FOR those of you currently on a fat fighting mission, writes Scott Marsh, what if I told you to forget about the calories, the carbohydrates and the hormonal environment for just one second and instead put all of your focus on the one thing that may be holding you back from your ultimate goal?

Have you ever wondered why you can make good choices for your health throughout most of the day only to crash and burn later by skipping the gym and having a second dessert? Or why you might be able to control your emotions and how you communicate them earlier in the day, but feel more out of control or unable to express things as smoothly come the afternoon? Enter the world of emotional currency.

Psychologists are using the term ‘Ego depletion’ to describe how we all have a finite pool of resources (energy) that allows us to navigate life, regulate emotions, make choices that control our behaviour.

A goal that is approached whilst an individual is in a state of ego depletion is a goal that sadly is not going to be conquered any time soon. The funds are simply is not there to pay the charges that the goal is demanding.

That’s right! Your failure to adhere to your current fitness regime or diet may simply be due to stretching yourself too far in other areas of life meaning you simply haven’t got enough emotional currency to spend on adherence to your health plan.

Emotional Currency: ‘Please Enter Your Pin…’

According to The Guardian the ‘UK’s average debt per person is at a record high’. The average British citizen has £7,504.08 of personal debt against their name. People are living on money that they simply do not have! But what does this have to do with health, fitness and succeeding with your transformation goals?

Well many of us are not only in debt financially. Many of us are also in debt emotionally!

We only have certain amounts of emotional currency available to us at any one time. Much like at any ATM, our maximum withdrawal day to day is only ‘X’ amount. This ultimately means that each of us only has so much to spend/use within a 24 hour period.

Hey Big Spender!

Each and every day you spend your emotional currency on various things. Often things that you don’t even intend spending it on!

Little scenarios that sap your energy and drive all add up!

If you figuratively tot up your bill of emotional currency spent at the end of a rough day you may well find your balance in negative figures. And with your emotional savings ‘invested’ you’ve exhausted your willpower, squashed your discipline and abolished nearly all self-control which could possibly be applied to anything else you are trying to put your mind to….including that fat loss goal.

The Good News

Obviously the primary way to relieve financial debt is to start spending less! Well this is the same with your life. You need to spend less emotional currency each day.

Take five minutes. Sit and write down the things that drain you of your ‘get up and go’. What are the moments that drag? What brings you down? Who are the people who are sucking the energy out of you? Write it all down. Identification is the first step. Your job in the next 30 days is to one by one begin finding ways in which you can spend less emotional currency at these events and on these people. You can use positive thinking, you can use avoidance or you can just re-evaluate situations and place their true priority on them. More emotional currency freed = more emotional currency to spend upon your fat loss plan!

It’s that easy.

To Your Success.

Scott Marsh is the director of Xcelerate Fitness (www.xceleratefitness.co.uk), a results focussed personal training company based in Marlow. For more information on transforming yourself in 2012 email info@xceleratefitness.co.uk or call 07921 856308 for your FREE information pack.