Good at something? CTRL +C, CTRL+V

Think about how you organize your thoughts regarding and act in the most successful area of your life—those same thought patterns and habits will work in the less than sparkly realms, too.

SURPRISE! You can paint everything wondrous with the same brush.

Great at biz, but sucking at bod? Attack fitness & nutrition like you would a new consulting project. Plan. Measure. Manage. Iterate.

Killing it with family, but can’t make money? Give it the same attention to detail and care. Hold yourself accountable. Think ahead of customers’ needs. Be there.

Why don’t we do this naturally?
My guess?
Blocks.
Big, ol’, beautiful emotional or mental boulders of varying shapes and sizes.

But fear not! If you’re ready, you can start renovating today.
No psychological-archeology tasks to perform.
You can simply choose to step around said blocks.
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Do the things and you’ll have the power.
#LIVINTHATCOPYNPASTELIFE

Often, it’s better to NOT ‘do’ than it is to ‘do.’ We rush about making messes cleaning up other messes, inadvertently creating a cycle absent of progress or meaning. Must you make so much money to buy things to make up for how hard you work to make so much money to ….? Become clear on what feelings you’re after, then make ‘do’ decisions accordingly.

No matter how hellish it feels, trust me, your world is not ending. Any time the skies are so dark that you can’t see your cute little paws, know great change is coming. Relax into it. Soon, the pain will stop. Turmoil will cease. You’ll rise from the ashes more alive than ever.

“Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think and of everything you do is for your ‘self’—and there isn't one.”- Wei Wu Wei. We live in an illusion of separateness, but not unlike great poets and sages have gorgeously pointed out — we are all drops of the same ocean. #playbigger

Be it now. Whatever you think you need to do/have before you can feel _______ is not true. With practice, you can learn to feel it now. Feelings are a result of perception. Perception is a result of focus. Focus is a result of unconscious programming or conscious choice. Study how to direct your mind and choose to impregnate the moment with meanings that free you.

Judging something negatively in another person actually means you’ve found a quality or behavior in yourself you’re wrestling. Practice compassion and you will be free to move forward.

Love. It is all love. No kidding. Somebody behaves in a way that is annoying, hurtful, or crazy to you? They’re scared, one way or another, about not being loved. Love them, without design or desire. It heals everything.

^same thing, but for you. In turmoil? Fearful? Sad? Approach it logically, when you’re ready, and find the fault in your thinking proof where you concluded your lifeline to love was at risk.
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The more you give, the more there is. <- The math you didn’t learn at school.

PLEASE WAIT. BELIEF SYSTEM UPDATING.

Why would you want to update your beliefs?

Other than for the fun of it, how about because of the anxiety or depression you feel because they are clashing with your current life sitch?

A hodgepodge of beliefs fence in (or out) our experience of life. I’m talking about how you think kitchens are best organized, the way you expect a friend to respond if you say you’re sad, what a marriage should look and feel like in year 2, who you need to be to do what you want to do, etc.

You’ve been collecting these, largely unknowingly, since your Est. date and many are so ingrained in your reality that you have no idea that you’re covered from head to toe in them. [“What’s water?”- little fishie]

Maybe there are some you’d like to upgrade. (I go over how to find them in my instagram video diary — D81 ;) shaylee edwards (@shaylee__edwards) • Instagram photos and videos )

Let’s use a scarf to highlight why you might want to:
Lucy grows up in Miami and everybody there wears scarves as tiny skirts. In her house, they tie ‘em a special way and she happens to think it’s actually the best way.
One winter, Lucy goes to NYC to see Beauty & the Beast on Broadway. She notices that the peeps there use scarves to keep their necks warm.
After college, Lucy moved to Cali and she saw that some women there used scarves to tie babies onto their bodies.
The same kinda scarf.
None of the uses is wrong, but until she saw them and opened up to the viability of each, Lucy would probably just go on using scarves the way she first unconsciously learned.

Think about this with relationships as the context.
Or your identity.
Or “work.”

The way you’re used to seeing things might be the only way you can currently think of them, but it might not be the only perspective that works.

I don’t think there are any unequivocally “right” beliefs, just some that align better with what you’re trying to do or how your life is currently.

If anything, I think the less hard-n-fast beliefs you have, the better.

Without rigid ideas, you can be more nimbly responsive in the wild.

Like most rules, beliefs are handy until you know them well, and can consciously and artistically choose unique responses as situations arise.

In upgrading them, it can be easier to go from one belief to one that’s just a little looser, rather than something completely revolutionary.

For a long time, I did this. I’d upgrade a belief to a less restrictive option, and then again as time demanded. And then again.

Eventually I realized that “It’s all good,” and “I can learn to do anything with practice,” are really the only ones I need.

Treating my mind and body like domesticable animals.

We have these two incredible tools to traverse our universe and planet, respectively, and what do we do with them? Let them run us into the proverbial ground. Senseless, stressy thoughts. Poor body management. Lazy everything.

Loops on loops on loops of the same circular messes, all dirtying our best intentions and highest truths.
But, alas! There is a better way!

Leveraging Eastern philosophy, Western psychology, and a grab bag of physiology, physics, art, and poetry gadgets, I now have two adorable, highly-functional, only-sometimes-annoying pets.

