What Do You Desire?

Desires are an interesting concept.  Who doesn’t desire to be healthy, wealthy and wise? Advertising campaigns all seem to be geared at drawing us in to act upon
some of our most innate desires. We want to be thin, we want more time for the
things that matter in life, we want more money, we want better relationships,
we want…we want… we WANT ! So many of our desires, however, are never really actualized into achievement.  Why is that?

I’ve spent the better part of the last year working as a health coach to help clients lose weight and improve their overall health status. Some need to lose weight for serious health reasons. Others, because they know they are teetering on the brink of certain weight-related diseases like Type II diabetes, hypertension, heart disease. Still others just want to look and feel better in their clothes or have an upcoming wedding or reunion to attend.

As someone who has had plenty of firsthand experience going
on diets, losing weight and regaining it all back again, I am always leery of
any approach that tries to offer a “simple” formula of just eat less and
exercise more.  Because what I’ve come to realize is that losing weight is NOT just about what we eat or how we use our bodies.  It is every bit as much about the mental processes that go on inside our head every day when we are faced with making choices that either lead us to the path of better health, or away from it. Our habits have to change permanently in order to have long-term success.

Behavioral scientist and author Robert Fritz talks about our
desires in terms of frames.  Imagine looking through a camera that can zoom in and zoom out.  When we look through the lens and zoom in as tight as possible, we are looking at things in a close up frame where things may be so close to our face that they are indistinguishable.  Pull back a little bit and we see things in a medium shot frame where the image is clear and discernible.  Pull it as far as it can go, and things look far away and sometimes fuzzy.   

When it comes to our desires, Fritz says that we often tend to look at things from either a close up frame or a long-shot frame.  In the close up frame, the desires that influence our behaviors are based on instincts, appetites, and impulses. 

What does that mean when it comes to eating?  For many of us it means that we don’t always think consciously about how the food we are eating may be impacting our health. It's too "close up" to our face to be able to see the big picture in the context of our health.  We eat out of boredom, or because we have certain triggers situations that set us up to overeat. A good example for me is that when I used to watch t.v. at night, I always had to have something to munch on. And of course, the best thing to munch on in front of the t.v. is usually whatever I can most easily access from my kitchen.  Potato chips? Yes, please!  Ice cream? Sure…whynot!  And no trip to the movie theater would be complete without a bucket of calorie-laden popcorn would it?  Sound familiar?

These are examples of acting on our impulses and instincts in a close-up frame.  We don’t stop to think about what we are doing to our bodies.  We just act on our basest desires for immediate gratification.

The long-range frame of desire is another area where many of us get tripped up when it comes to our health. This is the area where things are very vague and fuzzy.  This is the area where I would say “I’ll start going to the gym when my work schedule lightens up and I can find the time.”  Or how about this one: “I know I need to lose weight/get another job/finish my degree/WHATEVER, but I just have too much on my plate right now.” 

Procrastination lives in the long-shot frame. It’s where we allow one-of-these-days to become never. It’s where we have lots of good intentions, but seldom take meaningful action.

So that leaves the medium shot frame.  This is where Fritz suggests we have the
power to create the life we really want for ourselves because it puts us in the
frame of taking actions today that will lead to the desired outcomes we want
tomorrow.  The medium frame of desire is where our values and aspirations lie. It is where we empower ourselves to make choices that will either move us closer to our goals or farther away from them. 

You can go to the gym and take that Zumba class today. But you
know it will not suddenly create a healthy body for you tomorrow because
getting healthy is a process that requires lots of daily steps to achieve the
desired outcome.  You can eat healthy foods today, but if you eat a double cheeseburger with fries tomorrow then you already know you are not going to lose weight. 

Controlling our impulses, instincts and desires for short-term sensory
gratification and instead being mindful each day of how all of our actions
affect our goals is the only way to move forward in reaching them.

These frames of desire apply not only to health-related goals like losing weight.  They have application in every area of our lives where we desire to achieve something but don’t always know how to get there.

So what do you desire?  Are you living in the close-up frame of engaging in behaviors that satisfy the here-and-now but do little in moving you closer to your goals? If so, you're not alone. And there IS a way to change that.

In my next blog, I’ll describe a process for helping you get out of those close-up and long-range frames and instead move into the medium-shot where you can create the outcomes you desire that tap into your highest values and aspirations.

In the meantime, I wish you good health and happiness!