The Healthy Indian Diet
  • Home
  • Books
  • Eat Healthy
  • Recipes
  • Blog

Lose Weight - Tip #2: Aim for Excellence, But NOT Perfection

7/29/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
"Perfect is the enemy of good." 

This famous quote, attributed to Voltaire, is a useful reminder when we embark on doing something new. Because no mindset works against us more when we start something new than the perfectionist's mindset. 

Know a perfectionist? You probably do. We all know somebody who decided to do something new, hard, and noble -- quit smoking, learn how to play an instrument, or eat from a new diet. It is all that person would talk about. She or he talked about it all the time because she was obsessed, and also because she was trying to keep herself true and perfect to adopting this new thing in her life. 

What happened then when she made one little mistake? When she lit up a cigarette after being good for 3 and not having one, or when she did not pick up the guitar for 2 days after being good about strumming it daily for two weeks, or when she ate a sandwich after swearing off bread and being good about avoiding it for a week? 

This perfectionist, after one such small mistake, she quit her noble cause. Why? Because she put way too much pressure on herself. She created way too high expectations for herself on being able to follow through this new thing perfectly. And thus, she set herself up to fail. 

So what then is the best mindset when doing something new, hard, and noble, like adopting new foods into what you eat everyday and letting go of old favorites to lose weight and become healthier? 

The answer is the mindset that let's you feel okay failing on occasion. In fact, build failure into your diet. Use Pareto's principle of 80/20, where you do things right 80% of the time, and 20% of the time you give yourself leeway to do the wrong thing. 

If you plan to eat the right foods and not any bad ones for 4 weeks, I encourage you on 1 day to eat all the crap food you like. For 6 days, eat the right food. And if on one of those weeks, you eat the wrong food on 2 days, be okay with it. Just go back to eating right 6 days a week.


The wrong mindset tells you to try eating right for all 7 days a week, all 4 weeks a month,. The pressure and expectations to follow through everyday is much too high for our human nature, so you will quit doing the right thing altogether. Try to be perfect, and oddly enough, you will be far from achieving your goal of losing weight and become healthier versus if you tried to perfect most of the time and imperfect on a day or two each week. 

So the Healthy Indian knows this well: Aim to be almost perfect, but never perfect, when doing something new, hard and noble like eating better food and not the old crap food you liked so much, in order to achieve success.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Book

    Paperback book
    Amazon.com
    Barnes & Noble

    E-Book
    Amazon Kindle
    Apple iPad/iPhone
    B&N Nook
    Smashwords

    Author

    Niraj "Raj" Patel, M.D.

    Picture

    Contact

    info@healthyindiandiet.com

    Archives

    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    February 2011

    Categories

    All
    Brown Rice
    Healthy Fats
    Healthy Indian Recipes
    Interviews
    Legumes
    Lose Weight
    Low Bad Carb
    Miscellaneous
    Plant Based Foods
    Plant-based Foods
    Research
    Reviews
    Spice
    Sugar
    Talks
    Tips
    Traditional Diet
    Whole Grains

    RSS Feed

    Disclaimer: The facts, advice and opinion on www.healthyindiandiet.com are based on scientific evidence published in journals. However, no content should be construed as medical advice. You should seek the counsel of your physician before making changes based on the content, especially if you have a medical condition.  
This site is for people who want to eat healthy and love Indian food. Consult your physician before making changes to your diet. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the publisher or authors assume any liability for consequences to persons or property arising out of or related to any use of the material on this website.
(c) 2010-2016 Surya Health Press
Contact us at info@healthyindiandiet.com.
Photos used under Creative Commons from rocketjim54, Charles Haynes, cyclonebill, Svadilfari, jeffreyw, Bordecia34