You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen episode number 115. Welcome to Weight Loss for Successful Women, a podcast for women who are ready to break the diet cycle and end their struggle with weight for good. Here’s your host, fortune 100 executive, and certified life coach, Shannan Christiansen.

Hello love. So happy to be back with you. Are you waiting for the right time to lose weight? I know, right. When is the right time? I did an episode, number 87, introducing this thing we tell ourselves, this belief. But today I want to continue the conversation.

But first, I want to give a listener shout out. And this is to Diane Gruhlke. This is my favorite podcast, and I look forward to every new episode. I always learn so much. I absolutely loved this episode and hearing the stories of ladies who have the same struggle with weight loss that I do. Listening to their stories gives me so much inspiration and hope. Beautiful women supporting beautiful women. Thanks for sharing your stories and tips for success. Makes me feel unstoppable.

Ooh, that was the Transform Boss episode. I think it was episode number 99. I know Diane, I love it. Diane is one of our Transform Bosses. She’s amazing. She’s lost lots of weight. She’s, you know, she’s a mentor too. She’s absolutely amazing. And you know, Diane, I have so much love for you, and I’m so proud of you and all the work that you do.

And my love, share this podcast with three women you know who are struggling with loving their body, loving themselves, and who want to get off the diet rollercoaster by changing their mindset and beliefs instead of quick fix, you know, nonsense. And if you find what you learn here valuable, and you like it, then you can help other women find this show by leaving a review and rating of the show. Also subscribe by hitting the follow button or clicking the plus sign so I’m in your library every Wednesday morning.

So as I record this, we are just coming off my 50th birthday weekend and Thanksgiving, and I have to tell you my love, it was just so much amazingness, and Thanksgiving was so beautiful. It was fun. We, you know, last year because of COVID, I didn’t have, you know, my brother didn’t come, right. We didn’t have certain members of our family, and this year we did. And so it was just so amazing to be with our family, our immediate family, and of course all the grand babies and my niece and nephew, and my son and daughter-in-law, it was just so much love. I just loved all of it.

And you know, the food was good too. I do have to say. And you know, this is the first year that I’ve really asked for help. I asked my son and daughter-in-law to come over, and my dad, and help me on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, because I’ve had this little cold, little bronchitis, and they did, and we’re going to start doing that every year, for sure.

My daughter-in-law is an amazing cook. So is was my son. He like made my birthday cake, and my dad made the Jell-O. It was very delicious. And so, and he was very proud of it. It was super sweet. And so it was so nice to have the help. And we just had a lot of fun together cooking together. And so a little bit of sickness kind of turned out to be a really amazing thing.

And then Thanksgiving was great. And then, you know, my birthday was so great. You know, my two oldest grandkids on Thanksgiving were like begging me to spend the night, you know, they do every time, but, you know, I caved in because I love them and I just, you know, I wanted them to stay too. So they stayed the night on Thanksgiving night and you know, so I celebrated my birthday with them. I woke up with them, you know, and it was so fun to spend that time with them. And we actually, in my community, we have this really amazing park that they have built and it’s got a little lake and it’s got several different parks and basketball courts. It’s kind of a whole thing. And we went there, walked by the lake and saw the ducks. And then, you know, they climbed on these, they have these really huge kind of climbing structures. And we played on the swings and just had so much fun.

Paul and I took them home, and then Paul and I, we saw this really amazing movie, King Richard. It’s the story of Venus and Serena Williams and their dad , and it’s really good, Paul and I really enjoyed it. It was really inspirational, I thought. And so I recommend it highly. And so we just had this really fun. And then over the weekend I did a lot of resting because I’m still trying to heal my body. And so it was just a really blessed 50th celebration.

And, you know, I had so many, you know, all of my coaches and mentors in Transform, they, you know, bought me just the most beautiful touching gifts that I will have forever. And I felt really special and loved. And, you know, I mean, it does make me a little emotional because I just, I, you know, all of the ladies in Transform Boss and all of my friends and all of my family and you just, all the humans just, you know, sent me such amazing birthday wishes and so much love. And I just feel really grateful and really blessed for this beautiful life that I get to live.

