Unlimited: How to Build an Exceptional Life (27 page)

So your first order of business is to look around your environment and identify the things there that trip you up. Be deliberate in your search; if it’s weight you struggle with, look for things that trigger you to eat. If it’s money issues, look for things that trigger you to spend. You get the idea. When you sweep the field for these sabotaging items, make sure you include your home, mode of transport, and place of business—anywhere and everywhere you spend time on a regular or semiregular basis. Here’s the list I made of things at work that sabotage my diet:

Craft service and catering for production crew
Coffee truck loaded with doughnuts, cookies, and pastries
Food commercials on TV while I’m in hair and makeup

WORKING IT OUT

Now it’s your turn. Take some time, and make a list of all the things in your daily life that have the potential to set you back or do you damage in any way. Remember, be thorough!

Things that sabotage me at home:

Things that sabotage me at work:

Things that sabotage me in general:

BRING IN A SUBSTITUTE

Once you have identified as many sources of sabotage as you can, the next step is to see if you can find a way to remove, replace, or circumvent them. Your goal is to get these things out of the way, so you don’t have to rely on willpower alone to keep yourself on track. Willpower, like a muscle, gets fatigued and can sometimes crap out on us when we most need it. I’ll talk about strategies for building and strengthening your willpower in
Chapter 13
, but in general you should always leave it as untested as possible. All you
need to reduce your risk of running into trouble is a little creative planning and forethought.

Obviously there are some sabotaging elements that you can’t just remove—that vending machine at the office, for example. But there
are
proactive ways to combat it. Nip temptation in the bud by buying a mini-fridge and popping it next to your desk, then stocking it with healthy snacks so you’re not tempted to go for the processed stuff. If you can avoid walking past that damned machine by taking different routes around the office, do it!

If the fashion magazines and websites you look at make you feel bad about yourself, stop bringing them into your home and your life! Instead read something inspirational that motivates you, like
this book
. If you’re in debt and struggling to get out, bypass going to the mall and instead buy the thing you need online to avoid further temptation. It’s kind of like baby-proofing a house—you look for the trouble spots and try to eliminate them or reduce their power to take you down.

Here are my solutions to the sabotaging elements I’m exposed to at work that could disrupt my healthy diet:

Problem:
Craft service and catering for production crew

Solution:
Though it’s the quickest route, I don’t
have
to walk past the craft service area to get to the gym or the house on
Biggest Loser
. I can take the extra five minutes and go the long way, removing temptation from the equation entirely.

Problem:
Coffee truck loaded with doughnuts, cookies, and pastries

Solution:
This one’s tough, because I’m not about to go without caffeine. But I can avoid the coffee truck and the pastry buffet entirely and keep a coffeemaker in my dressing room.

Problem:
Food commercials on TV while I’m in hair and makeup

Solution:
I can simply turn off the TV and listen to music instead, which has the opposite effect and makes me want to work out rather than eat. At home I can TiVo all the shows I want to watch and fast-forward through all the food commercials that tempt me.

By such techniques you can alter your environment to eliminate choice entirely, leaving less room for error and slipups. It doesn’t require much work either, just a little planning and small changes in behavior.

Seek out the high-voltage areas of your life, and find resourceful ways of avoiding them. This will help you preserve your willpower for times you simply can’t stay out of harm’s way. Remember, willpower is like a muscle—you can build it up and strengthen it, but the more you use it without a break, the more fatigued it gets. For most of us, willpower is usually a fleeting burst of strength and bravado. It’s the moment where I choose not to walk out the back door past the craft service table and use the front door instead. It’s the moment when you ask the waiter not to bring bread to the table. It’s that moment when your better judgment takes over before your willpower can be worn down. But when we are constantly exposed to temptation, ultimately willpower wears thin, even for the most determined.

The takeaway: you can’t get into trouble if trouble isn’t there to get into! The more you remove potential trouble spots from your surroundings, or build barriers against them by planning ahead, the less likely you are to be thrown off course or deflected from your goal.

You can and should take it one step further by not just removing troublesome instigators but also replacing them with positive influences. The more you surround yourself with stimuli that motivate and empower you, the more you will be motivated and empowered. Simple, right? This goes for
everything
around you. Give your entire environment, including the media you are digesting, an overhaul: the books and magazines you’re reading,
the TV shows you’re watching, the music you listen to, the websites you frequent, the route you take to work, the food in your cupboards, the art on your walls, and on and on.

If you are spending too much money, turn off the Home Shopping Network and TiVo some Suze Orman so she can give you a little money-saving pep talk. Move the elliptical machine that has been collecting dust in your basement up to your living room so you can use it while hanging out with your family or watching TV. If the street vendors in the subway station tempt you on your way to work, be sure to always eat a healthy breakfast beforehand and chew gum so that the thought of mixing gum and fattening street food puts you off.

