Reluctance to Get Serious: The Weight Loss Example

As a student of various forms of reluctance, what often comes up is that with respect to initiative taking, in whatever the domain….weight loss, overcoming dating reluctance, writer’s block, etc.... the key weakness is not taking one’s aims and interests seriously.

Will power is insufficient because one isn’t really serious and one isn’t serious because of fear of disapproval if an attempt fails.

One of my female friends is looking for a mate but hates rejection and now she finds it hard, understandably, to get back out there to endure hurt yet again. Hence she has become less serious about pursuing the enterprise

I ran into this same pattern in coaching cold callers. After enough rejection, they got gun shy, and their willingness to pick up the phone yet again typically diminished. It’s hard to get serious in the face of negative results.

I have just finished a short book entitled Fearless Weight Loss. In it I detail my struggle to overcome my reluctance to “get serious” about weight control. It seemingly took me forever until shame drove me off a plateau I had been on for too long. It was only after getting in touch with that FEELING was I able to get serious.

And feelings, as many observers have noted, are the primary drivers of action. See Rudolph Steiner on this point as well as Irvin Yalom.

Finally I got serious because of shame at my failure and my unwillingness to be identified as a “feckless” weight loser. But I didn’t uncover shame until I journalized extensively on what was holding me back, my main drivers and what would express what was most important to me, or about me.

My answer to this question came down do achieving a result that I could be proud of, that made me feel good and think well of myself. That could come from achieving a goal that I valued on numerous grounds; health, self respect, and social approval that is doing something that others would recognize and applaud.

Falling short after setting it up this way was not an option. Hence the negative rein forcer of shame ultimately was the primary driver. I lost the weight to get rid of the shame of not doing something I regarded as important.

So the question for many strivers is: how do I marshall enough self respect to do or not do something that is preventing positive regard.

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