Welcome Program - Day 2

With Amber Kay

Mindset – Conspire For Your Success

In today’s video, Amber is going to look at probably the most important piece of the success puzzle – your mindset. Because knowing what to do and doing the right thing on a consistent basis are two completely different matters, and it’s your mind that commands your body. 

Amber also shares a simple strategy that will help you to prepare better mentally for what lies ahead and to deal with any fears or doubts that you might might currently have so that you feel more confident and at ease about the future.  

Getting started

We’ve included 2 bonus resources to help you adjust to the future that you want.  The first is our Wellness Vision Audio which helps you create inspiring goals to work towards. The second is a Goal Setting Sheet that helps you capture your goals and your reasons for creating change on paper. Both of these resources are designed to help you move away from fear and towards excitement about your new future.  

Tomorrow’s lesson

We’ll be back tomorrow, talking about how to deal with cravings and emotional eating.

 

You can read the transcript for this video below:

Welcome Program Day 2 Transcript

Hi, it’s Amber here from Fresh Start and I’m back with Day 2 of your welcome program. You’re probably feeling excited about the possibilities that lie ahead after your surgery, and you may also be feeling a bit fearful and doubtful about it all too. 

Now, I’m on your team and I’m here to help you with that, so today I’m going to focus on what we at Fresh Start believe is the cornerstone of your success, something that shapes your entire journey after WLS: your mindset. I’m going to share a really simple strategy with you that’s going to help you prepare better mentally for what lies ahead, and also to deal with any of that fear so you can feel more confident and at ease. Now this strategy will also help you to experience better results after your surgery so that you can make the most out of this new opportunity to create a new healthier lifestyle, so that you can enjoy life even more.  .

You might find it unusual that we’re starting with mindset instead of diving into nutrition and exercise. Most health and weight loss programs focus on what and how much people eat and how much they move their body.  

This is definitely part of the ‘health’ solution however those programs and diets are missing the most powerful piece of the puzzle. And when we first started in the health field, we were making the same mistake too!

Having been in this field for many years now, we’ve realised that knowing what to do is one thing. Consistently following through and taking action is another challenge entirely. 

This is precisely why many people have a history of struggling to maintain their results, falling into yo-yo dieting patterns and regaining the weight they worked so hard to lose. 

So what truly drives our actions? It’s our mindset.

 As you navigate the days, weeks, months and years ahead, your mindset will determine your choices, actions and ultimately your success. At Fresh Start we believe that 20% of results is knowing what to do, and 80% of results is the mindset of actually making it happen. It’s the missing piece of the puzzle that you might not have been aware of or you haven’t known what to do about until now. 

And what I mean is that it’s how you see yourself an d think about yourself. 

It’s what you unconsciously think you’re really worth. It’s your beliefs about health, nutrition, being active, and what’s possible for you. It’s about where your focus is and what’s important to you. It’s about knowing what you want and most importantly, why you want it. It’s about the feelings and emotions you most often do and experience, and it’s about how much ownership and responsibility you take for your results, even if they’re not the results you want. It’s about whether you put your energy into problems, and obstacles, or into solutions and possibilities. It’s how determined and motivated you choose to be. It’s the relationship you have with your body. It’s how you handle stress. It’s whether you’re okay with making yourself,and your needs and your self-care a priority. It’s how you achieve the feelings that you want and how you meet your natural human needs for safety and comfort, and connection. It’s the patterns and habits you’ve built over time that are now automatic and effortless. 

It’s about how you approach this next chapter of your life, with your intentions for creating lasting and healthy change.

Your mind is the control centre of your life, so it makes sense to harness that power for good, doesn’t it?

I want to be clear here. WLS is physical surgery, not brain surgery, and maybe you think that I’m stating the obvious. My team and I have however had hundreds of conversations with clients who have really struggled with this concept, because no matter what the physical effects of their surgery are, their brain is the same. Same beliefs, same fears, same habits… Which is why Fresh Start places so much value on the mindset side of things with our  tools, resources and support. 

Now remember, struggling with the mindset side of things is not compulsory. You might find that your mindset is already ready to make all the necessary changes you need to achieve your health and weight goals. The surgery alone can have many positive benefits for your psychology and many patients experience very positive emotional results after their surgery – research has shown consistent uplifts in self love, self care, self confidence, how people see and value themselves and their bodies, body image, and feelings of attractiveness, as well as decreases in anxiety and depression. 

Other related health benefits – for example, coming off diabetic and blood pressure medication for some – also have a massive impact on how great life after surgery can feel overall.

At the same time, remember that you’re going on a journey. A journey where you will have to make changes. A journey where some changes will be forced upon you because life as you once knew it is no longer possible. And change can be scary sometimes, and exciting at others. So it makes sense to be as equipped as possible doesn't it? Where you have options and choices for how you experience your life after your surgery.

So for example, depending on where your mindset is now, there may be a need for you to re-learn or recreate your relationship with physical activity  – to learn how to make it fun and enjoyable so that it simply becomes part of your lifestyle rather than something on your to do list. 

