Lets be honest... Do you really want it?

Have you ever taken some time and sat down and turned off the phone, closed your laptop, turned on some relaxing non-vocal music, and just asked yourself… What do I want? Can I be just honest right now with you? It took me to sitting in a jail cell with a roommate who was on trial for murder to sit and evaluate my life and truly answer this question… Do you need to be in the same situation as me? NO! My goal is to teach you what worked so you don’t have to get to those points in life.

Picture Stephen Michael, weighing at this time about 310lbs 6’4 sitting on the top bunk of a twin-size bed with my head hitting the ceiling. My legs were swinging off the edge of the bed and I was sitting with a small pencil about 3 inches long and a dull point. I was writing in a black-and-white composition notebook that I still have to this day. I sat and asked myself “How did I get to this point in my life and what do I want from life moving forward?” I sat there for days on end writing and adding to this list. Writing down my thoughts and having back and forth conversations on paper with myself trying to figure out where things went wrong. I finally realized that most of what I wanted was attainable. So if everything I wanted to have with my career and my health and relationships was within grasp, then why didn’t I have it?

Sitting on the edge of that bed day in and day out I found the problem… I found out why my life was where it was and why I was not getting what I wanted from it. My mind desired certain things but my actions didn’t align with my goals and desires… That was the key, I wanted to be healthy and in a happy marriage and I wanted to make 100k a year. Then when I looked at my actions, I was still partying with my friends and eating wings and pizza 3 days a week, I wasn’t consistent in the gym or taking any kind of herbs or supplements to help me hit my health goals. I was trying to have 3 girlfriends a night instead of focusing on myself to be a husband to a woman I loved. I was working but working a normal job was never going to get me to make the money I wanted to make. All of what I wanted was completely misaligned with everything that I was doing. I found myself in a space THINKING I was doing what I needed to do because these were goals, but my ACTIONS didn’t align with anything I wanted actually to achieve. I had to realize that at that time in life, I didn’t really want it as bad as I thought it did.

One of the highest-paid and most respected professions in the world is engineering. Their job is to ensure things are precise and aligned properly so that they work as intended. A bridge that is not properly aligned will fall, a building whose walls are not straight will collapse, and a goal that is not properly aligned with action will never be reached. So my question is Do you REALLY want it as bad as you say you do?!

Here’s what I want you to do so that you can begin to align your desires with action so you can reach your goals.

Step 1. Sit and get a notebook and begin to write what you want. It does not need to be strictly health-related but write down the things in life that you desire. I need you to be as specific as possible, so this might take a few days. Something that I hear from clients is “I want to lose 50 lbs” but what they really are saying to me is, Stephen I want to flatten my stomach and my love handles so that my man finds me more attractive. THAT is specific and something we can use to work towards. When we write goals that are not genuine or politically correct we don’t attach them to emotions. If our desires are not linked to an emotional feeling it makes it very difficult to assign action to them and stick to it when times get tough!

Step 2. Assign a priority to each desire. Which of these categories of goals are the most pressing and deserve my attention? If you want to be a fitness trainer but are not fit and feel people won’t listen to you unless you are in shape, taking classes or getting your certification might be good to start and get done first. You then can train yourself and use the tools you learned to work on your own body and build confidence in what you’ve learned. Start small and work your way up. The end goal might be to do a bikini competition but you have to start somewhere and continue to assess and build your way up.

Step 3. Review your desires and priorities and write down honestly if you are willing to give this your time, focus, and energy. If you feel it may not be the place to start let’s look to change the priorities. If you feel it is the right place to start, make a list of small steps you can use to get started. If the goal is to lose 50 lbs it may begin something like this…

Goal- Lose 50lbs 

1. Go into the kitchen and remove foods that I know are trash and will derail me

2. consult a coach or research a diet plan that I can stick to for a long period of time

3. Order meal prep dishes from Amazon to make sure I am eating well especially on busy days

4. Plot out days and times on my schedule that I will go to the gym

5. Write down things that I know will derail me ( friends, family, spouse, kids, events) Plan ahead on how to manage each situation

6. Start date and Goal date

This list can get very long but the point is to put everything on paper so you can visualize it and make it real. As you complete each small task mark it off as complete and move to the next one. It’s very rewarding when you mark something off a to-do list and the spike in dopamine can motivate you to get the next task done!

As they say, anything that you want to accomplish you will find a way, anything you didn’t want, you’ll find an excuse. So I ask you… Do you really want it?