So onto the show my love. So I want to talk about the right time. I see and hear this a lot. I do, right. I’ll start after vacation or after the holidays or after the winter. And I want to share this story with you. So this was pretty much right after my mom had passed and I had applied to be in my coaches, she had a one-on-one program, or it was a group program actually, but it was a very small group program. And I had applied for it and I had a one-on-one with her and, you know, I was all like, okay, I want to be in this program. Then she told me the price and it was, you know, pretty expensive. It was like $12,000. And so I started to tell myself that it wasn’t the right time.

Actually, I sent an email to her, you know, saying that, you know, I thought about it, and I gave the excuse actually that my mom had just passed and that, you know, it just wasn’t the right time for me right now. And I was scared that, you know, I wasn’t going to be able to commit because I was still working through all the emotions of my mom. And of course she just sent me this lovely email back.

And you know, that was that. And I share this story with you ladies, because yes, my mom had just passed. You know, it was a couple months after that. And you know, it didn’t, you know, my brain was processing and I was grieving, but the crazy part of all of it was my coach, she was exactly what I needed.

I needed support. I needed love. I had, you know, gained 55 pounds in nine months, you know, while my mom was passing, and I was feeling horrible about myself. I was feeling, you know, just exhausted. I felt like I was drowning. I felt like I was literally walking through mud. Like that is how I felt, and what I needed was a coach.

I needed the support. I needed someone to help me. I needed these tools that I teach today. And though I, you know, I had been learning them for years from her. This program was exactly what I needed. And you know, again, I ended up, you know, a couple of years later going through one of her programs. But honestly, I just delayed my progress. And I was out there doing it by myself. And, you know, I just delayed my results, and it came from fear. Fear that I was gonna fail, fear that what if I do this and I pay this money and I don’t do it? What if I don’t lose the weight? All of this fear came up.

What if I don’t have the time? You know, all the standard things. You know, love, there is never a right time. There really isn’t. And usually when we think it’s not the right time, when we’re in grief or when we are in transition, that’s exactly the right time. That’s when we need a coach. That’s when we need support. That’s when we need love from others.

But what happens is when these things happen in our lives, when we get really busy, when we get really overwhelmed, when we have these monumental really life changing events happen, or we’re in some sort of transition, whether it’s divorce or, you know, job change or something like that, this is just a protection mechanism from Lizzy.

We go back to all of those old thoughts and beliefs that we’ve had our whole lives. And we shut down. We like pull, you know, we go back into our cave and we shut the door. I don’t think there were, maybe there were doors on the cave, I don’t know, but that’s what we do. And you know, we do this from a place of fear. Not from a place of love or a place of decision. If I had decided that it wasn’t the right time for maybe other reasons, maybe she wasn’t the coach for me, or maybe the program wasn’t for me, or, you know, whatever it was. But it wasn’t a place of love for myself. That’s not how I made that decision.

I made that decision out of fear. I made that decision that I was going to fail that I wasn’t going to follow through, you know, and I had all of these reasons to justify what I was thinking. And, you know, I also thought I needed to be perfect. I thought, oh, here’s my coach, I need to do everything perfectly for her.

And perfectionism is just another word for inaction. I want you to hear that again. Perfectionism is just another word for inaction. When we think we have to be perfect, when we think we have to eat perfectly, exercise perfectly, perfect mother, perfect wife, all the things. When we think we have to be perfect, then we do nothing.

We freeze. We feel paralyzed. We buffer, we overeat, we over TV. We over social media. We do all the things that are not for our best future selves. And, you know, perfectionism comes from how we’re socialized. We’re socialized to be perfect. You know, we, as we were growing up, I’m sure same for you as it was for me, when I was “perfect” I was rewarded. When I had good grades. When I did the perfect things. When I showed up perfectly, I received rewards. And so over time, if I failed at something, then I felt the punishment because, and mostly it was from myself beating myself up.

