Build the Lighthouse: Purpose

Purpose is the light of the lighthouse. It is what reaches through the toughest times and calls you toward your vision. Beliefs anchor the structure and vision gives it height, but purpose is what makes it visible when the weather turns.

Dr. Russ describes his own purpose plainly: to help hundreds of thousands of people not just lose weight but become more than they are — to become bigger people in smaller bodies. That is the thing that keeps him going.

Right now, raise your right hand and say out loud: "I am a bigger person in a smaller body."

When people become bigger people in smaller bodies, they become ready to pass on what they have learned — to help their kids, friends, neighbors and entire communities become more than they already are.

A purpose that includes somebody else has more pull than one that stops at your own reflection. When your reason reaches past you, it survives the days when you do not much like yourself.

A diet is like a seat on a city bus. As soon as you get on, you have one thought on your mind: getting off the bus. There is nothing about the journey you enjoy. That is why most people get off before they reach their destination.

How about a cruise? When you board a cruise ship, you do not immediately start looking for the exit. You are on the boat because you want to be. You are actually enjoying the experience.

The key to never being on a diet is changing everything about the experience, and ultimately changing who you are. Changing your beliefs, building your vision and lighting up your purpose is what gets you off the bus and onto the boat.