WORKING IT OUT

Now it’s your turn again
.

For every object in your environment that has the potential to sabotage you, come up with something you can replace it with or a behavior you can counteract it with. Things don’t talk back or resist change or have an agenda of their own; once you change them, they stay changed. Alas, people? Not so much
.

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP

Sociologists have done countless studies on how physical space and proximity play into our behaviors and relationships. Now that we’ve seen how the things in our immediate surroundings have a dramatic impact on us, let’s look at our dynamics with the people around us. You can get physically close to someone in order to foster a relationship, build your circle of influence, gain an ally,
learn something new, strengthen your network of support, and so on. Let me give you an example.

On
Biggest Loser
there’s always at least one contestant who’s very focused and determined, and there’s always one who’s not. I’ll train them together, put them side by side on treadmills, and make them room next to each other. In almost every case the less focused contestant rises to the occasion and takes on the determined characteristics of the stronger contestant. I have also taken contestants who disliked each other at the outset, trained them together, and watched them become fast friends. I was able to implement a support system for them while simultaneously eliminating excess animosity and tension from the
Biggest Loser
house. This worked because the frequency and quality of human interaction is largely based on physical proximity. The reverse is also true: create space between people, and they tend to become estranged.

It’s time for one of my favorite clichés: “You are the company you keep.” This one’s a cliché for good reason. Research shows that we adopt many behaviors from our peers. It’s just basic human nature. We want the people we hang with to like us, so we unconsciously take on their behaviors, habits, and mannerisms. You know where this is going, right?

If you hang out with positive people, they will have a positive influence on you. If you hang around with burnouts, they will have a negative influence on you. I’ve seen countless articles on this behavior, how your friends and family can affect everything from your weight to your finances. Hell, that’s what
Losing It
was all about—families who had, together, become so unhealthy that their lives were at risk. The people around us set the standards for our behavior, and we fall in line. Even if you grew up being taught to value independence and autonomy, this instinct to fit in and adapt to our surroundings is a basic human drive.

Here’s a personal anecdote to illustrate what I’m talking about. When I was a kid going through my parents’ divorce, I hung out with other troubled teens who were skipping school,
experimenting with drugs and alcohol, and getting into trouble wherever they could find it. Naturally I followed suit. My grades plummeted, I started shoplifting, and at the ripe old age of thirteen I hit my heaviest weight: 175 pounds. It wasn’t pretty.

Thank God my mama stepped in and took action to straighten me out. She’s the one who got me into martial arts, which as you know turned my life around. My teacher and the other students in the dojo were healthy, focused, motivated individuals who wanted to excel in their lives personally, professionally, and physically. Among these people, drinking, eating crap, and failing out of school were shockingly uncool. I admired the students and my teacher and wanted to be like them. As a result, my behaviors, habits, and outlook all changed for the better. You know how it ended: I got thin and healthy, went on to have a successful career, and am living happily ever after.

This social mimicry most often happens without our even realizing it. I’m now a strong-minded, outspoken thirty-six-year-old woman, and I
still
find myself falling into this pattern. My
Biggest Loser
cohort Bob Harper and I were total opposites when we met. He was Mr. Fashion, I was Ms. Jeans & T-shirt. I loved motorcycles and fast cars, and he was terrified of them. Now we’re like twins! He got me into fashion, and we even wear a lot of the same designers. I got him into motorcycles, and now he proudly rides around L.A. on his Ducati 1198S. We find ourselves speaking alike, using similar hand gestures. One morning I even woke up with his horrible laugh:
Hunh-hunh-hunh
. (And in case you’re wondering, no, I still haven’t shaken it—can someone please shoot me?) We’ve changed each other simply because of the fact that we spend
so much
time together.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE

Let’s look at an example on a different scale. Silicon Valley, California, has produced more entrepreneurial companies than any
other American city in recent decades. Is it because there’s something in the water supply? No! It’s because individuals who have been close to and learned from their coworkers or bosses then go on to start their own successful companies, and a domino effect takes place, and still others follow suit. Monkey see, monkey do. In this particular instance the influence was good, but it can also work in the reverse.

This dynamic exists at every level of human interaction, whether it’s among family members, colleagues, friends, or fellow churchgoers—basically anywhere you have more than one person sharing space. And it’s an extremely valuable tool in human interaction. So how do we use it to our advantage?

Easy. If there is a person you are interested in, someone who you think can teach you something or help you in some way, put yourself in their orbit. Go to the same gym they do. Sit next to them at the cafeteria. Hang out with the same friends. Join the same clubs. Basically get up in their grill.

Conversely, if there is someone around you who has a detrimental effect on you, put as much space between you and them as possible. You may feel daunted at the prospect of kicking assholes out of your life, but it’s really quite simple. By removing yourself from their space, you take away their ability to affect you.