You may also need to re-learn or recreate your relationship with food, especially if you’ve used it as a coping mechanism in the past to give you comfort, or to reduce stress or tiredness or boredom or something else. This is especially important If you feel that food controls you now,  because now is the right time to start to embrace the idea that it can be the other way around. Or maybe your relationship can be one that’s not about control at all, but ease and flow and nourishment and enjoyment.

There may also be a need to re-learn or recreate your relationship with yourself. To have a kinder, more caring, more respectful relationship with you and your body. To motivate yourself from a place of compassion and self-belief rather than judgement and criticism. To be driven by the desire of having the health, happiness and lifestyle results that you want because you truly believe that you’re worthy of them.

Remember, this is a step-by-step process. There’s no rush. You can do it at your own pace.  And we’ll be there to support you in adjusting your mindset with Fresh Start, giving you guidance, resources and inspiration when you want it. Part of this process is seeing how you do feel after surgery mentally, as it’s likely you will feel stronger, more determined and more positive – and if you’re listening to me now then you’re already taking action that is definitely going to reap results, even if it’s initially about being more aware, so that you can make different choices in the future, which will give you different results!

Right now you might be feeling fearful and doubtful about the future, even if you are also feeling excited about the possibilities that lie ahead. There is no doubt that your life will change significantly in many ways after your surgery, and it’s impossible to predict exactly how, so you may have questions like: 

• Am I ready for this?

• Can I sustain this pre-op and post-op diet?

• I’ve heard all sorts of things about life and eating in the first few weeks after surgery – how will I cope?

• What if I don’t succeed in getting rid of my unwanted weight?

• Or you may have other questions coming from a very understandable place of fear or doubt.                   

There is no way of knowing exactly what your personal pre- and post-surgery journey will be like, and it would be easy to get caught up in the uncertainty of it all because let’s face it, no-one truly knows what life after surgery will be like for you until you actually live it. So a really simple strategy that you can use when you notice that you’re experiencing lots of doubts and fears, is to focus on what you want for yourself as a result of the surgery and your future potential healthy lifestyle, and even more importantly why you want it. 

When you’re experiencing and getting caught up in the doubt and the fear it’s because your focus is actually on what you don’t want – all the negative and unwanted ‘what if’ scenarios you can create in your head, which then makes you feel the fear, the doubt and the uncertainty. Our thoughts determine our feelings, so uncomfortable feelings are always being driven by uncomfortable thoughts.

The fastest way to turn this around and to feel more calm, more relaxed, and more positive and empowered, is to focus on and think about what you do want and to stay focused on that.

One way to do this is to start to visualise the way you want your future to be. To take the time to see yourself with the results that you want in all the detail -

What do you want to be able to do physically? 

What sort of clothes do you want to be wearing and how do you want to feel in those clothes? How do you want your energy levels to be? 

How do you want to show up in social situations and how do you want your confidence to be? The more detail that you can visualise, the better. Visualisation is a tool that’s backed by science and it’s used by successful people in all areas of life,  so I’d really encourage you to use it. 

Another powerful strategy that you can use whenever you’re noticing the doubt and the fear is to connect with WHY you’re making these changes. Why it’s important to you and what it’s going to give you. When you want something, and you have really important reasons for wanting it, then these reasons will drive you, they’ll motivate you and they’ll inspire you. It’s your reasons that are going to help you move past any of the challenges you may face on your journey to better health, AND they’ll help you feel so much better and more determined right now as your surgery approaches, enabling you to distract yourself, to refocus your efforts and move past the struggles you might be facing. 

So have a think about ALL of the reasons why you want to create a new healthy lifestyle for yourself. How is it going to improve the other areas of your life that are important to you, by being healthier and moving towards your ideal weight? 

So for example, maybe you're doing this so you have more energy to be with your children, or to be around to see your grandchildren, or to improve your career, or to have more energy to help others, or to find a loving and passionate relationship, or to be able to travel and have amazing experiences in your life, or something else may be your why. Keep bringing your focus back to what’s important to you and how this is going to help you.

To help start that ball rolling, I’ve given you a couple of resources today. The first is a short guided visualisation audio for you. This audio is designed to help you get even clearer about the health and wellness that you want to achieve and to shift you away from any fear and towards the excitement of your potential future. 

The second resource is a guided goal sheet to help you capture your visualisation in writing and to also help you capture your reasons why. This simple activity is designed to get you motivated to do what’s going to be necessary on this journey, to overcome your doubts, and to assist you to make the changes that will really help now and afterwards. You can download both resources on this page and I trust you’ll find them really valuable.

If I was going to ask you to remember just one thing from this pre-surgery program, then let it be the overall importance and power of your mindset, and of getting clear on what you want and why you want it. No-one gets through this journey of life, and through this journey of post-WLS life alone and without help and support. You’re going to need assistance and support at some point if not at multiple points, so I want you to remember that we’re here to help you. Connect with us and use your access to our resources and group webinars early in your journey, so that you can ensure you are equipped and empowered to have your mind conspire for your amazing success. 

Enjoy today’s resources and I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow with the next stage of your welcome program where I’ll be sharing one of the most powerful keys to getting great results by overcoming emotional and mindless eating.