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  • Writer's pictureAmanda Clark

Trying Harder Won't Help You Reach Your Goals

“If trying harder doesn’t work, try softer.” — Lily Tomlin

The world of health and fitness is full of Fit-Fluencers with chiseled abs screaming at you to sToP mAkInG eXcUsEs and,

Telling you that "if you wanted it badly enough then you would try harder".

🤮 Gag.

And if you buy into that messaging, then you probably feel really crappy about yourself any time you get off track with your healthy eating habits.

But do you really need to "try harder" in order to reach your goals?

Imagine this...

You are about to race Usain Bolt.

You really want to win.

When the starter pistol goes off, you try as hard as you possibly can...

...but you still don't win the race.

Would it be because you didn't TRY HARD ENOUGH?

Of course not.

It would be because you weren't a skilled enough runner.

Because if you don't have the proper skills, it doesn't matter how hard you try.

You'll always be running a losing race.

And it's no different with improving your eating habits.

You can try your hardest to resist snacking in the evening.

You can try your hardest to pass on that third glass of wine.

You can try your hardest to order a side salad instead of fries.

But if you don't have the right SKILLS to support those behaviors,

You'll keep finding yourself "caving in" and repeating old habits,

Leading to an inevitable shame spiral of "what's wrong with me? Why don't I have any discipline. I need to try harder!"

So if you want to stop the cycle of:

TRY, TRY, TRY, FAIL, SHAME, FRUSTRATION, TRY, TRY, TRY...

Then you need to shift your focus away from increasing your EFFORT and towards improving your SKILLS.

Inside my Empowered Eating Blueprint program, we focus on building 3 key categories of skills for overcoming obstacles to healthy eating:

1) Thinking skills: which includes planning ahead and making decisions in advance for our future selves.

2) Noticing skills: which includes developing awareness of our patterns and mindfulness of the present moment.

3) Self-Parenting skills: which includes reframing our critical inner dialog and being more compassionate towards ourselves.

Mastering those skills is like giving yourself a head start in the race.

Not only are you putting yourself in a position to "win", you'll be able to do so with a lot less effort. So if you feel like you've been sprinting full out in a race that you can never win,

Then make sure you put your name on the waitlist for the "Empowered Eating Blueprint".

On September 18th, those on the waitlist will get first access to sign up for one of the very limited spots along with a special bonus that won't be offered to the public.

Get on the waitlist HERE.

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