“ello, Mind. hullo, Body. It’s me, yo’ boss.”

Taking the reins of these two animals and breaking them in is as much willpower as it is an understanding.

If you aren’t your body, which Michael Singer beautifully argues in “The Search for Truth,” *and* you have the ability to observe the voice in your head, which makes it separate from the thing observing (you, baby), then you can safely walk towards the comforting conclusion that *YOU* are neither.

Discovering this was game-changing— the incessant wants of my mind and body were irrelevant noise and mostly pointless, troublemaking antics.

After the understanding, then the work.

For years I had been winding down (or maybe it’s up?) the path of enlightenment and this tiny truth time-wrinkled the road.

I set out to learn how to reliably rule both for the greater good — peace.

TBH, it’s a bit of a scuffle to restore authority to its proper owner.

Here are some strategies I found useful:

• Start small
  • If you want to learn to play piano, you begin with something manageable. Like where and how you sit.
  • Instead of wrestling your biggest dragons, start with something that isn’t emotionally-charged. Like making your bed or nixing negative talk.
• Use data
  • You (the mind) can’t lie to you (you-you) about many numbers for very long.
  • Most things can be tracked — calories, words, time, applications — so quantify the BEHAVIOR (not the outcome) and train yourself to stick to MANAGEABLE targets.
• Be forgiving
  • If you jack up (and you will), don’t abandon the cause. Review what’s working and what’s not. Make a pivot and keep playing.
• Invite other eyes
  • A mentor, an unbiased audience, or some public display of something will make a difference.
  • For example, working with a personal trainer helps when you (the body) doesn’t want to push past thresholds towards what you (you-you) really want.
• Recognize discomfort and resistance as goal posts
  • If your mind starts to chatter like two girls on a Friday afternoon school bus, know you’ve found a huge opportunity for growth.
  • Come to terms with being uncomfortable mentally and physically and learn to find joy, or at least humor, in it.
  
  

The idea is to build up confidence in your inner knowing, find a reliable protocol to dominate these two demanding entities, and strengthen your ability to focus and execute even when they urge/yell/protest.
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I have to say, IMHO, it’s worth a few months of psychological scrapes, ego bruises, and pouty, whole-body standoffs. When you have these powerful beasts on your higher side, you’re practically limitless.
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I think a better question is, “how do I lose a minimum of 10lbs of fat for good?”
‘cause let’s be serious, if you lose it in one week, it will come back with friends and vengeance.*
*note: if this is for an athletic competition or astronaut job interview weigh-in or other extraneous, finite event, your question is fine as it is. My answer is for the general population aiming to turn a few more heads than last week.

To lose 10# of fat for good, try these steps:

1. Figure out why it really matters to you if you lose the fat or not. If you have a luke-warm reason like, “I don’t want to be fat,” you will get luke-warm results. If you have a real reason that resonates like, “I want to spend more quality time playing with my children and set an example that great health is a discipline,” or “I want to feel confident in my body so I can be my best self in the dating world and find a life-long companion,” you’ll get real results. Write this realllly real reason on your bathroom mirror with dry erase marker or all over your cube walls in code.
2. Commit to keep trying until you do it. Most people fall off around week 4 or 5. They figure, ‘I haven’t lost any weight, I’ll never lose any weight, forget it.’ This couldn’t be further from the truth. It takes your body a while to become ‘ok’ with using fat as fuel because it’s probably been abused for at least 5 or 50 times that length of time. You can lose the weight. Other people have done it. You just need to find your special formula. Doing everything right for longer than that and still not getting results? Try looking into your digestive health. This is a little thing that makes a big difference for a lot of people.
3. Go to sleep earlier. Do this for your hormones, which ultimately regulate whether you lose fat or not. Only sleeping 5 hours now? No probs. Try for 5.5 first. Then 6. Then 6.5. You’ll know when you’re getting enough sleep when you feel happier and say stuff like, “what the heck was I doing before?”
4. Figure out how much, what, and when you are eating. It’s great to have map, but unless you know where you currently are, it’s not going to help you much. I recommend making an album on your phone and capturing everything you eat and drink for 7 to 10 days. We all know what good nutrition is (a variety of unprocessed, organic protein, carbs, and fat) or can google it (I love Precision Nutrition’s blog). How closely does yours resemble that? Super far off in left field? No probs. Start with subbing out one meal or plugging in one snack. Master that. Do another. Often, the biggest obstacle for people nutritionally is lack of planning which results in diets deficit in one thing or another (see: protein). Don’t expect yourself to be a hero. Pack a lunch and snacks you’ll want to eat and leave will-power for the clergy.
5. If you follow those steps, you’ll naturally want to exercise more because you’ll feel better and have more energy. This will seal the deal. Which exercise is best? Whatever one you’ll do consistently. Progressive strength training is the most effective in changing your body shape, but any exercise is better than no exercise. I like Bigger Leaner Stronger or Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle books for an idea on how to program exercises if you want to give strength training a whirl.

Above all else, be patient and keep it real.
A goal like “lose weight” is ambiguous and non-actionable.
A goal like “sleep 7 hrs 5 to 6 days per week” is something you can have a strategy for and track.
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When you take the time to develop these habits, you’ll lose more than weight. See: stress, struggle, strife.

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