the mental picture, change the results.

If you are lost, just stay with me another couple of minutes...

None of us are perfect, and we all put on weight for various personal reasons...poor food choices (some times voluntary, sometimes not), eating as a means to find comfort, and though we maybe do not want to admit it, eating to hide ourselves or make ourselves less attractive...think abuse.  I myself looking back think I indulged myself for a few reasons...

1.  I've known starvation...not hunger, but starvation.  When I was a child, times were more than rough, and there were some periods of time when a few potatoes shared among seven of us, or some oatmeal was all there was for supper at night even though we had not eaten all day.

2.  As a child, food was used as a weapon by my father...getting a beating was bad enough, but imagine getting a beating and then being sent to bed without supper.  

3.  Food was/is a emotional comfort for me...I used to hoard treats such as cookies, carefully hiding my secret stash, and then late at night under my blankets allowing myself to break off one little piece, savoring it like manna from heaven.

Looking back on all of this I can understand some things.  Firstly, sitting here today I can see why I have avoided anything to do with discipline...to me, subconsciously discipline meant not just punishment, but a beating.  Sitting here now, though he has been dead for some years can hear my fathers voice as he screamed across the table, "Get your ass down stairs son, I'm going to show you some discipline you will not soon forget."  The word was a trigger...still is.

Looking back over these past four months, realize I am doing more than just losing weight.  I am, though self assessment looking at some very hard truths, and after close examination am doing some very important things as I make changes in my life and attitudes:

1.  I am understanding my past relationship with food, and in some ways redefining that relationship.   Food in my life and my view of it has always existed on the far opposite ends of the spectrum...finally, through some hard work I am finding a nice comfortable middle ground that lets me love it, rather than using it as an emotional crutch.

2.  I find myself redefining, or perhaps using a different word than discipline...I have always seen discipline as meaning punishment, and in turn punishment meant beatings, and therefore discipline meant beatings...is it any wonder then that I have rebelled against discipline of any sort in my life?  Some would say, You need some discipline" or "You need some self discipline" and every cell in my being instantly heard "BEATINGS".  

Change the mental picture, change the results.

Sorting Through Old Baggage

What triggers from your past have kept you from being successful in dieting, in losing weight, in getting healthy and happy?  Could something as simple as redefining the journey be all that is needed for you to find that beautiful person who is hiding inside of you?  For me, the word discipline was not working, and on some levels is still not working for me...so rather than run from dieting, I've chosen to re-frame the discussion, chosen to find words that work for me, that allow me to find the success I deserve.  Some examples...

1.  Successful dieting is as simple as believing in yourself (myself).

2.  Self control and dedication will always see you through to your goals.

What emotional triggers are holding you back in accomplishing your goals...in dieting...in life?

Getting Fit, Losing Weight Brings Up Other Issues...Cleansing

Gathering Up Christmas

Like most Americans, I put on weight over the holidays...being more aware of my body as a result of my own Isagenix journey, my eyes focused on my goals, did not PACK IT ON like I used to, but did put on a few pounds that I am working on losing.  To that end, have invited many of my Facebook friends, and people I do not even know to participate in what I am calling the "Isa Guru's 9 Day Cleanse Challenge"...a way for all of us to giving our New Year's resolution of losing weight, being healthier a great jump start while having some fun and perhaps making some new friends, deepening our relationships with other friends. As I prepare for the cleanse, pack up Christmas here in my apartment have been giving some thought to the concept of cleansing.

The dictionary defines cleanse-To free from dirt, defilement, or guilt; purge or clean.

In the case of our upcoming group cleanse, we are freeing our bodies from the environmental toxins that defile our bodies on a cellular level, cleaning our bodies from the inside out.  Yet, picking up and packing up Christmas here in my apartment, looking at my Isagenix journey so far, realize in some ways that I need to implement other "Cleanses" in my life, some of which are hard to contemplate as doing them requires soul searching,  making tough choices.

Two years ago I moved out of a very large old Victorian home into my small two bedroom apartment here in Mountaindale, New York leaving a lot of things I had cherished behind because there just was not enough space in my new abode.  Some call that downsizing, but in some ways looking back on it and looking forward it was a form of cleansing even if not a cleansing of a voluntary nature.  What I have realized today, is that as much as I let go in that move, my apartment contains WAY TO MUCH STUFF, some of which I really need to part with.  In short, my apartment needs a CLEANSE, and that I am afraid is going to be a painful process.

Was putting away clothes when I suddenly realized that I have a LOT of shirts.  I did not count them all, giving up on the task at the number 75 though there is at least twice that number.  Believe that 75 constitutes a LOT, and know that I have no real use for that many shirts...problem is, as I thumbed through the closet examining them, thinking I should bag up some to donate to Goodwill, I realized each of them in some way holds a special memory of times and places long ago past.  They in some way represent a historical view, a timeline of my life, each bringing back the when and where of how the shirt came into my life.

Such inventory taking saw me sitting in the living room counting objects tucked away in cabinets, handing on walls, and openly displayed on various tables and shelves.   Looking at these things, I began recalling again the moments when they came into my life, seeing faces of the people that had gifted them to me, some of them no longer in my life...thinking about cleansing my space, once again downsizing my possessions I felt suddenly old, my apartment feeling more like a museum than a warm cozy home. Sometimes, letting go is no easy task.

Perhaps for me, the hardest part of this line of thought is realizing there is not a lot of reason to hold on to much of what I have, there is no one to pass it down to, no one with which to leave my cherished family heirlooms.  Children were not something I was blessed with in this life, and have no real family to speak of, brothers and sisters like the seven winds blown in various directions around the globe, none of us close with the other.  

Perhaps therein is the true difficulty for me in the large stock of possessions I own...they, the memories they represent in some way are my children, cared for, cherished...sounds silly, but have spent my entire life collecting for the most part life's abandoned odds and ends, given them a home as my collection has grown.  Old books, mismatched (some even with chips) old bone china cups with saucers, a child's sled, even an old chello its strings still pulled tight as it waits for someone to take bow in hand.  I think of downsizing, cleansing away the things that I really do not need and wonder what is to happen to them, to afraid at times to think of them ending up in some rubbish heap, no one willing to give them a home.

As I get ready for our Group Cleanse, think I will start with the shirts in my closets...it's a beginning, and looking back at the start of my Isagenix journey, seeing how far I have come in just three months, who knows where my apartment cleanse will end up taking me.