What are the facts? Again and again and again — what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts! – Robert Heinlein
I’ve been refining my diet over the last year or so. I’ve cut soda. I’ve increased my salad-to-everything-else ratio. Yet, my health goals have remained unmet. I haven’t gotten back into my older, slightly smaller clothes. Indeed, I seemed to be gaining weight, slowly but steadily.
Having tried everything I knew to do, it was time for an outside expert. When I consulted a nutritionist, I learned that while the removal of soda and addition of salad were both extremely good steps, neither one dealt with the real core of the problem.
For someone my height, I should be eating about 3000 Calories per day to stay at the same weight. Also, I shouldn’t be eating much more than 70-80 grams of fat per day. The nutritionist explained the numbers and then showed how eating foods that were densely packed with energy (nuts, cheese, chocolate…..sigh) blew the top off what my body could handle. Thus, even though I don’t eat what I would call a huge amount, the fact that it was all so dense means that I was still defeating myself.
Now I had some facts, I was armed to go forward. I went to calorieking.com and got some tools to really get a solid idea of what’s going on. With the nutrition information at my fingertips, I had what I needed to make intelligent, healthy and (yes) tasty choices in my diet. None of that was possible until I had the solid data.
Want to improve your life? How much?
The same can be said about improving your life in any dimension. If you want some peace of mind, how much? If you want to me more financially stable, then what are the numbers for that? That one may be the easiest in terms of getting the numbers, although I still wouldn’t call it “easy” per se.
In EFT, before you get going, you assess what’s bothering you on a scale of 1-10. After one round, you re-assess and figure out where you are on the same scale. This may be all that you need. Is it subjective? Of course it is! However, subjective data is valid when it comes to a subjective matter like you enjoying life. If you have no debt, and $50,000 a year passive income, most people would call that a 10. Some wouldn’t, however. Use what works for you.
Once you have your facts and numbers, it’s time to proceed. Keep checking the status and seeing what is and isn’t working for you. If your spot on the 1-10 scale is getting better, then call it a win. If not, then try something else. It may be arbitrary and subjective, but it is data, and it is giving you an indication.
Above all, remember to be gentle with yourself in this process. It is unfortunately extremely common to beat ourselves up over the status of the situation. This can lead us to not even get the data. Speaking from personal experience (see above), this is really stupid. Had I known a year ago what I know now, I would be in a different position. (Whether or not I was ready to learn it then or whether I could have applied it as easily is a different matter, but I think it’s still valid.) Don’t sabotage yourself by skipping the first part of any endeavor: Get the facts!
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