Dec. 3, 2025

Body Image Mindset Series Part 4: Becoming Your Future Self

Body Image Mindset Series Part 4: Becoming Your Future Self
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Part 4: Ever set a fitness or weight goal, feel motivated for a couple weeks… and then watch life slowly knock it off the rails? If you’ve been there, this episode is your reset.

I’m wrapping everything up with one powerful question: what if you do want to get more fit or change your body in midlife—without turning it into a shame spiral? We’re talking about how to create a clear end-result vision (with emotion attached) so your brain actually wants to keep showing up… even when you’re tired, busy, or bored.

🎯 OMG Moment: Consistent can still be a squiggly line. You don’t need perfection to create real change—you need a vision you believe in.

Take Action
Ask yourself this: Why did I decide to change my habits in the first place?
Then create a clear picture of your end result—not just what you look like, but how you feel. Strong? Confident? Energized? Proud?
See that image often. Add emotion. Repeat it. Your subconscious brain learns through repetition and feeling.

Reach out to Cheryl via email at bonus@cherylpfischer.com. (These are answered personally - not with a bot!)

Why This Episode Matters
Midlife is a season where taking care of your body really does matter—but your body goals shouldn’t come at the cost of your self-worth.
When you start with the end result in mind and build your mindset first, you stop quitting on yourself every time life gets messy. You start becoming the version of you who moves more, feels better, and trusts herself again.

And that’s what this whole Body Image series has been about: remembering that you’re already gorgeous and worthy right now—and you’re also allowed to want more strength, more energy, and more ease in your body moving forward.


Support the show

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Let’s talk health after 50, self-talk, and redefining aging for women — without the “midlife crisis” narrative. Every week I'm adding new success strategies for midlife women.

Connect with Cheryl, Midlife Coach: Instagram | LinkedIn | Website

00:00 - Series Wrap And What’s Next

00:41 - Wanting Fitness Without Shame

01:34 - Why Goals Fade After A Month

03:15 - Start With A Clear End Result

04:26 - Build Your Mind Movie With Emotion

06:45 - Act Like The Future You

07:35 - Consistency As A Squiggly Line

08:04 - Get Support And Coaching

08:36 - Series Summary And Core Lessons

09:40 - Final Encouragement

WEBVTT

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Hello, confidence deep dive friend.

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All right, we are at part four to wrap up the body image series.

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And just so you know, coming next is a series about how to stop being your own worst enemy.

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And you're gonna love that one because don't we do that to ourselves all the time?

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So that's what's coming next.

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Make sure you're still subscribing.

00:00:30.559 --> 00:00:34.799
And so let's wrap up our body image series here.

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I'm gonna ask us a question today, and then we're gonna wrap up the series with a little summary.

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But let me ask you this question: What if you really do want to get more fit or lose weight?

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Because even though the whole point of this series is for you to realize that you are amazing and fantastic and gorgeous as you are, yet in midlife, the more we move, the healthier we eat, that little bit more taking care of ourselves really does matter.

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It really does make a huge difference.

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And so lose weight, lose schmeit, whatever, maybe you don't worry about that.

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But do you want to get more fit?

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Well, I would say we all will want to move ourselves a bit more.

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Okay, so if that answer is a yes, stick with me for just a few minutes here.

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Let's say that you have decided that you are now going to exercise more often.

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Let's say you've decided you just were doing it here and there, and now you're going to exercise four times a week.

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So, what often happens to us when we make a goal, and it doesn't have to be about exercise, it could be about I'm going to eat healthy every meal and you know lose X amount of pounds or whatever.

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What we often do is we stick with this for maybe a couple weeks, maybe even a month.

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You can stick with something for a few weeks or a month fairly well, typically.

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And then we get tired of doing it.

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We get bored with what we're doing, we get just tired.

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We have a bad day or a bad week, and we're like, oh, I don't want to do that.

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And we stop, or we gradually kind of taper off because things get in the way.

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And I mean, hey, it's life, right?

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You do get tired, you do need to rest.

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Things do get in the way.

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That's all okay.

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But it makes us taper off of some of these goals that would be really healthy.

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And if if nothing else, I want us all to try to move more.

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It doesn't have to be about body image at all.

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In fact, maybe it's better that it's not.

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But what will happen if you move more is you will feel better about your body at the same time.

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Huh, cool side benefit.

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So if we've decided, for example, we're now gonna exercise four times a week, we make it through a couple weeks, and then we're like, oh my gosh, I don't have time.

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This is too much, blah.

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We're gonna stop unless we started with an end result in mind, and we really believed in that end result.

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You must have the end goal in mind when you do something to move more or get more fit or lose weight or change your body in some way.

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Because if you don't, like I said, life's gonna get in the way.

