There are times
when you have to go against
the consensus around you
in order to arrive at your own personal triumphs.– mua (me) 😉
When the Consensus Doesn’t Work for You
In my early twenties I had gotten into decorative painting of furniture which turned into decorative painting of walls. Since I loved it so much and I seemed to be fairly good at it, I thought I should try to make some real money doing it and start a business. While trying to figure out how exactly people would find out about me, I spoke with someone who had a lawn maintenance and sprinkler repair business – he got all his business from the yellow pages. I kind of asked him if he thought that would work for me and he felt it would. $900 for the year and 2 phone calls later where people were calling me to ask for a job, I realized that what created the backbone of new business for him and the many other people in the yellow pages offering things like window washing, auto repair, etc., created zero business for me. I did much better with the new-at-the-time craigslist.org platform, and sold quite a number of pieces that way- which was FREE to post by the way too.
I actually did have doubts deep in my subconscious that the yellowpages wasn’t the right way to go given the nature of my business, but I brushed them aside because I wanted to just believe and I didn’t know how to give enough stock to my thoughts and explore hesitancies I might have and consider concrete reasoning for why a certain choice might work or not work- I acted a bit more blindly back then.
Why It Doesn’t Work
So sometimes, what is working for what seems like MOST people, is not what will work for you, because your life setting is different than theirs.
There are times when you have to go against the consensus around you in order to arrive at your own personal triumphs.
It can be difficult because of course you want to make the right choice that will lead to success, and it seems logical that whatever the majority are achieving success with is the way you will most likely achieve it too.
But we must also take into account the 3 Uniqueness Factors:
1. Our personality
2. Our current environment
3. What stage we are at in our personal development
These three things should have a big bearing on the choices you ultimately make because by taking them into consideration, you can make decisions that are adapted to you, which will make success much more likely.
So, how can we think about this in real terms, with the hCG diet? I’d like to give you a few examples to get your own ideas flowing on how to apply these things to you.
Uniqueness Factor 1: Personality
Some people have no problem defending their choices in the midst of antagonism. These are people who don’t mind sharing that they’re doing the hCG diet with others. They may get flack for it or negative comments, but they comfortable handling those criticisms without it causing undue sapping of their energy or motivation. Others, which I tend to be a little more like this, find antagonism towards a choice I make, to be difficult to deal with. I find I have a limited amount of emotional energy and when it gets used to defend myself, kind of constantly, that ends up leaving me without not enough energy to handle the actual diet well. So it’s a good idea to think about the kind of person you are, and what may be wise, or unwise as far as what kind of information you reveal to friends or the public, knowing how controversial the hCG protocol is.
Another example is some find it easy to eat their Phase 2 meal during the regular family time while their family eats their regular meal. Others find even this difficult, and choose to cook the meals, but then to eat their phase 2 meal in a different room, or at a different time.
Uniqueness Factor 2: Your Current Environment
Our lives are constantly changing. If you have young children, your life is very different than a college student, which is very different from being an empty nester in menopause, or maybe your a grandma. You may have a husband who supports you in this, you may have a husband who doesn’t. You may have no family, you may have 6 kids you homeschool. You may be on disability, you may work nights at a hospital.
The choices you make while on this protocol will need to reflect your current circumstances.
For example, some who work really long hours at night, and don’t get to have a regular 8 hours of sleep every night, find that they need to eat a little more on the hCG protocol, and also that they need to spread their meals out more and eat their main source of calories at different times, adapting to their unique schedule, based on the time of day that is the most demanding for them.
Uniqueness Factor 3: Your Stage of Personal Growth
There are choices I can make now that turn out fine, that I couldn’t choose to do 3 years ago without encountering trouble.
One example of this is when I dealing with cravings related to sugar addiction. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say my addiction is over, in the sense that if I eat certain foods, even to this day, it would trigger a desire to binge. However, because I completely eliminated some foods from my diet, I don’t deal with cravings to binge anymore and it’s been 3 years since I’ve done that.
But I wanted to give you an example of how the stage in your personal growth effects what is considered a wise choice for you personally.
When I initially was breaking my active sugar addiction, I found even whole fruits to cause cravings. So there was a period of time when I had to eliminate, not just all refined sugar sources, but pretty much any sugar source entirely, including whole fruits and higher carb vegetables. That was necessary for me at that time. As time went on, I discovered that I was once again able to eat whole-food sources of sugar, like fruit, and higher carb vegetables, and even small amounts of regular sugar in things like dried cranberries or thai food, without experiencing strong cravings for more after eating them.
So I had one round of hCG actually where I didn’t eat the Phase 2 fruits, and I replaced those calories with more Phase 2 vegetables and low carb fat free greek yogurt. This was off protocol. However, it was something I needed to do at that time, in order to stick to the diet without experiencing cravings that would de-rail me. Later, I was able to do another round to lose additional weight where I COULD eat the phase 2 fruits without a problem, and I did that.
So don’t be afraid to make different choices, by gauging your body’s reaction, or your mental or emotional reaction to a certain decision. Others may be able to do certain things that doesn’t cause them trouble or make the diet hard for them, but if you find yourself really struggling with doing the same thing, change it. Don’t do it. Make an adjustment.
Don’t automatically assume that it’s you who has to adapt to a particular way of carrying out the protocol. Instead, adapt your choices to fit where you are at in your personal development. In time, as you continue to grow and change, there may be a point something that would previously have presented a problem for you, is no longer an issue, and so your choices can then change, and you may have a little more freedom.
Just remember that personal triumphs are gained by being real with yourself and responding to that – knowing what you can handle and what you can’t, based on your personality, your current environment, and your stage of personal growth.
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