Empower Your Journey: Take Responsibility For Your Success After WLS

As you already know, having weight loss surgery is a major, life changing experience. It took a lot of courage for you to make the decision to have it and this really shows your commitment to a healthier you.

As you navigate your post-surgical journey however, it’s really important to remember that it’s not always going to be smooth sailing. You’re likely to face many situations and challenges that are going to get in your way and that could slow you down. They could be due to the fact that you’ve had surgery, or they could be because life can be unpredictable and difficult at times. As you face these challenges, we want to encourage you to remember one key mindset principle, because  this way of thinking can really make a positive difference to how you experience life and the results that you get.

The principle is that in order for you to move towards your best long-term results, you must take full responsibility for your results.

What this means is that your results don’t have to be something that just happen to you, that are reliant on the surgery alone and on the events that happen in your life, but instead they’re something that you shape and control… and the ultimate responsibility for your success lies with you.  

Watch the quick 10-minute video as Amber talks you through this concept, and then take some time for some powerful reflection – this will really help you to get the results that you want!

You can read the transcript for this video below:

 Hi, it’s Amber here and today I want to share a key mindset tip with you that can really help you on your WLS journey. 

As you already know, having weight loss surgery is a major, life changing experience. It took a lot of courage for you to make the decision to have it and this really shows your commitment to a healthier you.

As you navigate your post-surgical journey however, it’s really important to remember that it’s not always going to be smooth sailing. You’re likely to face many situations and challenges that are going to get in your way and that could slow you down. They could be due to the fact that you’ve had surgery, or they could be because life can be unpredictable and difficult at times. As you face these challenges, I want to encourage you to remember one key mindset principle, because  this way of thinking can really make a positive difference to how you experience life and the results that you get.

The principle is that in order for you to move towards your best long-term results, you must take full responsibility for your results.

What this means is that your results don’t have to be something that just happen to you, that are reliant on the surgery alone and on the events that happen in your life, but instead they’re something that you shape and control… and the ultimate responsibility for your success lies with you.  

When I’m talking about responsibility, I'm talking about response-ability - the ability to choose yourresponse to the situations that you are faced with on this journey, rather than reacting and accepting what turns up. I’m talking about taking ownership of all of the choices you make every day, whether or not you’re facing challenges because you may not have a choice as to what events happen to you in life but it’s important to remember that you always have a choice as to how you react to those circumstances.  

I learnt this principle myself many years ago and have been using it since then, and it’s completely changed how I show up for myself and my life, as well as what I’m able to make happen for myself.

I want to encourage you to see yourself as the captain of your own ship. Just like a sailor can't control the weather but can control the sails, you have the power to navigate through life's challenges, adjusting your course as needed. You can do this!

For example, you might have some incredibly challenging things going on in your life right now, maybe a challenging work situation or a relationship issue, and you may have no control over the events themselves.

Remember though that you always have a choice as to how you respond to those events. If you’re feeling highly stressed because of what’s going on right now, it‘s very understandable to feel that way, and there will be any number of ways that you can respond to what’s going on. Every way that you do respond will lead to particular results, and so the more that you can choose your response, the more personal power you’ll have over how life feels and unfolds for you, and the results that you get. 

We’re not telling you to ignore how you’re feeling - it’s what you do next that counts most. You can choose how you deal with that stress. And it’s how you choose to respond to that stress that will ultimately change the results that you get.  

I know that when I used to feel stressed I used to try to escape through drinking wine or eating chocolate or through distraction by staying up late and binge watching tv. Once I learned coaching and started applying this principle - instead I started to choose different responses. I would see the stress as a sign that I needed to slow down, or change my priorities, or I would cope with the situation by looking for help and support and dealing with the stress through  movement, breathing exercises or going to bed early to help boost my energy levels and coping mechanisms. I realised that there’s always a choice as to how to respond, even if it can be difficult to see at first.  

Another aspect to taking responsibility for our results is about being accountable, to ourselves. Let me explain…There are generally two ways of being in life – we can either be responsible and accountable, and taking ownership of our `results’ – or heavily invested in stories about why we can’t do something, or why something is ‘too hard’. 

