Seeing is Believing

Go with me for a moment. Most of your friends come from your job. You are all close in age, you spend 40 hours together and often go to lunch together. In some cases, you even hang out after hours.Then you hire a new person. They are also similar to your age. Then you notice some characteristics:They seem to do things with little thoughts about long-term effects as you "only live once."They seem to talk negatively about many of the things you doThey seem unfocused on your companies goals and are a bit self-centered.You try to ignore them, but every time you turn around they seem to be there.They seem to lie to you all the timeWould you want to hang out with this person? How frustrating would this person be?How To Turn the Tides on Your Negative Inner TalkNotice itNotice what you're doing when you hear itTalkback and tell them to go awayNo matter what the inner critic has told you, you do have positive traits, although it may take you some time and discipline to retrain yourself to see them.We all have an automatic selective filtering system that (our brain) will look for evidence in our environment that matches up with whatever we believe to be true about ourselves. We will then disregard other evidence to the contrary.How We Feel About Ourselves MattersEvents + Thoughts = EmotionsIf our thoughts determine how we feel, that means how we habitually think will determine how we habitually feel. (source)Give Your Negative Talker a NameI have a friend of mine who refers to his negative talker as "Grizz" as it's like a bear that roars at him to go eat bad things.I think I'm going to name mine "Charlie." I'm not sure why, but I can hear me telling Charlie to piss off, so I'm going with Charlie.Think about what kind of clothes this person would wear. Visualize this person.Now That It's Easier to See The Negative You Pay Attention to Your EnvironmentThe other night I found myself at an ice cream parlor. I thought to myself, why am I here? My inner voice told me one cone wouldn't hurt (lies).What had happened? I had been asked by my ex-wife to attend a Christmas party with her. Not as a date (They actual date had something come up and she didn't want to go stag).I wanted to help, and I'm not worried about us on a romantic level, but there was something in my gut that said this was not the best idea on the planet.The next thing I know, I'm at the ice cream parlor.Seeing Is BelievingI have a wi-fi- Digital Scale which automatically enters my weight into My FitnessPal. Consequently, I don't really look at it much. My scale shows if I went up or down from the last time I weighed myself (which is typically daily).As the year is coming to an end, I downloaded all of my stats from Myfitnesspal and looked at the lowest and highest weight of the past yearsMy goal for years has been 185 lbs.  May sites say 190 is the top of the range, and so I wanted to go to 185Then I say that in 2016 I was five pounds from hitting my goal. After each year getting closer (with 2013, 2014, and 2105 each getting closer). I also see then when I get close to 220, or 225, I ge mad and get dedicated and focused.You Don't Need to Wait Two Weeks To "Start Over"Here is what I've doneI'm using habitshare (I talked about this on a previous episode) to focus on the things I need to do (getting sleep, hitting calories goals, activity goals, etc)I joined a Stepbet this helps me focus on being activeI bought a new treadmill (more on that later)I'm going to enter my weight into a spreadsheet that shows what my goal weight should be. (All Logical Losers can get a copy of this spreadsheet)My New TreadmillI've said the best exercise is the one you do. I tried a manual treadmill, but in a nutshell, I just liked a motorized treadmill better. I didn't really bother me until it started snowing. My activity went down to nothing, and the weight started to come back up. It wasn't cheap, but I know it would get used. I pulled out a credit card (not my favorite way to pay for things) and but the bullet.I bought a Horizon Fitness T101-05 Folding Treadmill that was on sale.Here is what I like:Built in blue tooth speakersbuilt-in racks for tabletsFeatherlight foldingSuper quietGoes up to 10 MPH and it also inclinesHere is what I think needs improved:There are 40 different variations of programs that you can run, but the documentation on how to use them is poor.The built-in fan is an absolute waste of timeThings to Know:It's heavy. While you can fold it up and drag it around, it's very heavy so pick where you want it, and put it down.From what I read, the Johnson company builds this brand all the parts for the unit, and they are well made and have won awards.ConclusionI've had it a week, and love it.As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases