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Hi friend,

I was doing a homework assignment the other day, and the discussion board question was about what’s the most important factor in changing a person’s health. One of my classmates brought up mental resilience because of her experience with bariatric surgery. I wanted to chime in, not because I’ve gone through bariatric surgery myself, but because I spent three years as an exercise physiologist working with that population.

That brought me back to a lot of the research I’ve seen. There are 5- to 10-year follow-up studies on people who lose substantial amounts of weight. A large percentage end up regaining all of it back, sometimes more. And that always makes me think of a podcast I listened to with Dr. Lane Norton. He shared a story about a client of his who lost a huge amount of weight, a celebrity client, and what that client said has always stuck with me. The client said something like: you don’t get to have it both ways, you don’t get to become this new version of yourself while still dragging the body and identity of your old self.

That right there is true identity change. He had to kill off his old self, literally. And this is where inversion comes in.

So many of us are trying to improve. We’re ambitious, determined, setting goals, but sometimes things just aren’t sticking. The habits we’re trying to build fall apart. We slip up. We self-sabotage. We keep running into the same loops. And one reason why is because we’re aiming at an identity we want, but the bridge to get there isn’t clear.

So, what do you do? Invert. Instead of trying to perfectly outline the person you want to be, flip it around. Ask yourself: who do I not want to be? What are the traits, beliefs, thought patterns, and behaviors does that person carry? What are the perspectives or habits that person would default to? Get clear on those. And then, do the opposite.

When you’re working toward meaningful, long-term change, sometimes the best thing you can do is invert your perspective. Identify the person, the lifestyle, the habits, and the thought loops you don’t want. By making sure you don’t do those things, you put yourself on the path toward the identity you actually want.

It’s almost paradoxical. The more you obsess over the person you think you have to become, the easier it is to find ways to sabotage yourself. But the more you focus on avoiding the person you don’t want to become, the process of elimination naturally points you toward who you do want to be.

If you like'd this, you can do a deep dive into my previous articles here.

Until next time,

Much Love,

Calvin

P.S - it's pumpkin patch and spooky season. best time of the year. enjoy friends and go have a hell of a week.

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