And so, when I wasn’t the perfect wife or mother or daughter or friend or employee, you know, I would beat myself up and I would punish myself. And this is just kind of how we’re socialized. We’re socialized to give reward for, you know, A plus work. I teach this in Transform, I teach C work. And, you know, I learned this from my coach. She says B minus, but I’m all about C and C work. And that, you know, I want to give the gold stars for those who are doing the C work. Because the A work, what happens is, you know, you think you need to do A plus work. Maybe you do it, but you do it at the expense of love for yourself.

You do it at the expense of, you know, showing up for yourself and showing up with love. And, you know, ah, I tell you, I really have learned this the older that I get. You know, perfectionism is just one of the biggest lies that we’re told that we have to be perfect, that we have to do everything at this high level.

And I love to over deliver. I over deliver to my clients, but I don’t have to be perfect at it. And I fail at it. And you know, you’ll find, you know, spelling mistakes, I mispronounce words. I don’t know. There’s all sorts of things, right. And I make mistakes. And I just want to say this to you because love, perfectionism is just another word for inaction.

When we were younger, we had a lot of push to be perfect. And then as we have become adults, there are certain things, including our weight is probably the number one thing for me, is any time I thought I couldn’t be perfect when I was on the diet roller coaster, I would be eating all the things. I would either be in or out. If I could not be perfect then I would tell myself, I’ll start on Monday, I’ll start tomorrow, I’ll start when I get the new journal or after I go grocery shopping, or when all the “bad food” is out of my house. I would tell myself this over and over again. And I just want to offer you a different way.

I want to offer you C work. I want to offer you that the only way to lose weight for the last time, I mean hear this, the only way is through imperfect action, C work. Through failing and through having support, having a community around you that will pick you up, getting coached, having someone show you what’s happening in that beautiful brain of yours, and practicing beliefs and new thoughts so that you can start to believe something different about yourself.

And, you know, I think about, you know, I don’t beat myself up about, you know, that I didn’t go to Brooke’s program. You know, it was just a lesson for me. It was such a lesson in this any time I tell myself that it’s not the right time, that I’m going to start it later, or I’m going to do, I really question myself. I ask myself why? Am I coming, is this a decision I’m making out of fear? Or is this a decision I’m making out of love? What would C work do right now? What would love do right now?

Those questions are really important as you’re starting to embark on this journey of losing weight for the last time, living in a body that you love and, you know, finding freedom on this journey of, you know, losing weight for the last time. And it is so much more than that. It really is about learning how to love yourself, and forgive yourself, and fail, and not quit. Hear that, fail and not quit. I can’t tell you how often I would have a failure, I would make a mistake, and then I would quit on myself. And you know, all of my Transform Bosses, you know, I was just coaching someone, and I was so proud of her because, you know, she was kind of beating her own self up, but I was just so proud because she keeps showing up.

She keeps, you know, and she has lots of success, but you know, Lizzie, Lizzie was showing her all the things she should be doing, or what she could be doing. And I just, oh, I just had so much love for her. I mean, I do love her. And I mean, I do like, Ooh, you know, I love my ladies. And I just, because you know, it’s goes back to this perfectionism that we’ve been socialized to be.

So today my love, you can start. Not tomorrow. Not in an hour. Go to episode number 6 and number 106. And it’s all about the realistic plan. It just takes you doing one thing, like making your realistic plan. The realistic plan is all about allowance, learning to break your diet brain. How to start changing, you know, all of this diet trauma that you’ve endured, and diet culture, and breaking up with dieting for good.

And don’t forget, come into Transform Boss Weight Loss on February 9^th. I will teach you and coach you on how to lose weight for the very last time through freedom, allowance and love. I want you to come imperfectly. I want you to fail. I want you to ultimately have all the success, but it comes through imperfect action. Small steps forward.

The transformational questions and actions today are one, what are you “not starting?”  Number two, what have you told yourself that you can do after the holidays? Number three, what is the one thing that you can do today that is C work. And number four, listen to episode number 6 and 106 to learn all about my number one fundamental, the realistic plan.

And if you want to take this work deeper and you want to start now, take the free eight-day podcast challenge. Go to bflycoaching.com/podcast8. And that is the number 8, All right my loves. Bye for now.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Weight Loss for Successful Women. If you love what you heard today and want to learn more, come on over to bfly.coaching.com. See you next week.