Hazel and I got invited to a couple of rehab halfway house-type facilities here in the Treasure Valley to search for meth.
In case you don’t know, people who live in these facilities:
1) Go to AND get done with rehab; and then, when they get out…
2) Pay to live in these rehab halfway houses to help reintegrate into regular life.
Absolutely NO drugs are allowed in these houses.
But the halfway house owners were having a problem with residents sneaking in meth, so they invited Hazel and me to come check for it.
Nine times out of ten, a narcotics K9 like Hazel isn’t going to find drugs.
But because a narcotics K9 is rewarded for locating drugs, they get pretty discouraged if they don’t find anything. It messes with their heads.
To keep Hazel’s spirits up, I first had her search one room. Then, I took her outside to play with her toy and get her fired up again.
Then, it was back into work mode and we searched another room.
We repeated that pattern over and over at all the rehab halfway houses we searched.
At the end of searching each house, I hid some “fake meth” (this special “scent” that smells like meth to dogs) for her to find, so she could feel even more encouraged.
See, it’s nice to be recognized for showing up and giving it your all, even if you don’t hit the goal you were trying to hit. It’s motivating!
Losing weight may not seem like it has anything in common with searching for meth, haha, but most people get really motivated when their hard work is recognized…either by others or themselves.
Yet a lot of people won’t give themselves that recognition.
And if they hear it from someone else, it doesn’t always land.
Instead, they dismiss it because they have more weight to lose; or they fixate on their unfortunate choices and can’t feel good about non-scale victories or other wins.
It’s really discouraging!
Remember to celebrate how far you’ve come, even if you’d made mistakes or aren’t at goal yet.
You’ve put in effort, and you’ve made at least SOME progress at some point in your weight loss journey.
Celebrate the crap out of that and, in so doing, help yourself feel encouraged and motivated.
(Especially because withholding self-encouragement isn’t working for you anyway, is it?)
Come join us in the Code Red network! We’ve got communities, tons of videos, podcasts, articles, motivation, tips, programs, meal ideas, and more! It’s free to join, and you can join in either of these two ways:
1) Go to www.coderedlifestyle.com/app from your laptop (or an Internet browser like Chrome on your phone or tablet) and create your free account.
2) Download the mobile app version from the App Store or Google Play by searching Code Red Lifestyle™.