No More Snap Backs

My new mantra for weight loss: think yourself thin! It sounds like a bunch of flapdoodle, doesn’t it? Well, I have been thinking about this quite a bit as I begin another journey down the path towards sveltness (or at least looser clothes!). I have come to the conclusion that this time around, this needs to be not just a battle of the will, but even more so, a battle of the mind.

The whole mind-body connection is fascinating to me, and I've read and studied quite a bit about the power of our thoughts. This has been a necessity for me in my career. I have been plagued over the years by performance anxiety, and it's been only in the past few years that I have really begun to be proactive in attacking the problem. Thankfully, I have always been able to overcome my fear and perform well, but that doesn’t change the fact that solo performances have always been filled with dread. A few years ago, I simply reached a point where I grew tired of dreading performances. I started reading and researching the topic, and found out about a man named Don Greene. He's a brilliant sports/music psychologist who worked for many years as a performance coach for Olympic athletes, as well as many golf pros. He always had a secret desire to be a musician, so when the opportunity to work with musicians presented itself, he jumped at the chance. He's now become the leading figure in the music psychology field today. I decided to work with him one on one a couple of summers ago, and it changed my career.

Working with Don Greene opened up a whole world of literature to me that has changed the way I view the world around me. Some of it's a bit kooky, some of it's loopy new agey hogwash, but when you sift through all of the goofy stuff, there are some fundamental truths that really resonate with me. Bottom line: your thought shapes your life. It's the whole "for as a man thinketh, so is he" view of the world.

To my way of thinking, it's not a case of "Name it and Claim it, sister!" It's obviously not that easy. Just thinking I'll do well on a recital isn't going to make it so. But, if I've done the work, and the right amount of preparation, then what my thinking is can have a huge impact on the end result. If I think or fear that I'm going to mess up the hard passages, I probably will. I've learned I need to control my thoughts, and be incredibly vigilant, or else problems ensue. I have learned to cultivate the type of thinking that builds on a belief that I can nail the music--I hear the hard passages in my mind the way I want them to go, and it's amazing how well it works. I have to use this type of thinking in my practice sessions, combating the flood of negative and critical thoughts that always seem to be there, and I consider this to be the most important part of my preparation. As long as I am vigilant in creating the right environment in my mind, an environment of confidence, belief in myself, and a belief that I will succeed, it's amazingly effective.

These ideas stem primarily from a book that Don Greene introduced to me. It has a crazy title: The New Psychocybernetics, by Maxwell Maltz. Maltz was fascinated by the whole idea of the self-esteem, an idea that he helped to propagate. He was a plastic surgeon, and he marveled at the different psychological responses of his patients following surgeries. Many of his patients were completely transformed following surgery, while others continued to view themselves in the same negative light that brought them to Maltz in the first place. He realized it was their inner conception of themselves that was the real problem. Eventually, he studied psychology and focused on providing psychological therapy along with plastic surgery. In his patients, he discovered that their mental state was the most important element of their transformation.

As I have been contemplating the shedding of the pounds, and my hoped for success, a basic tenet of Maxwell Maltz has come to mind often. He talks about the tendency for us to “snap back” to old habits. He uses the example of people who have brief success at effecting major life changes, only to “snap back” to their old habits after the initial push is over. To his way of thinking, (and I happen to agree with him), these individuals never truly viewed themselves as moving on from their old way of living, and more importantly, they failed to transform their conception of themselves.

If I’m going to succeed in this endeavor, I’ve become aware of the need to utterly transform my thinking. If I want to shed the pounds, and keep them off, then I need to completely change the way I think. Lately, I have been observing those I know who have never succumbed in the battle of the bulge. I have been wondering if it’s a continuous battle for them. For some, it certainly is, but for others, it’s simply the way they live. To their way of thinking, they are thin and in shape. Bottom line. They live a life that is shaped by a certain view of themselves, and they don’t transgress enough to go beyond the bounds of their own self conception. This of course informs their habits and way of living, and results in individuals who are as they conceive of themselves. “As a man thinketh…”

In my case, it is time to change my thinking. Whenever I have shed the pounds in the past, it was always with the thought that being thinner was an aberration, and not the way I really am. There was the fear of “snapping back,” and it sure happened, each and every time. I remember one conversation I had with a colleague of mine who shared his belief about people fighting the spare tire: some people just need to accept the fact that they’re going to be overweight. I realize now this has been the way I’ve always viewed myself. The fact is, I have never viewed myself as being anything other than what I have always been, a guy with at least a few extra pounds, and then some, even when I was much thinner. This awareness has been an epiphany to me.

It comes full circle then. My mantra will indeed be something that sounds like complete hogwash, though to me, I believe it to be the key to my success. The fact is that in order to succeed, I must “think myself thin,” or better yet, "think myself healthy." Until I do that, it’s a wasted effort. I am in earnest, and determined to succeed.