As I write this, right beside my desk sit a number of magazines that I have bought over the past few months, and as of yet I haven’t got around to reading any of them. A few were delivered through subscriptions, but the rest I saw in the newsagency, got excited about their content, and bought them on the spot.
Now, despite the fact that I haven’t really opened any of them up yet (trust me, I eventually will though!), if I were to walk into the newsagency tomorrow and see a new issue of any of these magazines with something interesting in it, I would get excited about it and buy it as well.
Thinking back, I have always been a little bit like that with magazines. I would get excited about a magazine, buy it, and then after just flicking through it a little I would put it aside, fully intending to read through it thoroughly later on.
Invariably however, the excitement would fade, and even though I would still intend to read it, it quite often wouldn’t happen. And then the new issue would come out, I would get excited about that, and the cycle would continue.
I call this Shiny New Object Syndrome, and it’s actually quite a common example of human nature.
Our attention and interest tend to gravitate towards things that are new to us – these “shiny new objects” excite us. And things that are familiar to us, we tend to take for granted and tire with. Watch any child with their toys and you’ll see what I mean.
One of the areas in which Shiny New Object Syndrome really holds a lot of people’s lives back is in weight loss and fitness. Whenever they start a new program, it’s not long before the glamour and excitement wear off and their attention is captured by a shiny new program, diet, exercise gadget, etc., that happens to comes along. So as a result, nothing they try ever really gets enough of a chance to even prove itself. Some people do this continually – they’re serial offenders. Perhaps you’ve even experienced it yourself.
Getting results in weight loss and fitness is all about consistency. Even a mediocre program will produce reasonable results over time if given enough of a chance, but nothing will ever work if someone is constantly chopping and changing from one thing to another, regardless how good the programs they try.
This is why having a deep-seeded personal reason for wanting to make changes to your body, together with daily motivation, are so important. They’re what are supposed to be responsible for generating excitement inside you. If that’s not there, there’s a good chance you’ll succumb to Shiny New Object Syndrome because your only source of excitement will then be switching to something new and supposedly more promising, time and time again.
It’s very important to be aware of Shiny New Object Syndrome so that you don’t fall victim to it. Avoid always searching for “the next big thing”, because there will always be something more interesting and new that comes along to tempt you into believing that it might work better than what you’re doing. The lure of the shiny new object is always so seductive!
So do your research, ask for help if you need to, choose a sensible, common-sense program, and then STICK TO IT!! Like I said, consistency is the key!