Stacking your deck

Image from Flickr, by LaRuth

There are secrets to success.  When you're trying to transform your life - and if you really want to make any gains with body transformations, you are wanting to change your life - these secrets are what makes it possible.

One rule that is, in my opinion, a hard and fast rule that has no wiggle room is that you are who you surround yourself with.


Let's be honest.  This ain't easy.  You are trying to go from being a sedentary soul who probably eats whatever they want, to someone who is active and careful about what they put into their body.  It may sound easy, but it's not.  It's a very radical transformation, and you need to understand it as such.

In your life, you'll encounter three kinds of people.  The first are those who won't care either way.  You're doing what you're doing, and it doesn't impact them so they really could give a flying flip.  These people aren't really a problem.

The next kind are the best kind.  These are your friends and loved ones who will support you.  They'll ask questions, not to ridicule you, but to understand so they can help.  They stop eating pizza in front of you.  When they offer you something to eat, it's going to be healthy stuff.  When it's not, it's because they misunderstood what "healthy" is and quickly apologize.  Obviously, these people aren't an issue either.

The third kind are the troublemakers.  They don't get what you're doing.  They don't comprehend it, and they don't care to.  These are the people who offer you a doughnut, and when you politely decline, counter with, "Oh come on!  One doughnut won't kill you!"  It's not just once either.  It's not like they don't understand how important this transformation is either.

These people don't care about you, or your goals. They don't care about how you're trying to change your life.  They're miserable, and they want company.  Maybe to them, they're not unhealthy as long as they're healthier than you.  Maybe a lot of things.  Their reasons and motivations are irrelevant. 

So what do you do?  Do you just ignore the comments, the efforts to take you off of your path?

My own take?  You need to cut these people from your life.  Give them a warning first if you need to, but they need to be cut out of your life like a cancer if they don't cease and desist.

Each comment like this acts like a grinder, ripping away your resolve bit by bit.  In moments of weakness, there may not be as much resolve as you would like, and just one comment could be enough.  Even without those moments, it could take only a few week.  Maybe it would take months.  However long, eventually you would find it more and more difficult to resist the suggestions.

When you undertake something like a lifestyle transformation, it's not easy.  If it were, you wouldn't be reading a blog about it.  You'd just wake up and do it, and everything would be peachy-keen-hunky-dory-ok-fine.  That's not how life works unfortunately.  You need to stack the deck in your favor.

Yes, some of this is brutal sounding.  Suggesting you remove someone from your life shouldn't sound pleasant.  If it did, then they didn't mean a thing to you.  The fact that they do mean something is what makes their words so difficult to handle.

By all means, try and reason with them.  Explain to them how important this is, not just for your mental well being, but your physical well being.  Try and get them to understand.  Maybe they will, but if not?

At some point, you may well have to cut them off.

However, when you surround yourself with the kind of people who will support you - and you need to support them as well - then you've got a leg up.  You've stacked the deck in your favor.  They will support you and help keep you accountable.

Trust me.  It makes all the difference in the world.