If it is not happening, I am sure it’s not because you’re lazy or unmotivated, but perhaps you’re trying to copy someone else’s success?

Take ideas from others by all means, but test them, bend them, tweak them, twist them, challenge them or toss them completely if you find they don’t work for your lifestyle, body, mindset or desires.

I got caught in the Paleo diet hype way back, including completing the “Paleo Whole 30” a number of times. This amazing period of learning unveiled so much to and for me. I started my passage without consideration of where I had been - I was already eating “clean foods”, nothing processed or out of a box, just real foods with plenty of herbs and spices and greens! That was me - I ate mostly vegetables with fish and legumes, my body had not experienced red meat or eggs, a Pritikin follower who advocated for low fat and a cardio junky. I slept no more than five hours per night and I ran on cortisol. I had aborted meditation and largely yoga at the time to make way for sixteen hour work days Monday to Saturday (intermingled with cooking for and running my children to sports/fishing ventures and running, hiking bikeriding and swimming for myself ) and Sundays’ were four hour work days. My world included no down time - zip recovery, zip rest. I embarked on the Paleo way without any changes in my lifestyle and expected the nutrition aspect of my change to bring about a new transformation in my health, without the need to alter my mindset in the other lifestyle areas that encompassed health, happiness and purpose.

The people that joined me on this ride had a different outlook as they premised that a Paleo lifestyle would get so much easier once they survive the initiation of Eating Whole 30. They were looking for a diet protocol that they could abide to, follow strictly to get them on target towards being in the external body they desired. But the opposite is often true. It gets much harder because …

1 . Will power and decision making is exhaustible. It is possible to resist for a while, but resisting things takes a tremendous amount of energy and eventually wears us down and that’s when our no so helpful habits start to creep back in.

2. The novelty of doing something new wears off.

3. There is a myth out there that 21 days builds a habit. The reality is that it takes an instant to commit to building a habit. It takes a lifetime to keep enforcing it, and about 2 seconds to stop it in it’s tracks.

I don’t want to discourage. But I think it can only help if you know what you are up against and will be ready for the challenges that come after day 30.

To be successful we need to reinvent who we are being … to accomplish this, we have to learn new skills, think differently and most importantly be different.