To take responsibility or ownership of our results then we have to drop the ‘stories’ about why we’re not getting the results that we want. These stories are also known as ‘reasons’ or ‘excuses’, and theyusually start with “I can’t because...” or “I would do it but...” or “If it wasn’t for ... then I would”. 

Now I’m not talking here about challenges that you’re aware of and are actively working around. I’m talking about the excuses that we use to stop us from taking action and making changes at all. The blocks that prevent us from creating change, and experiencing the results wedesire and deserve, because they allow us to justify to ourselves why we’re not taking the actions that would enable us to achieve those results.

Our stories allow us to keep ourselves in a victim mindset, choosing to believe we have no choice and no control, losing time we could be investing in, and transforming our health and weight. 

On the flip side, we can choose to be responsible for the results that we get and take on the belief that what we experience with our life is entirely up to us, because we may not be able to control the world around us, but we can control the world within us – we can control how we choose to respond to the world around us – and that creates our reality, our experience of our life.

When we choose to believe that we’re at the mercy of life, that life happens TO us and that we have no choice and no control, then we’re giving up our power and our opportunity to create positive and lasting change. So to take responsibility means letting go of blame, excuses and denial. For example, I used to say that I didn’t have enough time to exercise or to rest and recharge when really I just wasn’t making time for them. I wasn’t prioritising them. I also used to blame my unhealthy lunches at work on the lack of choice available to me when really I could have taken my own lunches with me or looked harder for healthier choices.  There are an unlimited number of possible stories!

The moment that we subscribe to our own stories is the moment we give up our personal power to be able to make change, especially on the scale that is perhaps needed to get us to where we want to go.

Now the reality in fact is that you already know how to take responsibility – for example, when you decided to have your surgery. Perhaps you think that having your surgery put the responsibility in the surgeon’s hands – absolutely not. You chose to have your surgery. You may have felt as if you had no choice and that this was your last resort but actually you could have done absolutely nothing, or something else. You consciously decided to have surgery and no matter what got you to that point, it wasn’t necessarily an easy decision. It took courage and action. 

When you started watching this video as well, you were also taking responsibility and action to change your results. You could have easily watched something else or passed it by and chosen something else that would distract you from where you are, rather than helping you to change and be more conscious of how you might be getting in your own way at the moment, so it becomes more difficult to do in the future!

So remember – you are the captain of your own ship and you are responsible for the choices you make and the results you get in life and with your body, and how you feel about them. You can choose to buy into the stories that say that your individual circumstances stop you from getting the health and body you want – or you can choose to do something about them.

Remember also that taking responsibility is not about blame - it’s not about telling yourself that you somehow deserve your challenges or have brought them upon yourself, as blame is about deciding who is at fault, and that’s not going to move you forward. 

Taking responsibility is about deciding that you are the one who has the power to turn things around!

Here’s a simple exercise you can do to help you in this area:

• Think about your current ‘stories’ and excuses. Who or what are you blaming for your current results in relation to your body and health, and how do you not take responsibility for the results that you’re getting? E.g. A knee injury.

• Brainstorm what options you have for overcoming your current challenges and obstacles if you chose right now never to use your excuses and stories ever again. Aim to come up with at least 3 options for each obstacle. E.g. Going to a physiotherapist, starting Pilates, working with an exercise physiologist, finding activities that don’t impact your knee.

• If you chose to take responsibility for the results you get, what needs to change, right now? What do you need to commit to stopping and starting in terms of what you’re doing or saying to yourself and to others? Who do you need to stop holding responsible for the results that you want? E.g. I need to stop using my knee as an excuse to be inactive, and start to take responsibility by focusing on what I can do such as eating better and doing movements that will strengthen or not involve my knee.
• For the next 7 days, act as if you are responsible for the results you get. As you do this, you might like to record in a journal what you’re noticing is different about your world and your health, and how you’re feeling as a result of this new belief.

Deciding to take responsibility puts you in charge of your life and empowers you to overcome your challenges to create the results that you want and deserve. 

Remember also that taking responsibility doesn’t mean being the lone wolf - doing it all on your own. Taking responsibility also means asking for help if you need it. So if you need help then please do reach out to our team for support. 

I trust that you’ll find this useful and that you enjoy experiencing the changes that will happen as a result of applying this key principle.