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You're gonna get tired or busy, and you're just gonna stop.

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So, what does that mean to have the end result in mind?

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Maybe you are working with a coach or a trainer, maybe you aren't, but you made the decision to change your habits for a reason.

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What was the reason?

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What was the reason that you decided to change your habits?

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Was it because you want to wear a different size?

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Was it you wanted to feel better about a certain part of your body?

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You wanted to be able to dress up for some event, you wanted to be able to move without pain or move more more quickly and easily.

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Why did you make this decision?

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That's my question for you.

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Because that will help us figure out what is the end result that you want.

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So I want you to create a picture.

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I've heard this called a mind movie, but it can just be a snapshot.

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What are you looking like and feeling about yourself when you've achieved this end result?

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And believe it or not, this advice I got years ago from my sister when I had decided that I did want to lose some weight.

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I wanted to wear a smaller size.

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I had kind of let things go when the kids were younger.

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I wasn't taking time to eat healthy or anything like that.

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And she said, Well, you have to first decide the vision that you want to have in your head of where you want to be.

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And I said, That's just silly.

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Like, I just need to do what I need to do, none of this vision stuff.

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And then isn't life funny?

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I became a mindset and life coach.

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But anyway, you do have to.

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You have to figure out how are you going to picture your result?

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Maybe it's you looking fantastic in exercise clothes, or maybe it's you all dressed up for an event.

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You need a picture of yourself.

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Maybe it's you doing some activity that you're not quite ready physically to do now.

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See yourself.

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What does your hair look like?

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Are your eyes sparkling?

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What does your smile look like?

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See yourself at this point.

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And I want you to add some emotion.

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How do you feel when you reach this point?

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And I know you're gonna say happy, but do you feel empowered?

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Do you feel strong?

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Do you feel invigorated?

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Do you feel confident?

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Add some more words there.

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What kind of emotions do you feel?

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Try to feel them now.

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Picture yourself as that person now.

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And maybe then let's repeat it over and over.

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So either we can go back and just see that mind image, feel that emotion every day.

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Maybe you get an image from a magazine or you print out something from your computer and you put it on your bathroom mirror.

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Maybe you create an affirmation.

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I am my strongest and most powerful self.

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I am rocking my dress at the blah blah blah event.

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Present tense, positive.

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Having that end result in mind and adding emotion to it and repeating is the way your subconscious brain believes in and saves new ideas, new beliefs.

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So you are rewriting your body image right now.

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And the reason we're gonna do that first is because if you're rewriting your body image right now, you are going to behave more like the person who is that person.

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Which means more often than not, you're gonna want to do your exercise.

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More often than not, you're gonna want to choose the healthy choice.

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More often than not, you're gonna want to do whatever it was you're trying to do at the beginning.

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Now, the reason I say more often than not is of course, this is not perfect.

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Some days you're gonna have a bad day and you're just gonna want to lay on the couch.

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Maybe that's your body telling you you need a rest.

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That's okay.

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That's okay.

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Consistent can still be a squiggly line.

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Let me say that again.

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Consistent can still be a squiggly line.

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You can consistently be more active, have more movement, eat healthier, whatever it is, and still have ups and downs.

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That's okay.

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That's human.

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So we don't beat ourselves up.

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Maybe you need some support.

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Maybe you need coaching with me.

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We can do that.

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Maybe let's just make sure you know how to do that.

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Cherylpfisher.com slash coaching.

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Maybe you need a health coach.

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Maybe you need a trainer to help you create exercises.

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I can refer you to both of those.

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Maybe you need support as in a buddy, a friend who's doing the same thing with you.

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All of those things are really, really smart to have.

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And the key of this entire series, really, is to have front and center for your brain to continue absorbing and believing in more and more reminders of you being your absolute best self, feeling so good, being so proud of yourself, and realizing you're always more gorgeous than you than you thought.

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So let's think about what we talked about in this series.

00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:08.559
And if you missed any of the episodes of the body image series, you can go back and find them.

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They're all included in your subscription.

00:09:11.279 --> 00:09:14.480
So we talked about why are we so hard on ourselves?

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Where is this coming from?

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And we started to figure out some things we can do.

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That was part one.

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In part two, we talked about what do you really want?

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How do you really want to see yourself?

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And how can we start to feed that to our brain?

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Part three, then we shifted our thinking further and we talked about some triggers or some kind of hot button situations we might end up in.

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And I gave you a major tool looking at old pictures that will help you.

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And now today I want you to have the end result in mind with some sort of powerful emotion attached to it, and over and over see that and believe it.

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And it does change your behavior.

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And bring in any help that you need to do this.

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You are far more gorgeous, confident, and powerful than you realize.

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So let's start realizing that.