Do You Want An Easy Life or Do You Want a Great One?

This weight loss article was originally inspired by an article with a similar title here.

Most of us tell ourselves a completely made up story about our health & weight, because feeling good now is more important than the truth.

Nobody wants the truth.

Nobody likes it.

The reality is that we would rather lie to a person’s face, than tell them what we really think of them.

We would rather not look in the mirror or weigh ourselves, than continue drinking poison and eating junk.

We do it because it’s easier, and a lot less scary, to just lie – and feel good now – until the implosion occurs.

But here’s the real truth: The implosion is always building.

One of the biggest concepts in my book Master The Day was that in order to become successful at losing weight achieving other life goals, we need to become aware of our own inner narrative.

Here’s what that really looks like in action.

Do You Want To Be Healthy, Happy & Fit – Or Do You Just Want Every Day to be Easy?

It’s textbook: I hear from a friend that her friend really needs a pep talk from me.

She said that her friend is reaching the danger zone – almost 300 pounds – and she’s afraid that she’s going to have a heart attack or randomly keel over and die.

When she tells me that she tried talking to her friend, to help her realize what she’s been doing to herself, the friend says “she’s fine.”

She’s fine.

Double her natural bodyweight, virtually given a death sentence by 40 by her doctor, already getting ready to be pumped full of meds at the age of 30.

She’s fine.

In reality, she’s in denial.

The pain has gotten to the point where it’s SO BAD, that she can’t even consciously deal with it anymore, and it’s easier in the short run to shut down, do what she wants, and live in denial.

Until the implosion and meltdown occurs.

For some of us, we just avoid the scale.

It’s gotten to the point where we constantly fail every time we try, so we figure, “screw it, what a waste of my time. I’ll just eat whatever I want and be done with it. I want to live my life.”

We gradually devolve more and more, until we’re fully unconscious. We ignore the aches and pains, we ignore the sleepyness after eating, we ignore all the little join problems and fatigue. We just deny deny deny, and choose to become less conscious, until we’re forced to listen.

We chose easy – which neither made us happy, nor healthy.

Don’t Worry About Money – Or Face Being In Debt?

When I was 22 and had my first few jobs out of college, I was finally making a bit of money. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough that I definitely could’ve been saving quite a lot and stashing it away for a rainy day, for investments, or for the future.

Unfortunately, I found myself spending tons of money for the first time in my life too – since I had the money.

Drinks a few times a week with friends? Sure. That’s $100 a week.

Go out to dinner and meet up with people? Ok, $20 a pop.

Take weekend trips and burn $300 in gas? Sure, let’s do it.

And never once did I ever track how much money I spent or I made – not once!

Why not? Because it sucked.

That was hard, that took effort, that wasn’t easy, and that put a damper on my life. Man… all this stuff I couldn’t do if I decided to choose the hard (right) decision.

As a result, I was constantly overdrawing my bank account. -$30 here, -$70 here, $-100 there.

One time, I even overdrew my bank account that was already overdrawn twice – how that’s possible, I don’t even know.

The result?

I chose easy, and I chose denial. As a result, I didn’t have any money and paid hundreds in overdraft fees.

The truth hurts, and I didn’t want anything to do with it.

Tell Your Friends, “I’m Happy” When It’s a Lie?

How many of us say, “Yeah, I’m happy” just because it’s a social convention? Plenty.

If we sat down, and on paper, wrote down the things that seriously were not working – relationships, jobs, daily routines – it’d scare us.

So much stuff to change, so many wrong decisions I made.

We choose easy – we say we’re happy, lie to ourselves, feel the negative internal tension, and just get on with life. Rather than changing what obviously doesn’t work.

It’s EASY to say, “things are fine in my marriage,” while obviously lying, rather than admitting that things have gotten horrible and unacceptable – and then changing something.

Change sucks. It takes effort. It often takes emotional pain.

But the horrible irony is that we hold in that our marriage is making us sick, we hold in that we’re unhappy, we hold in that it’s not working, until somebody cheats on the other, asks for a divorce, or just implodes.

And then we feel free. And we wonder why we didn’t sooner. Lying to ourself gets tiring and takes its toll.

You Can Choose Your Dream, or The Easy Way, But Often Not Both

At the end of the day, we have two choices – we can choose easy, or we can choose to evolve.

The easy path is being unconscious – about the food we eat, the money we spend, the words we say, and the state of our lives.

The easy path requires little thought and just drives us into deeper levels of dissatisfaction, which we can then cover up with more food, alcohol, mindless drugs, TV, etc.

The reality is that every single day is a choice – and it doesn’t matter if the choice is fitness, or finances, the path to success is the exact same.

Choose to be more conscious of what’s working, and what isn’t.

The unconscious path is denial – denying what isn’t working, ignoring it and sweeping it under the rug.

The conscious path takes a bit more energy.

Being honest with ourselves.

ADMITTING what isn’t working about our health or our weight.

Being determined to change and do something different.

And then doing something different on Monday, then Tuesday, and Wednesday, and every single day.

Committing to sticking out the course as long as it takes.

GETTING UP after getting discouraged, and knocked down, seeing the scale go up two pounds instead of down two pounds.

And then PERSISTING long after you’ve wanted to quit – whether it takes you twice as long, three times as long, or ten times as long.

The Ultimate Health Question to Ask Yourself Right Now

So here’s my question for you.

Do you want the easy life – where it’s comfortable every day, even if you live in denial, and are massively unhappy behind all the drug addictions (food, TV, alcohol, mindless entertainment) – or do you want a fulfilling life?

Because I can sure as hell promise you that the easy, unconscious path today is the least fulfilling in the long run.

Or do you want the “conscious” path – which honestly isn’t that much harder – but involves being honest with yourself, taking steps to change, and then committing?

It may hurt to admit that we’re eating because we hate our job and our relationship, but in the long run, the fulfillment is well worth it.

Want an easy life?

Eat what you want, think what you want, do what you want, buy what you want.

Be totally unconscious.

Don’t give a crap about tomorrow.

Sure, life will be easy.

UNTIL the heart attack comes.

UNTIL your spouse tells you for the 50th time that this isn’t working, and they leave.

UNTIL you get disgusted with yourself, and get a death sentence from your doctor.

You can enjoy the easy life as long as you want… until you can’t anymore.

So here’s my challenge to you.

Do you want a great life, or an easy one?

Do you want to FEEL damn good every day and look incredible, or just take the easy road and eat whatever you want… until?

Here’s the choice: do you want the easy life, or the conscious one?

Thoughts on this? Comment below.

I’m curious as to what you think.

-Alex

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Have You Read My New Book Yet?

Read more about this in my book Master The Day. You’ll learn the nine daily success habits I learned interviewing people that lost 100+ pounds and kept it off in a healthy way – by changing their habits. Plus, you’ll get a free $100 bonus video course if you show me your receipt.